Not a Happy Camper with the A139

For sure i would prefer to use H265, or even newer, as H265 are already replaced by several new formats.

My heat test started a good hour ago, it is 28 deg C here but fairly cloudy so i am sure my car parked in the sun could be hotter than it is, but anyway i test and the weather are actually pretty average Danish summer though maybe a few degrees too warm.

I dont think the A139 will make it, but i am so ready to be surprised.
 
I tested with my stuporhotinabox on H265 and it had the same behavior.

Glad to have the H265 format though.
 
I am going for a little spin around town, so see if there is any Shelas around i can impress with my little red lightning.
ill retrieve my memory card to have a looksie how the A139 performed.
 
Okay !

This time around the A139 only made it 4 hours and 20 minutes, at which time ( 17:56 ) the sun was long gone and it surely can not have been temperature that did it to the A139
By my success yesterday recording for all 6 hours on the timer, the A139 should have repeated that again today, or at the least have tagged out due to heat before 15:00 where any glimpse of the sun was over, but it still carried on for +3 more hours.
So now i am leaning towards maybe i was just lucky yesterday ?
This is the last look from the A139 before it gave up today, as you can deduct from the little visible sky, the sun was long gone for today.
Actually things cool even more down here in the week to come, so i will have to pause hot weather testing as i feel thats more than 20 degrees and some sun at least, and we are back to normal Danish summer now :cry:
A139end.jpg
 
Okay !

This time around the A139 only made it 4 hours and 20 minutes, at which time ( 17:56 ) the sun was long gone and it surely can not have been temperature that did it to the A139
By my success yesterday recording for all 6 hours on the timer, the A139 should have repeated that again today, or at the least have tagged out due to heat before 15:00 where any glimpse of the sun was over, but it still carried on for +3 more hours.
So now i am leaning towards maybe i was just lucky yesterday ?
This is the last look from the A139 before it gave up today, as you can deduct from the little visible sky, the sun was long gone for today.
Actually things cool even more down here in the week to come, so i will have to pause hot weather testing as i feel thats more than 20 degrees and some sun at least, and we are back to normal Danish summer now :cry:
View attachment 57075
I wonder what result you would get if you do the same test but without the hot weather?
 
Apologies for my absence, I could hardly move yesterday. Testing done today, detail follow. Using H264, all cam performance settings maxxed out, Samsung Evo Select 128GB card checked and tested true and good in other cams. FW in use is 1.0_0315, not the latest FW. I will retest later with the newest FW.

I had the B2W recording the test, but the card went to write-protect after the first file. My heater wasn't enough so I used my heat gun from 30cm away to not cause the glass to crack, and going from ambient to top temp took about 6 minutes. Cam was in low-bitrate with both remotes connected. Max temp seen was 162F/72C for about 30 seconds. Temp was at or above 150F/65C for around 2 minutes. Recording and test was stopped by pulling the power plug. No problems with any of the files.

I was also asked by someone to retest buffered parking mode. It does work as you can see in THIS vid on Google Drive, watch for me in the rear window at the 15 second mark. I also got g-sensor to activate during that test; again about 15 seconds from start of clip till you saw the van rocking.

So at this point I an with @jokiin in believing this to be a bug in the newer FW. I ask those who are having issues to reload the 1.0_0315FW and test your results again.

Phil
 
This time around the A139 only made it 4 hours and 20 minutes, at which time ( 17:56 ) the sun was long gone and it surely can not have been temperature that did it to the A139
Maybe the HWK just turns off at a higher low voltage cutoff than the SG HWK? We know that the cutoff voltages are not very accurate.
 
yes that could be a thing to some degree, but as the A139 ran 6 hours yesterday just fine, but wouldn't today, that make me unsure.
Also i ran the DR for 12 hour sessions to sort of accommodate the difference in power use in a 2 and 3 channel system.
 
I wonder what result you would get if you do the same test but without the hot weather?
I did that yesterday from late afternoon and until midnight ( give or take ) here the camera performed fine and recorded the 6 hours on the timer.
But today it did not do that, granted the test period started at a higher temperature than yesterday, but if that was the culprit the camera should have shut down early in the test, but it kept on +3 hours after a full blanket of light and darker grey clouds had obscured the sun.

So i dont feel temperature should be the reason why it would not record 6 hours today too, the ambient temperature both days have been around 28 deg C in the daytime, dropping to about 20 around midnight.
Today while the test was going it was actually pretty windy, which it was not yesterday.

It will probably be the end of the month before proper summer return, and by then i also change memory card ( i am expanding on my what memory cards work with the A139 thread )
I have contemplated at least doing a session with the provided 128 GB viofo memory card, though i am pretty sure it is not memory card incompatibility.

