SG9665GC firmware updates and pre release access

I've continued to test Beta 22 with mixed, often discouraging results.

While the overall problem with high contrast/high dynamic range blow-outs is dramatically better than it was previously, the issue now seems to be that the camera reacts very differently from one lighting scenario to another, often from one minute to the next. These frequent exposure adjustments the camera makes often overcompensate.

Overall, there is a bias to render images that are much too dark, sometimes excessively so. Other times, the high contrast/high dynamic range blow-outs persist. At yet other times, the images looks excellent and well exposed, but this usually requires bright, fairly well balanced lighting.

The issue with images that are way too dark is proving to be a fairly serious problem. If I make any adjustments to compensate for the problem (EV+/-) I end up having serious blown out highlights and upper tonal range issues as soon as I enter a lighting scenario that challenges the camera with a high dynamic range scene involving shadow and bright sunlight.

So far, the best results I've been able to achieve are with the AE menu set to "Full Frame" and the camera adjusted to have less hood/bonnet in the FOV than I'm accustomed to using with any of the other cameras I've used over the last six years. I'm OK with the high aiming adjustment except that it results in too much sky in the FOV which contributes to the overly dark captures.

The firmware still needs work!

average6.jpg

average1.jpg

Seven minutes later.
(Sun went behind the clouds briefly but shouldn't cause such a dark capture.)
average2.jpg

average4.jpg

Way underexposed and too dark.
average5.jpg
 
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Dashmellow said:
the issue now seems to be that the camera reacts very differently from one lighting scenario to another from one minute to the next.
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That is just what I posted in my topic!
 
I've seen the same problem, it is quite annoying. So far it only seems to occur for me when I have AE set to Low cut. Not to mention the blowouts...see them constantly here in Phoenix because we have bright sun.

We really need to get on the ball. If necessary, maybe several available betas that have different tables in each, and get a consensus from everyone which one works best, then tweak from there, or leave it as-is...?
 
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azchrisf said:
We really need to get on the ball. If necessary, maybe several available betas that have different tables in each, and get a consensus from everyone which one works best, then tweak from there, or leave it as-is...?
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the tables are still being fine tuned, the only one that will stay as is will be the full AE table
 
jokiin said:
I don't recall saying we had stopped work
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Perhaps I misunderstood, but four days ago, on Tuesday you did say, "the V2 release is done already"........"the V2 release will probably be on our site sometime later today". That's saying that the firmware has been released from Beta which implies a certain level of final readiness.

No doubt you will continue to try to improve the firmware but the firmware as it stands now still has some serious shortcomings, reported by multiple parties.

With Beta 22 I can go from reasonably well exposed footage, to extremely underexposed, way too dark footage, to blown out highlights within anywhere from a few minutes to 2o seconds as in these additional examples from yesterday. And this is Beta firmware ready for posting on the Street Guardian web site as opposed to this "pre-release access" forum thread?

For someone like me who has been trying my best to deal with this very problematic camera for 16 months now this is becoming an increasingly frustrating and discouraging experience. I'm sorry if I sound negative but what can I say at this point?

reasonable.jpg

About three minutes later.
toodark.jpg

Twenty seconds later.
blown.jpg
 
we are publishing a release version, beta work is ongoing, every release has had further work done afterwards, it is not the end of the road by any stretch of the imagination

there is no forced update, the previous releases are available and people are free to choose which version they want to run if they feel an earlier version serves them better they can always roll back, there are a lot of bugfixes here that people have been waiting for though and some people prefer release versions, plenty of people don't follow forums to find out which version is the latest, I don't want to keep people that aren't in the know waiting forever because we still have things we need to improve
 
jokiin said:
we are publishing a release version, beta work is ongoing, every release has had further work done afterwards, it is not the end of the road by any stretch of the imagination

there is no forced update, the previous releases are available and people are free to choose which version they want to run if they feel an earlier version serves them better they can always roll back, there are a lot of bugfixes here that people have been waiting for though and some people prefer release versions, plenty of people don't follow forums to find out which version is the latest, I don't want to keep people that aren't in the know waiting forever because we still have things we need to improve
Click to expand...

Bug fixes are good of course, but my impression is that Beta 22 is a step backwards with the AE table issues. This business with the very dark footage is a new thing. The whole AE tables problem is beyond what might be described as a "bug" and has been all along.

