Review - Vantrue E360 Ace & LT01 - 360° Dashcam & 4G LTE Module

[TonyM]

E360 Daytime - Panorama or Separate Videos? - HDR On or Off??

I drove the same route 3 times to compare how the E360 captured the scene with HDR ON and with HDR OFF, and to compare the stitched 5.2K panorama vs separate front & cabin videos.

I started from a parked position in an underground car park, drove outside into the bright winter sunlight, around the block and back into the car park. The cabin IR LEDs are set to auto.

The first video is the stitched 5.2K Panorama, recorded with HDR ON:

Next are separate Front and Cabin videos at 1440P, also recorded with HDR ON:

And finally, separate Front and Cabin videos at 1440 P with HDR OFF:

Personally, I prefer the separate videos over the stitched panorama, and I prefer HDR ON.

Panorama vs Separate Videos
- I find it easier to perceive what is happening in the separate videos, even though they are ultra-wide 180 degree field of view. For sharing with insurance professionals or law enforcement, I would also prefer to give them the separate videos.
- The separate front & cabin videos appear to have independent exposure settings. The panorama mode darkens the cabin and brightens the front, giving deep interior shadows and blown out exterior highlights.
- The 5.2K panoramic mode is more useful outside the car in handheld mode when using the battery mount accessory, so I'm glad it is there as an option.
- It is possible to render front and cabin videos from a 360° panorama using post-processing software on a phone or computer.
- There is no practical difference in the file sizes. The bitrate is approximately 30Mbps for the panorama and 15Mbps for each separate front & cabin video.

HDR ON vs OFF
- I find HDR ON preserves more visual information from inside and around the car, whereas with HDR OFF the exterior scene is sometimes over-exposed
- I did not see any improvement in motion blur or scene detail when HDR was turned off

 

[EmailPJC]

I need to do another test. When I did the parking test I measured about 2.5 seconds of video loss in parking mode with motion detection and quick start. I did this by connecting the camera to the cigarette lighter of the car. Maybe the camera's reaction is faster with the cigarette lighter cable than with the parking kit, but I don't think so. I did the test by placing a stopwatch in front of the camera and starting it while tapping on the car window.

In the video the stopwatch was recorded before reaching 2.6 seconds. I don't remember what firmware version I had at that time.
-----------------
Tengo que hacer otra prueba. Cuando hice la prueba de aparcamiento yo medi 2,5sg aproximadamente de pérdida de video en el modo estacionamiento con detección de movimiento he inicio rápido. Lo hice conectando la cámara al mechero del coche. Quizás la reacción de la cámara sea más rápida con el cable de mechero que con el kit de aparcamiento, pero no lo creo. La prueba la hice colocando un cronómetro delante de la cámara y lo puse en marcha a la vez que golpeaba el cristal del coche.

En el vídeo quedó granado el cronómetro antes de alcanzar 2,6sg. No recuerdo que versión de firmware tenía en ese momento.

 

[TonyM]

Vantrue include a very good soft bag with the Ace bundle for transporting the E360, the handheld mount and the mini tripod.

However, there is nothing provided to protect the E360 camera whenever it is not mounted in the car. Since it has a pair of ultra-wide lenses on opposite sides of the body, I am concerned that they are at risk of being scratched or otherwise damaged accidentally.

I have recommended to @Jeff_Vantrue that a small bag is included with the E360 for this purpose.

I am using a microfibre bag that originally came with a pair of sunglasses.

 

[mentadent]

I remember dropping my brand new Ricoh Theta (360 camera) the day I got it. That was not fun.

Microfibre bag seems a good solution. A hard case would be expensive to get custom made, and lens caps are fiddly.

 

[TonyM]

IR LED Glare / Reflection
The E360 has 4No IR LEDs for both its front and rear-facing cameras. The default settings are that the front LEDs are off when driving, and the cabin LEDs are automatic based on the ambient light level. In handheld mode, the LEDs can be set to on or off at night.

Reviewing some outdoor night test footage I noticed that both front and rear cameras have a 4-way pattern when the LEDs are turned on, which disappears in colour mode without the LEDs. Two of the bright spots are more noticeable than the other pair, but I think there are 4.

The same pattern can be seen twice on the merged panorama with IR LEDs turned on:

When I saw these artefacts in the dashcam videos I initially dismissed them as reflections within the car, however if they are present outside of the car then they must be caused by something else. They are most noticeable in the upper portion of handheld videos, and the lower portion of dashcam videos, which makes sense as the camera is 'upright' when handheld and 'hanging upside down' when mounted in the car.

I don't mind a bit of glare or reflection in parking mode videos. There's plenty of other reflections across the frame. But it could be an issue if I want to do some night time vlogging or timelapse with the IR LEDs turned on.

Each lens sits a few mm proud of the panel that contains the IR LEDs. Is it possible that the ultra-wide fisheye lenses are so wide that they pick up glare or have internal reflections from the LEDs behind them? I'll try to do some testing by shielding one or more LED emitters in a dark room.

 

[TonyM]

2CH Driving Mode - 3CH Parking Mode
The Vantrue E360 always records on all channels in parking mode. However, it is possible to configure the E360 to record only the front and rear channels when driving. I did this today when I drove the family into town, rather than remove the camera to maintain their privacy. I also disabled the audio so that our conversations are not recorded.

The audio on/off setting applies to both driving and parking modes. It would be nice to have the option to select audio separately for driving and parking, but it's not a big deal to enable or disable it using the on-screen menu, or by using spoken commands.

The full range of available channel options to be recorded when driving is:
Front + Cabin + Rear
Front + Cabin
Front + Rear
Front only

 

[LateralNW]

@TonyM Great review!

