Overall video quality

Vortex Radar said:
That test is outstanding. Simple and clear, not to mention easier than driving testing, lol. Do you mind if I do a similar test for my A139 video and give you a shoutout for the idea?
Click to expand...
There you go again sweet talking me.
You have my permission to use any content on my YouTube channel.
I don't care who gets the credit, as long as more customers start buying more dash cams, and the industry as a whole starts making better dash cams.
But yeah, my name is spelled Chuck @PanzerPlatform. lol

My car gets 9MPG in city driving, so I do as much testing of these cameras as possible in my garage before I ever fire up the engine. lol

Also I had to make a specialized telescopic device to get that tight concentrated "spot light" beam out of my flashlight.
I'll give you a hint; look for your wife's Christmas wrapping paper, and steal the cardboard tube when she's not looking.
-Chuck
 
Dashmellow said:
I like how no matter which camera you are testing and no matter how blown out the plate looks when illuminated by the flashlight you can still read the license plate in the reflections on the paint of the car's hood. :)
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Gosh darn it Mellow, I noticed that right after I uploaded the video to YouTube.
Good thing these are just test clips.
Now I need to go lay a towel down on my hood for the shot I'll use in my official YouTube Review. lol
-Chuck
 
Panzer Platform said:
Gosh darn it Mellow, I noticed that right after I uploaded the video to YouTube.
Good thing these are just test clips.
Now I need to go lay a towel down on my hood for the shot I'll use in my official YouTube Review. lol
-Chuck
Click to expand...

I would leave it the way it is. It's not really affecting the test in any way and it sorta looks cool. A towel might even be a distraction.

Actually, using reflections on the hood of my truck is an old trick I'm familiar with. Some dash cams, especially certain older models from a few years back sometimes had a hard time showing the colors of traffic lights. Red might look amber for instance and green would look all washed out even if the rest of the video looked fine, so a dash cam video might not be proof that you had a green light when you went through an intersection. We used to talk about this on the forum. Then I noticed that I could always see the accurate colors of overhead traffic lights reflected in my hood even if they didn't look so great in the direct video capture. That may be why I immediately noticed the plates in your test video. :)
 
Today I pulled the SD cards of both dashcams.

Screencaps A129 on the left, A229 on the right:








Videos (unfortunately I didn't setup the video recording time the same):
A129 Daylight:

2022_1207_081214_097F.MP4

drive.google.com drive.google.com
A129 Night:

2022_1207_170042_102F.MP4

drive.google.com drive.google.com

A229 Daylight:

2022_1207_081156_F.MP4

drive.google.com drive.google.com

A229 Night:

2022_1207_170025_F.MP4

drive.google.com drive.google.com

All in all, the A129 is way better in license plate reading and the A229 Daylight video is very blurry and I'm a little bit shocked of the video quality side by side of the A229.
 
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mj1985 said:
Today I pulled the SD cards of both dashcams.

Screencaps A129 on the left, A229 on the right:








Videos (unfortunately I didn't setup the video recording time the same):
A129 Daylight:

2022_1207_081214_097F.MP4

drive.google.com drive.google.com
A129 Night:

2022_1207_170042_102F.MP4

drive.google.com drive.google.com

A229 Daylight:

2022_1207_081156_F.MP4

drive.google.com drive.google.com

A229 Night:

2022_1207_170025_F.MP4

drive.google.com drive.google.com

All in all, the A129 is way better in license plate reading and the A229 Daylight video is very blurry and I'm a little bit shocked of the video quality side by side of the A229.
Click to expand...

In my opinion, your A229 is out of focus on one side and you should seek warranty replacement. The right side of yours is in focus (license plates are readable and details on trees are visible) but the left side appears focus shifted.

Here's what my A229 looks like (cropped in) and is about the resolution I would expect from this camera in terms of overall text readability:

A229.jpg
 
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Thanks, your image does look way better and a couple of review videos I checked too. I already contacted Viofo.
 
mj1985 said:
Thanks, your image does look way better and a couple of review videos I checked too. I already contacted Viofo.
Click to expand...
You can also try recording with the camera outside of the car to see if it is the camera that is causing the issue, or damage/streaking on the windshield. I use a USB power bank to try this.
 
The windshield is perfectly fine, no damages or streaking where the cameras are located and not old. My local dealer and I just checked it, because of a little stone chip on the left side.
 
I did some more indoor testing (cleaned the lens, the CPL-filter) and noticed about 20% of the right section is in focus, the rest is blurry (one channel, FHD, highest bitrate), tested without CPL-filter.
Looks my unit has a defect.
 