I guess the feeling is that a camera that has been on the market for as long as this one has been now and that has been promoted as heavily as this one is as, "one of the best cameras on the market today for video quality" should have firmware that is not quite as flawed as this at this point in the game. Again, I am sorry to sound so negative but I believe this to be the objective truth.
 
@jokiin, to follow up on my previous comments could you offer some thoughts and possible insights regarding what may be going on with the very dark footage being reported?
 
jokiin said:
it's still being looked at, we need more sample files to work with
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OK, thanks.

I've just been reviewing some footage from today and came across some that looks like this. I stopped by the local Walmart earlier; it was really quite bright out and a normal afternoon under an overcast sky at around 5PM and this is what I got.

Not sure what's going on. Tomorrow, I will go out and double check the camera settings. We are just about to get hit with some severe thunderstorms up here on the mountain or I would do it now. May have to sign off if we get the usual lightning strikes up here. Typical late in the day hot July weather here in New England at elevation. :)

darkSG.jpg
 
I might go back to an older firmware that didn't have issues like this. I don't actually care if the sky is blown out so long as the rest of the field is ok, I mean like how it was before these constant complaints started. I only hope Jokiin doesn't get sick of it and withdraw. It used to be that the main purpose of the camera was for simple crash evidence type of thing who cares about the sky or if it takes a few seconds longer to adjust driving in and out of tunnels etc so long as the field of interest isn't like above. (which it never was).
 
Piggy. said:
I might go back to an older firmware that didn't have issues like this. I don't actually care if the sky is blown out so long as the rest of the field is ok, I mean like how it was before these constant complaints started. I only hope Jokiin doesn't get sick of it and withdraw. It used to be that the main purpose of the camera was for simple crash evidence type of thing who cares about the sky or if it takes a few seconds longer to adjust driving in and out of tunnels etc so long as the field of interest isn't like above. (which it never was).
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if the picture is dark you can brighten it up and see the detail, if the picture is too bright darkening the picture won't recover the information, different players will also render it differently, rolling back to an earlier version is always an option but I'd suggest anyone try their own footage and try the different player options to see how it looks first before doing that, it's nice to never have to adjust an image and just play it but I've yet to see any manufacturers camera that does everything under any lighting situation

there's some samples of extracting detail here https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threa...-from-cmos-using-video-editing-software.4720/
 
jokiin said:
if the picture is dark you can brighten it up and see the detail, if the picture is too bright darkening the picture won't recover the information, different players will also render it differently, rolling back to an earlier version is always an option but I'd suggest anyone try their own footage and try the different player options to see how it looks first before doing that, it's nice to never have to adjust an image and just play it but I've yet to see any manufacturers camera that does everything under any lighting situation

there's some samples of extracting detail here https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threa...-from-cmos-using-video-editing-software.4720/
Click to expand...

This is a completely impracticable and unworkable approach if you need to use your footage for legal evidence.

If you need to hand off footage to law enforcement, prosecutors and attorneys, as I have, you have absolutely no control over which player(s) will be used to watch the videos.

As evidence that will be used in a court of law you generally have to turn over raw unedited, un-retouched footage. Any eventual image enhancement must be in comparison to the originally supplied raw footage.

It's one thing to adjust occasional footage but with the SG9665GC practically every video is in need of repair the way things are at this stage.

With the three Mobius cameras in my vehicle I can have confidence that virtually any footage I capture will be viable but with the SG9665GC that has not been the case since I first bought the camera in March 2015.
 
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jokiin said:
we are publishing a release version, beta work is ongoing, every release has had further work done afterwards, it is not the end of the road by any stretch of the imagination

there is no forced update, the previous releases are available and people are free to choose which version they want to run if they feel an earlier version serves them better they can always roll back, there are a lot of bugfixes here that people have been waiting for though and some people prefer release versions, plenty of people don't follow forums to find out which version is the latest, I don't want to keep people that aren't in the know waiting forever because we still have things we need to improve
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Thanks @jokiin - Those with the V1 type have no option but to await the public release. Is the latest FW for version V1 going to be on your website soon?
 
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Cant be long @Hilts, im so ready to upgrade my V1 too :cool:
 
Hilts said:
Thanks @jokiin - Those with the V1 type have no option but to await the public release. Is the latest FW for version V1 going to be on your website soon?
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yes it has been arranged already, just not ready yet, when it is done we may need to check a few things first as the memory mapping is different in the V1 so need to double check that some of the new features are no issue on V1 but at that point I might see if any of the V1 owners want to give it a try so that we can speed things up for the rest
 
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