BUT ! i have not tested parking mode with all the memory cards i have tested so far, i just started on that as some was having problems, and i did not have that using just 1 hour on the timer, so i upped my game to see if i could reproduce their results.
And i have not been able to do that outright, my camera do not corrupt files, either regular ones or parking ones, but there might be a temperature issue as i have seen sessions cut short ( in varying lengths ) but i am also testing on random sunny days and times of day, so not 100 & engineer work i am doing here.
 
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Apologies for my absence, I could hardly move yesterday. Testing done today, detail follow. Using H264, all cam performance settings maxxed out, Samsung Evo Select 128GB card checked and tested true and good in other cams. FW in use is 1.0_0315, not the latest FW. I will retest later with the newest FW.

I had the B2W recording the test, but the card went to write-protect after the first file. My heater wasn't enough so I used my heat gun from 30cm away to not cause the glass to crack, and going from ambient to top temp took about 6 minutes. Cam was in low-bitrate with both remotes connected. Max temp seen was 162F/72C for about 30 seconds. Temp was at or above 150F/65C for around 2 minutes. Recording and test was stopped by pulling the power plug. No problems with any of the files.

I was also asked by someone to retest buffered parking mode. It does work as you can see in THIS vid on Google Drive, watch for me in the rear window at the 15 second mark. I also got g-sensor to activate during that test; again about 15 seconds from start of clip till you saw the van rocking.

So at this point I an with @jokiin in believing this to be a bug in the newer FW. I ask those who are having issues to reload the 1.0_0315FW and test your results again.

Phil

It appears that Buffered Parking Mode may have been removed in version 1.2 Viofo says it's no longer supported and I could not get it to work on my A139 with FW 1.2
 
I drive a rolling hardware store (ironmongers) :cool:
Going to DL and install the latest FW tonight, cam already on desk for that. First rains from the Tropical Storm are just arriving but I should be able to get the cam re-installed and begin testing tonight. If it fails it won't be anything heat related in the hardware.

Darn shame they dropped the buffered parking mode, motion detect actually does what it should in this cam, and that's a rarity in dashcams. Oh well, I've got a copy of 0315 to revert to if I want. TBH I'm totally happy with FW 0315 as it has everything I want and it's rock-solid reliable.

Phil
 
I tested with my stuporhotinabox on H265 and it had the same behavior.

Glad to have the H265 format though.

Can you please clarify what you mean here. I don't understand. So you tested in h.x265 and same behavior. Clarify same behavior?

Do you mean it replicated my tests?

1. Camera Shut Down after overheating and corrupted file being written on 2k-FHD-FHD
2. Camera Froze and Didn't shut down (had to pull power plug) on FHD-FHD-FHD

Or what results did you get?
 
I drive a rolling hardware store (ironmongers) :cool:
Going to DL and install the latest FW tonight, cam already on desk for that. First rains from the Tropical Storm are just arriving but I should be able to get the cam re-installed and begin testing tonight. If it fails it won't be anything heat related in the hardware.

Darn shame they dropped the buffered parking mode, motion detect actually does what it should in this cam, and that's a rarity in dashcams. Oh well, I've got a copy of 0315 to revert to if I want. TBH I'm totally happy with FW 0315 as it has everything I want and it's rock-solid reliable.

Phil

I won't have time to do testing until later in the week and weather dependent. No time IRL stuff ATM. But I've got FOURT tests I want to do, before throwing my camera in the mail to Viofo for a replacement. Plus, I asked them about advance sending me another one if I give a credit card. I really don't want to be without a camera for a month or 2. Shipping there then they ship back!

Tests I need to perform:

1. 2k-FHD-FHD on H.x264 for firmware 1.2
2. FHD-FHD-FHD on H.x264 for firmware 1.2

Flash to Firmware 1.1 (anyone have 1.2 if I downgrade from 1.2 to 1.1) 1.2 isn't listed on their website?

1. Run FHD-FHD-FHD H.x264 Test on 1.1
2. Run 2k-FHD-FHD on H.x264 Test on Firmware 1.1

Depending on results... If successful I'll try H.x265. If unsuccessful Camera = RMA
 
This is a cut and paste from the Viofo Forums.

cat2devnull said:
Can anyone confirm if the A139 does or doesn't have buffered parking mode?
The user guide indicates that is does;

Parking Mode
1. Auto Event Detection
Including buffered parking mode, the camera will automatically record a video sequence (from 15seconds before the event to 30 seconds after the event) while a moving object isdetected during parking. Itwill stop recording without new movements.

But the Viofo website doesn't mention it, and a few of the online reviews say that it doesn't.
If it doesn't have buffered mode, is it a planned for a future firmware update?
Hello,

Sorry to tell you that A139 doesn't have the buffered parking mode.

But we have a testing software about buffered parking mode, the download link as below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17F9sAheKIOVuzF5sTjMwQgJ8sNbdVNEt/view

You can try to use it if you want.
 
What do you mean by "higher resolution"? It uses the same resolution, only the way of compression changes.

H.x265 supports up to 8K. But in this instance yes, it's the same resolution.

