SG9665GC firmware updates and pre release access

I love how the GC brings colour to my life!

Beta 27, wdr on, ev 0.0, AE center, med contrast.

Full file in jokiin's inbox
 
This really needs to be addressed. Coming out of the tunnel I went blue again.


No recovery for 15 minutes until

Full files in jokiin's inbox
 
It happens in low light coming out of a tunnel
I did not test much since sunrise was after my workrun. But now its winter and the secondary workrun came into the lighting conditions window.

It's a colour balance thing, I could still use the clip for legal or insurance but I'd like to have proper colours.
I'll try to fill jokiin's inbox with as many samples as I can.

Have other users seen this?
 
Yes, I had a identical issue with an another unit like yours, but with a green tint, when I was at a gas station at night.
 
Feitelijk said:
It happens in low light coming out of a tunnel
I did not test much since sunrise was after my workrun. But now its winter and the secondary workrun came into the lighting conditions window.

It's a colour balance thing, I could still use the clip for legal or insurance but I'd like to have proper colours.
I'll try to fill jokiin's inbox with as many samples as I can.

Have other users seen this?
Click to expand...
I have seen it on mine a few times.
 
I have seen this on a few cameras, some have a blue hue some have a yellow hue depending on the camera and situation.
Its not pretty for sure but at least it dont ruin the footage unless you are making cinematic driving films, and it seem to sort itself out sooner or later.

Will off course be preferred if this was kept at a minimal or was fixed all together.
 
The blue cast in @Feitelijk's video is indeed a problem that has been seen before in certain other cameras. For example, similar problems existed in early iterations of the Mobius 1 firmware which also sometimes manifested as a Red - Green shift. If you drove by a large red brick building or a bright red vehicle would cross your path the footage would go greenish/cyan for awhile until it recovered.

The problem is related to the RGB (RED-GREEN-BLUE) additive color model used in digital cameras, computers, etc. (as opposed to the CMYK (CYAN-MAGENTA-YELLOW-BLACK) subtractive color model used in pigment based printing and chemical based analogue photographic color printing)

On the RGB color wheel Yellow and Blue are exactly opposite one another. (as are RED & GREEN) Notice how in @Feitelijk's examples the image goes from a mostly YELLOW environment to excessively BLUE. This is because the camera is attempting to achieve proper color balance by adding BLUE in order to compensate for the abundance of YELLOW in the scene but it is overcompensating and the camera has difficulty returning to normal once it sees a normal color environment again.

yellow-blue.jpg

So, as I've said, YELLOW and BLUE are opposite each other on the RGB color wheel chart.
Notice that the center of the chart is WHITE.
When RED-GREEN & BLUE are in proper balance in the RGB model you get pure WHITE.
This is what the familiar term "White Balance" is referring to.
Feitelijk's camera is overshooting the white balance point and then slowly returning to normal.
Understanding this concept is the key to resolving this problem in the firmware.

RGB.jpg RGB2.jpg

Mobius addressed this problem relatively quickly once they became aware of it.

Feitelijk has been reporting this problem for quite some time now but it has yet to be addressed. This is reminiscent of my dissatisfaction regarding the blooming and blown out upper tonal range issue that went on for a year and half or more from the time I first reported it until it finally received some level of firmware remedy.

For a long time now I've been wondering why a highly rated camera such as the SG9665GC is still on "beta" firmware more than two years after its introduction. Updates, sure that's pretty normal, but I can't think of another digital product I've ever owned that is still on "beta" firmware more than two years after coming to the market. I suppose whatever you call these updates, "beta" or otherwise doesn't really matter as long as major issues get the attention they require but for some reason issues like this seem to linger for a very long time on the GC until they finally get that attention. I do understand that it can take awhile to sort things out but a problem like this does seem to still be a "beta" kind of thing two years in. Like I've mentioned, Mobius got right on it. Then again, maybe this color balance problem hasn't gotten any firmware attention because it hasn't been reported all that often?

Interestingly, now that I think about it the dynamic range/high contrast issue that went on for so long was also a matter of the camera taking far too long to recover to a normal state after an exposure compensation event. Seeing the camera overcompensating for color balance and then taking too long to recover feels in some ways like a similar phenomenon. Perhaps there is something challenging along these lines inherent in this DSP/sensor hardware combination?

For whatever it is worth, I have not personally noticed any color balance or color shift issues whatsoever with my SG9665GC. Since re-calibrating the camera and re-flashing beta 27 results have been quite good except for some occasions when the footage is too dark for the general lighting scenario. Happily this has been less severe than previously and therefore less of a concern. Come to think of it, FWIW, the "too dark" footage thing also seems to be an overcompensation exposure issue.

The only recent problem I've had was discovered just this morning upon reviewing some footage from yesterday. Apparently the last file on the memory card is corrupted and unplayable. Hopefully, this is some sort of one-off and not a harbinger of some other brewing problem. Yesterday morning it was - 4 degrees below zero Fahrenheit when I woke up in the morning and the camera was out in my truck all night but I have no idea if that could have anything to do with the bad file. If it happens again I'll try a fresh memory card and go from there.
 
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Dashmellow said:
Yesterday morning it was - 4 degrees below zero when I woke up in the morning and the camera was out in my truck all night but I have no idea if that could have anything to do with the bad file
Click to expand...

When we did our trip to the Northcape in upper Norway earlier this year, I left the cam in the car each night. Temps dropped to -25 degrees Celsius (-13 degrees F) but I never had an issue with bad files though.
 