I just received the E360 Ace, and during my preliminary night tests in Panorama mode, I noticed a drop in image quality. Interestingly, you didn't seem to encounter that issue—any tips?

 

[Augustus]

@TonyM Great review!

I just received the E360 Ace, and during my preliminary night tests in Panorama mode, I noticed a drop in image quality. Interestingly, you didn't seem to encounter that issue—any tips?

Will have to look into this on my E360 too, once get others off the review bench like the A329 and the 70mai model that we all know about but not supposed to review (yet!)

 

[mentadent]

@TonyM Neat, I missed that option for disabling driving mode channels when I was setting mine up and it's just what I wanted.

 

[TonyM]

I just received the E360 Ace, and during my preliminary night tests in Panorama mode, I noticed a drop in image quality. Interestingly, you didn't seem to encounter that issue—any tips?

I haven't posted any night driving clips yet, although I intend to soon when I get the opportunity to record some A-B clips with HDR on and off. We have had lots of wet winter weather which makes it difficult to get good night video examples.

Those outdoor examples with the IR LEDs were captured from a static tripod. There is also less noise when the camera is in B&W mode.

Looking at the night video I have recorded, I do see a drop in quality compared to more conventional dashcams. This camera is not good at detail like number plates.

 

[Julian23]

@TonyM Great review!

I just received the E360 Ace, and during my preliminary night tests in Panorama mode, I noticed a drop in image quality. Interestingly, you didn't seem to encounter that issue—any tips?

Not Tony, but I experienced the same thing.
At night the performance could be better.
Plate capture is not possible if further away than about 5m and moving away or approaching at higher speeds than 5-15kmh.
I did swap the E360 between cars to see if the headlights would make a difference.
At night the E360 could be compared to the A229 Duo.

 

[LateralNW]

@TonyM @Julian23
Early today my time the e360 kept rebooting exactly every 1 minute while driving and while parked but with engine running.

This hasn't happen in previous drivers the only difference is Yesterday i had it on the stick in the house playing with those settings.

I think it automatically goes to the car settings so i don't think being on the stick would interfere.

Thoughts?

 

[TonyM]

@TonyM @Julian23
Early today my time the e360 kept rebooting exactly every 1 minute while driving and while parked but with engine running.

This hasn't happen in previous drivers the only difference is Yesterday i had it on the stick in the house playing with those settings.

I think it automatically goes to the car settings so i don't think being on the stick would interfere.

Thoughts?

Are you powering the E360 with an existing UEB-C cable in your car? I had the same reboot every minute when doing that, and others have reported it too since upgrading to the current FW. It did not do that on the FW out of the box.

Using the Vantrue 12v-to-USB adapter in the box, or a Vantrue HW kit should fix the issue for you.

 

[Julian23]

@TonyM @Julian23
Early today my time the e360 kept rebooting exactly every 1 minute while driving and while parked but with engine running.

This hasn't happen in previous drivers the only difference is Yesterday i had it on the stick in the house playing with those settings.

I think it automatically goes to the car settings so i don't think being on the stick would interfere.

Thoughts?

I never had this issue so far.

 

[TonyM]

E360 - Reframing the Panorama

The default projection of the E360 panoramic video is to show the Front view on one side of the frame, and the Cabin view on the other side of the frame. I found this can be difficult to watch at times since our eyes are not used to seeing a 360° view like this. The view is centred looking out of the left side of the car, with oncoming cars to one side that reappear on the other side.

Because this is a full 360° video, it can be reframed in a video editor. I tried this with the free app ReShoot 360, although I did pay to unlock some of the Pro features for this test.
ReShoot 360 website: https://www.reshoot360.com/

Here is the same scene, reframed with the road ahead in the centre of the view so that oncoming cars pass by to the side and do not reappear:

This app cannot output in the same 24:9 aspect ratio of the original E360 video, so it has been stretched vertically to fit 16:9. However, as an experiment I think it shows an interesting alternative projection of the scene.

I had to drop the ReShoot 360 output file into a regular video container for YouTube to display it as a normal video. When I simply upload the 16:9 file to YT it is presented as an interactive 360 video.

 

[Julian23]

Interesting approach.
This does indeed seem easier to watch.
Only downside would be the split rear view.

 

[LateralNW]

Are you powering the E360 with an existing UEB-C cable in your car? I had the same reboot every minute when doing that, and others have reported it too since upgrading to the current FW. It did not do that on the FW out of the box.

Using the Vantrue 12v-to-USB adapter in the box, or a Vantrue HW kit should fix the issue for you.

I am using a Vantrue cig adapter from the N5 so I'll swap it out for the E360 unit.
It's worth a try i guess.

I'm wondering if heat could be a factor as temps here has jumped to ~38c

 

[TonyM]

E360 Parked at Night - HDR ON/OFF - Example 1
I finally had some spare time on a rare winter evening with dry roads, so I washed the car and recorded some driving and parked footage, including a few HDR On / Off comparisons.

Here's a couple of screenshots with HDR On and Off, followed by an animated GIF.
The videos were recorded at 1440P30.

Looking at part of the image at 100% we can see more detail in the HDR image. With HDR turned off it looks as though some edge and texture detail are lost to noise reduction.

 

[Augustus]

I am using a Vantrue cig adapter from the N5 so I'll swap it out for the E360 unit.
It's worth a try i guess.

I'm wondering if heat could be a factor as temps here has jumped to ~38c

Maybe , it did for me with A229 Pro on stock power supply in last year's hot Aussie heat.

But yeah the power supplies can vary between different models, have to check the V's and A's listed on the cigarette lighter adapters...

 

[TonyM]

E360 Parked at Night - HDR ON/OFF - Example 2
A second example of HDR On and Off, recorded at 1440P30 when parked.

Again, we can see more detail with HDR On, even in the low-contrast shadow areas