This is a good question. By default it should be h264 but when I flashed my two units few months ago I noticed that one unit records in h265 and the second in h264 (at that time I wasn't aware there is the same option as for previous generations).

Agreed. Not sure if I inadvertently swapped it over to H.x265 by hitting mic button when learning features. Very well could be my fault. But then again, I'm not sue default settings either on Firmware version 1.2.

Between h265 and h264 there is basically no difference in power consumption, thus no excessive heat production. But it could be software related, since h265 is "still quite new". Worth to mention that I use h265 basically since day one and no such issues and last few days I see temperatures around 70°C in my car (68-71°C windshield next to A139, 72-75°C under roof) and even higher temperatures are coming.

Yes there is a difference. H.x265 requires greater compression and significantly more processor power. Which means because the processor is working harder, the camera is generating more heat.

I'll run more tests later this week. Will try H.x264 then flash to firmware 1.1. I've still got my money on my A139 being faulty.
 
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Hello,

Sorry to tell you that A139 doesn't have the buffered parking mode.

But we have a testing software about buffered parking mode, the download link as below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17F9sAheKIOVuzF5sTjMwQgJ8sNbdVNEt/view

You can try to use it if you want.
Looks like modified v1.1 20210324. I wonder why they haven't used v1.2 .


H.x265 supports up to 8K. But in this instance yes, it's the same resolution.
And so do h264. But still nothing related to in which resolution it's going to be encoded.
Yes there is a difference. H.x265 requires greater compression and significantly more processor power. Which means because the processor is working harder, the camera is generating more heat.
If the dashcam uses significantly more processor power due to h265, Viofo/Novatek should contact patent office immediately because they either found a way to also significantly increase the efficiency of the ARM CPU or a way to suck power out of space curvature...

I measured it, there is basically no difference in power consumption (to produce more heat with the same amount of input power, it could be only less effective but also less demanding on the processor power...). The times when PC/phones could sh*t themself of h265 are past for quite a while and the reason for that is that in the past all of them were using software decoder (because h265 was new). Now decoders/encoders are wired-in the chip as a specialized cores (for instance in a form of RISC) and that's the reason why for example phones nowadays are able to play 4k in h265 without drop of sweat and PC from h264 era sh*ts its pans even over 1080p, h265.
 
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I measured it, there is basically no difference in power consumption
More power used for the compression, less power used for writing the smaller amount of data to the memory card ;)

The H265 maximum bitrate may have been chosen to result in the same power use, so that it doesn't overheat.

Also, since the compression has to be done in real time, it probably misses out a lot of the more complex H265 compression features, maximum compression from H265 would take far too long, as does maximum compression from H264.
 
More power used for the compression, less power used for writing the smaller amount of data to the memory card ;)
Oh come on Nigel, I knew you'll show up with this! :ROFLMAO: I was about the say something similar in my first post but didn't want to add more informations to confuse others... Lets fix on the "significantly more processor power" and lets say a SDcard could consume 50-150mA, even with a jump from 100mA (which is peak for many of them) to 50mA (means 50% reduction), with 0% CPU efficiency it's still only 0.165W of heat.

And we are talking only about 0.7MBps (0.5MBps front, 0.1MBps each additinal camera) reduction of bitrate... (3.4+2+2MBps vs 2.9+1.9+1.9MBps)

The H265 maximum bitrate may have been chosen to result in the same power use, so that it doesn't overheat.

Also, since the compression has to be done in real time, it probably misses out a lot of the more complex H265 compression features, maximum compression from H265 would take far too long, as does maximum compression from H264.
Yeah. Actually imho I still haven't seen a dashcam which uses h265 properly because when one compare bitrates between h264 and h265 side by side the "reaction" of bitrates to the same image scenarios are pretty much the same (but there should be situations like, for instance, in parking mode where the difference should be more noticible).
 
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Yeah. Actually imho I still haven't seen a dashcam which uses h265 properly because when one compare bitrates between h264 and h265 side by side the "reaction" of bitrates to the same image scenarios are pretty much the same (but there should be situations like, for instance, in parking mode where the difference should be more noticible).
Most of the time our fixed bitrate cameras have enough bitrate, so there is nothing to be gained from more compression, it is only when they run out of bitrate that you will see differences.

Under trees at high speed it is easy to run out of bitrate, but the extra optimizations available in h265 are of no help in that situation, they just don't do what is needed.

In parking mode it is easy to run out of bitrate if there is a lot of movement, possibly of traffic, more likely from wind blowing trees about, in this situation H265 should be able to help. But we don't see this situation very often, the parking mode bitrate is selected to be more than enough for most parking situations.

So in real life H265 is of no real advantage for current dashcams, and variable bitrate cameras don't seem to be going to appear anytime soon.

Lets fix on the "significantly more processor power"...
As you have already pointed out, with current dashcams there is no significant difference in power consumption, so there is nothing to gain by doing the maths on it!
 
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