You are quite right,
@jokiin is a very nice guy. So is
@Pier28. Gotta' love em both.
FYI, I had lengthy and ongoing private communications with jokiin, as well as Pier28 that began in May, 2015 and that went on for many, many months regarding the various issues I experienced with several defective SG9665GC units that had focus and electronic problems along with the numerous firmware issues I encountered. I spent all those months working back and forth with the two of them behind the scenes providing examples, uploads and data in an attempt to understand and resolve these issues. I made it quite clear from the beginning that my intention was to approach the issue discretely offline rather than make a big public fuss. In fact, I am going to quote
@jokiin's reply to me on May 26th, 2015-----
"appreciate you taking it offline, had you talked about it in the forum though the result would still be the same"
It was only after nearly a year of frustration and finally expressing my skepticism that I could be the only person having such severe contrast issues did I decide to go public about it, specifically to see how many others might actually be experiencing the same issues with these high contrast/ high dynamic range blow-outs. When I told
@jokiin that I was pondering this idea, he wholeheartedly encouraged it because that is the way he is. If you like, I will dig around in our correspondence and find his quote on that too, but I am confident that both he and
@Pier28 will confirm everything I am saying here.
Does it mean anything that I am new here? I have the SG9665GC and I have not had any problems that a firmware update didn't fix. If it were so troublesome as you claim you would have many people coming here and complaining. You my friend are the only one!!! I have been coming here as an observer only, since this site opened. It seems you are trying to go after the SG9665GC with a vengeance. How you can correspond with jokiin and Pier28 (jon) so nicely as u state then you come on this site with ur imaginary problems and try to scare away potential customers. It seems u have an agenda for what ever reason. Sometimes not everything is 100% perfect that includes dash cams. If u wanted perfection try a more expensive dash cam. For $200. I think that the SG9665GC is worth every cent . You want better then try a unit in the $500 range and see at that price if it's any better
Anyway, after a full year of trying my best to deal with all of these problems and issues such as the serious out-of-focus problems, and especially the high contrasts blow outs, I finally launched the thread,
"SG9665GC High Contrast/Dynamic Range Flaw and other Discouragements", where I went to the trouble of explaining much of this. Much of the documentation and imagery I eventually posted in that thread had already be sent to them in private.
In my introduction to that thread, I said, "Originally, I intended to post a thread about my experience much like the one I'm posting here but instead, the way things have worked out I've spent months working behind the scenes with @Pier28 and @jokiin attempting to analyze and resolve the problem. It will come as no surprise for anyone here to hear that both Rick and Jon have been extraordinarily courteous, friendly, helpful and generous in their efforts to resolve the issue",.........but..............................."I guess it is finally time to go public with all of this".
On March 13th, 2016, in my public thread, I went on to say:
"The thing that has mystified me though is how could I possibly be the only one to experience this to this degree on three different SG9665GC units and be the only one reporting it? While I have some theories about why that is, I want to make clear that my purpose in posting this thread is not to complain but to publicly discuss and analyze. One of my main goals is to hear from other SG9665GC owners regarding their camera's ability to handle bright high contrast/high dynamic range situations. Is it similar to what I'm presenting here? Is it worse, or better, or not so bad, or not a problem at all?"
My intention all along was to bring attention to this issue and to learn how many others might have the problem too.
In May of
2015, in response to the high contrast problems, jokiin told me in a PM that,
"We're also doing some fine tuning of the firmware but that's not quite ready for public release just yet." So imagine how I felt when months and months later when the new firmware was
finally released, I learned that the AE problems were not even addressed in that firmware in any way whatsoever?
Some of this approach to the problems
may have had to do with not wishing to damage the marketing of what I believe may well be one of the most promoted and hyped cameras on this forum and perhaps some of this has to do with the difficulties an earnest developer like
@jokiin encounters in his quest to bring high quality cameras to the market in an ethical and upfront manner in a way those of us who have been around dash cams for years have not ever witnessed before. And of course, we now learn that increasing success of the Street Guardian brand has finally manifested the support of chip maker Novatek that was apparently key to resolving the AE issues at hand all this time in the first place, and so the long delay in fixing this problem has a solution, after all.
But, of course, none of this means that we should all become obsequious fanboys who shy away from the obvious truths even if we are indeed enthusiasts and supporters and online friends. Hey, for me, rather than cutting my losses and buying something else, I'm still hanging on there with the GC and there's much to be said about that. Online forums as supposed to be all about honest discourse, not just high intensity marketing and product support.
The simple fact is that it has only been since my finally bringing more attention to this AE high contrast matter after a very long delay that it is finally being addressed.
So,
@cruze, my friend, you have been a member here on DCT for only 5 days now, so please fully inform yourself before you hand out misguided, albeit well intentioned suggestions
.