FYI: Viofo just contacted me and told me, they will replace my unit, because there is something wrong with it.
 
mj1985 said:
FYI: Viofo just contacted me and told me, they will replace my unit, because there is something wrong with it.
Click to expand...
Based on your first post it's taken you 6 frustrating months for you to determine your dash cam was a lemon.
These are things I would like to find out in the first few days of operation, and absolutely with the 30 day return & refund policy, (Amazon).
You are obviously an intelligent individual, what hope does the "average consumer" have to play their own Quality Control Inspector?
Now that you have gone through this exhaustive journey of dash cam diagnosis, what advice would you give to new first time dash cam buyers?
-Chuck
 
Dashmellow said:
I like how no matter which camera you are testing and no matter how blown out the plate looks when illuminated by the flashlight you can still read the license plate in the reflections on the paint of the car's hood. :)
Click to expand...
Your comment drove me to perform another HDR test.
But I forgot to cover up my radio, so you can see the green digital clock reflection in the windshield, so I need to redo it again. LMAO
 
Panzer Platform said:
Based on your first post it's taken you 6 frustrating months for you to determine your dash cam was a lemon.
These are things I would like to find out in the first few days of operation, and absolutely with the 30 day return & refund policy, (Amazon).
You are obviously an intelligent individual, what hope does the "average consumer" have to play their own Quality Control Inspector?
Now that you have gone through this exhaustive journey of dash cam diagnosis, what advice would you give to new first time dash cam buyers?
-Chuck
Click to expand...
Fortunately I still got my A129 (which I wanted to prepare for sale) laying around to compare the videos. To be honest, I didn't noticed the problem in the first months, because I didn't saved a lot of videos, I was satisfied parking mode was running fine.
Returning policy of Amazon is not a problem in Germany, you can return and refund most of the items (if they are defective) without a problem for 2 years.
The bricked wall test is a good advice, I will definitely try that with the new replacement.

In my opinion customers shouldn't be a Quality Control Inspector, just imagine first-time dashcam buyers after they got a A229 recommended. But nowadays you're the Quality Control Inspector of new cars, new smartphones, video games and so on.

Thumbs up for Viofo and their support, I got a reply within 24 hours.
 
mj1985 said:
The bricked wall test is a good advice, I will definitely try that with the new replacement.
Click to expand...
I've never seen that test. Any chance you can do it with your lemon A229 and post the results so you have baseline for the next A229?
 
Panzer Platform said:
Based on your first post it's taken you 6 frustrating months for you to determine your dash cam was a lemon.
These are things I would like to find out in the first few days of operation, and absolutely with the 30 day return & refund policy, (Amazon).
You are obviously an intelligent individual, what hope does the "average consumer" have to play their own Quality Control Inspector?
Now that you have gone through this exhaustive journey of dash cam diagnosis, what advice would you give to new first time dash cam buyers?
-Chuck
Click to expand...

On this forum is that the users are majority technical and knowledgeable, they can be hesitant to say "this item has a problem" outright, instead offering technical advice, how to test it in a variety of methods, etc. Testing is all well and good, but sometimes it can be overwhelming for newer users who just want to know if they should return the cam during the return period. In most cases I just say if it's not something that can be solved easily, and the user is unhappy with the purchase best to send it back, that's exactly what return policies are there for.
 
DrekiTech said:
newer users who just want to know if they should return the cam during the return period.
Click to expand...
Right on DT,
However I believe "most average" Amazon customers don't even bother to return defective / unsatisfactory merchandise.
They just leave a 1 start review, eat the cost, and try to forget the whole experience. lol
Do you have any idea how much "work" it is for "most" people to actually re-package a product, find a box to ship it back in, print a return shipping label, and then drive to the nearest UPS Store, or Amazon Drop Off location to mail it back. lol
As Sweet Brown would say; "Ain't nobody got time for that" LMAO
I'm with you 100% about returning stuff if the item description was false & misleading, or the product is fake / counterfeit.
-Chuck
 
Panzer Platform said:
Right on DT,
However I believe "most average" Amazon customers don't even bother to return defective / unsatisfactory merchandise.
They just leave a 1 start review, eat the cost, and try to forget the whole experience. lol
Do you have any idea how much "work" it is for "most" people to actually re-package a product, find a box to ship it back in, print a return shipping label, and then drive to the nearest UPS Store, or Amazon Drop Off location to mail it back. lol
As Sweet Brown would say; "Ain't nobody got time for that" LMAO
I'm with you 100% about returning stuff if the item description was false & misleading, or the product is fake / counterfeit.
-Chuck
Click to expand...
Judging by the line of people at UPS when I dropped off my A229, a lot of people take the time to do it. Plenty of Amazon returns in that line. 2 of my 3 returns I didn't even have to box up.
 
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