Marc Onrust said:
When we did our trip to the Northcape in upper Norway earlier this year, I left the cam in the car each night. Temps dropped to -25 degrees Celsius (-13 degrees F) but I never had an issue with bad files though.
Click to expand...

I've never had an issue with file corruption during very cold weather either. I just kinda threw that out there since nothing else has changed or occured. In the meantime I just discovered that the camera now won't boot up properly at all. It appears that the memory card has failed completely at this point. It's a Samsung 64GB EVO. Never had the slightest problem with any of the Samsung cards I own until now. I think the camera is OK as it booted with a different, freshly formatted card but time will tell. Old card will not let me get fully into a booted up camera without freezing it up so I can't even try to reformat in the camera. Anyway, I just got back in and am still exploring what is going on.
 
I've had a few reports of cards eventually going bad over the years as you can imagine across all products. (Sumsung was in the mix but not a higher rate or anything). Memory cards are the weakest link in any dashcam. We might bundle High Endurance cards in future dual products to up the longevity / quality that much more.
 
This card isn't very old and so far I've been very pleased with the performance and reliability of the Samsungs. Obviously, anything can happen to a memory card. As long as the camera is OK I don't mind.

I have a brand new Sony 64GB card on hand I bought last year on Amazon when I saw it for a killer price during a lightning sale. Sony is a brand of card that never gets any mention here on DCT so it will be interesting to see how it performs.

Anybody else here ever use a Sony microSD card in a dash camera?
 
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Dashmellow said:
This card isn't very old and so far I've been very pleased with the performance and reliability of the Samsungs. Obviously, anything can happen to a memory card. As long as the camera is OK I don't mind.

I have a brand new Sony 64GB card on hand I bought last year on Amazon when I saw it for a killer price during a lightning sale. Sony is card that never gets any mention here on DCT so it will be interesting to see how it performs.

Anybody else here ever use a Sony microSD card in a dash camera?
Click to expand...
I have just replaced a couple of 64GB Sony cards as I was having problems with 2 x SG9665GC cameras. One cam was a V1 and the other a V2 and both Sony cards have been in use for about 12 - 18 months. I thought the V1 camera was faulty but found the replacement cards have resolved the issues. I replaced the Sony cards with Toshiba 128GB Exceria M302 cards.
 
vodka redbull said:
I have just replaced a couple of 64GB Sony cards as I was having problems with 2 x SG9665GC cameras. One cam was a V1 and the other a V2 and both Sony cards have been in use for about 12 - 18 months. I thought the V1 camera was faulty but found the replacement cards have resolved the issues. I replaced the Sony cards with Toshiba 128GB Exceria M302 cards.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback.
 
vodka redbull said:
I have just replaced a couple of 64GB Sony cards as I was having problems with 2 x SG9665GC cameras. One cam was a V1 and the other a V2 and both Sony cards have been in use for about 12 - 18 months. I thought the V1 camera was faulty but found the replacement cards have resolved the issues. I replaced the Sony cards with Toshiba 128GB Exceria M302 cards.
Click to expand...
12 to 18 months is probably around when the cards should be replaced if you want to be proactive, the memory cards are not something where you get any kind of early warning that they will stop working
 
jokiin said:
12 to 18 months is probably around when the cards should be replaced if you want to be proactive, the memory cards are not something where you get any kind of early warning that they will stop working
Click to expand...

Actually, the corrupted last file from yesterday was sort of an early warning that complete failure was imminent, I guess. Better that it happened during the last few hundred yards on my way home than out on the highway or someplace where I couldn't deal with it immediately or know it had even failed.

This card experience is one reason that I'm not a fan of huge capacity memory cards. If I can capture an entire days driving on a 64 GB card I'm more than satisfied.
 
I agree, i too feel 64 Gb is a fine size for a single channel camera. and i have yet to drive so much in one day that i can fill up a 64Gb card.
And for a while it have been my idea that corrupted last session files might be a sign of imminent problems with camera or SD card, so keeping a close eye on last file in a driving session is something i have argued for a while.

I would love to go even higher with storage space not least for multi channel systems, but then it have to be HDD with the technologies they have on board for wear leveling and what not
 
kamkar1 said:
I agree, i too feel 64 Gb is a fine size for a single channel camera. and i have yet to drive so much in one day that i can fill up a 64Gb card.
And for a while it have been my idea that corrupted last session files might be a sign of imminent problems with camera or SD card, so keeping a close eye on last file in a driving session is something i have argued for a while.

I would love to go even higher with storage space not least for multi channel systems, but then it have to be HDD with the technologies they have on board for wear leveling and what not
Click to expand...
I decided to replace the failed Sony 64GB cards with 128GB as higher capacity cards should theoretically last longer as they will have less overwriting cycles. I hadn't thought about this until niko mentioned it while I was trying to diagnose if one of my cameras was at fault. It makes complete sense when you think about it.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 
Street Guardian USA said:
I've had a few reports of cards eventually going bad over the years as you can imagine across all products. (Sumsung was in the mix but not a higher rate or anything). Memory cards are the weakest link in any dashcam. We might bundle High Endurance cards in future dual products to up the longevity / quality that much more.
Click to expand...

A proper high endurance card would need to be SLC and they are terribly expensive.

Probably cheaper to bundle a massive MLC/TLC card so it just gets written to less.
 
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