SG9663DC beta firmware

[DT MI]

...Must be this beta then

Not disputing you have an issue but I've been running 1.18 for about 3 weeks now and no issues at all. Using a PNY 256GB card.

 

[jokiin]

My friend has the same cam and same memory card. Just asked him and he said he's not on 1.18 and he's not had any issues at all. Must be this beta then

roll back and see how you go, even if he has the same memory card doesn't unfortunately mean they are identical, changes from one production to the next are quite common with all brands of memory cards even if externally there is no mention of any change, let me know the result either way, should have another firmware to look at soon

 

[mcaf123]

My friend has the same cam and same memory card. Just asked him and he said he's not on 1.18 and he's not had any issues at all. Must be this beta then

roll back and see how you go, even if he has the same memory card doesn't unfortunately mean they are identical, changes from one production to the next are quite common with all brands of memory cards even if externally there is no mention of any change, let me know the result either way, should have another firmware to look at soon

Haven't gotten around to rolling back the firmware yet (I really don't drive the car myself too much), but was driving it tonight and the TF card format message appeared. I held down the power button until it switched off and then switched it back on again and it carried on working as expected

 

[jokiin]

Haven't gotten around to rolling back the firmware yet (I really don't drive the car myself too much), but was driving it tonight and the TF card format message appeared. I held down the power button until it switched off and then switched it back on again and it carried on working as expected

Thanks for checking, I'll have a new firmware for you shortly

 

[jokiin]

just testing new firmware now @mcaf123 will message you a link to download once we've checked it

 

[mcaf123]

just testing new firmware now @mcaf123 will message you a link to download once we've checked it

Cheers Rick!

 

[TNT]

@mcaf123 When you start the vehicle, does the power cut off to the camera? In mine, being diesel, it requires more power for starting so the manufacturer has made it so it turns off power to everything but the headlights and starter (maybe a few other things. It is also possible that non diesel designs do this also). It for sure turns off power to the lighter socket. This causes the camera to go into shutdown and at the same time try to startup as the power returns. jokiin has been working on this for me. Maybe this next firmware has a solution. Waiting patiently

 

[jokiin]

I will give you a link to the firmware soon also, just need to do some more tests internally first

 

[jokiin]

have updated the first post with a new version

 

[GeekOnTheHill]

Here's some test video using 1.20 for your perusal:

In all honesty, I preferred 1.14 and have reverted to it. On 1.20, the rear camera image seems somewhat improved, but the front camera image seems a bit fuzzy to me. License plates are harder to read, for example. I also notice a bit of pixelation at the bottom of the raster which is visible on the raw files as well as the file I uploaded. I didn't notice that with 1.14. I'll review the earlier videos when I have a chance. Maybe it's just me.

In any case, you asked for test video, and I'm happy to oblige.

Richard

 

[jokiin]

what quality setting were you using on each?

 

[GeekOnTheHill]

what quality setting were you using on each?

All of the videos were shot on high quality, EV +/- zero, front and rear.

Richard

EDIT: This may not be correct. See later post...

 

[GeekOnTheHill]

One thing I noticed that was a bit odd was that when I updated to 1.20 all the settings, including the time and date, were set to default. When I reverted back to 1.14, the time and date were preserved except that the time was UTC. All the rest of the settings defaulted and had to be re-set. I'm guessing it picked up the time and date from GPS. I have no idea whether this is significant.

Richard

 

[jokiin]

if you were updating while the camera already had GPS signal it's likely that the camera updated the time before it started recording, it will still be out though as the timezone is GMT 0 by default

 

[GeekOnTheHill]

if you were updating while the camera already had GPS signal it's likely that the camera updated the time before it started recording, it will still be out though as the timezone is GMT 0 by default

That's what I figured. Thanks.

 

[GeekOnTheHill]

By way of follow-up...

Unfortunately, I don't have the raw video from the previous tests, and I can't retrieve it (at least not easily) from the SD cards because I've repeatedly formatted them since then. But even comparing the raw video using 1.20 to the compressed video using 1.14 shows enough of a quality loss that it makes me wonder if maybe the "High" setting didn't "take," for lack of a better word, when I updated to 1.20. I'm 99 percent certain that I changed it to "High," but there's always that 1 percent possibility that I didn't.

The biggest difference is at the bottom of the raster. Here's the lower right 800 x 450 px of a screenshot taken from the 1.14 footage, followed by a resized version of the full raster of that screenshot for context comparison:

And here are the same using 1.20:

I think the overall shots are sufficiently similar to make them valid for comparison. There was more cloud cover in the second shot, but the shadows are sufficiently similar that I think the comparison is valid.

The file size difference also makes me suspicious. Both cropped JPEGs were saved at 100 percent quality using the same software. The screenshots were taken from the videos using VLC, cropped with Fireworks, and saved at 100 percent quality. Yet the cropped shot created from the 1.14 footage weighs in at 274 KP, versus 178 KB for the same portion taken from the 1.20 footage. That makes me even more suspicious that maybe I had the quality set to "Medium" rather than "High" while using 1.20. It's just too big a files size difference.

The full screenshots were both resized and saved at 80 percent, by the way, because they're just for context comparison. Only the cropped shots were saved at 100 percent quality.

It's also more difficult to read plates using the front camera using 1.20. But because I don't have the raw footage that I took using 1.14, I really can't find shots that I consider similar enough to be valid for comparison. There's always some difference in speed, angle, lighting, which of the many different plates New York issues, and so forth, that complicate the comparison. My immediate plan is to keep 1.14 long enough to get some sufficiently similar shots for comparison to the footage taken with 1.20.

Richard

 

[kamkar]

To be fair the 2 screen grabs are not from the same place, and i have a sneaky feeling that where the 1.20 was taken here are a line of trees line the road on the right and the camera have been chocking on their information.

Been thinking a little lately, and with other storage options i would prefer higher bitrate / file size over larger resolution / file size

 

[GeekOnTheHill]

To be fair the 2 screen grabs are not from the same place, and i have a sneaky feeling that where the 1.20 was taken here are a line of trees line the road on the right and the camera have been chocking on their information.

That's true. They were the closest matches I could find. That's why I want to accumulate some footage with 1.14 and save it for better comparison.

I don't think the trees made a difference, though. There are no leaves on them yet here, so they don't cast any shade to speak of.

Richard

 

[GeekOnTheHill]

I think I didn't save the quality setting on the first test of 1.20. I ran a short local route this morning with 1.14, updated to 1.20, and ran the same route. This time I didn't see a significant difference in video quality. The only thing I can think of is that I didn't save the quality setting last time, so it stayed at the post-update default of medium.

Richard

 

[jokiin]

I don't think the trees made a difference, though. There are no leaves on them yet here, so they don't cast any shade to speak of.

shade isn't an issue so much, it's the bare trees, they take up a lot of processing power to encode, it's a pretty difficult scene to deal with