sgzc12rc video too sharp ?

Auld Reekie

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Hi , I've had my sgzc12rc two weeks now and I'm thinking the video clips are perhaps over sharpened, this is straight from the camera and playback in VLC player.
I notice a lot of the edges of buildings cars etc have a sort of halo around the straight edges, also shadows are very dark in places as if contrast has been turned up too high.
This is the sort of thing you would see in oversharpening and a very high contrast setting with still photos for example in Photoshop.

Is this the norm' for this camera or am I missing something or perhaps a firmware update needed?

If anyone wants to download unedited sample it can be downloaded from here > https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=D419B62B7DF95903!696&authkey=!ADq9tucb2RxHkWU&ithint=video,MP4
Unfortunately its 258 mb in size.

This link >> https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=D419B62B7DF95903!697&authkey=!AIZlHu7dlHzz-XA&ithint=file,mkv is my 1st attempt a snipping a video clip, apologies for the nag screen of Win Movie maker, I'm just trying it out.

Thanks
 
A 258MB file would bring my internet connection to a dead stop for the rest of the day. The nag screen makes it difficult to concentrate on the video quality.
Any chance of a few screenshot captures and a Youtube link?
 
Need to go out for a few hours, will get a couple of screen grabs when I get home. Wasn't sure to use youtube , from what I've read on here the quality can be affected with their compression methods.
 
will get @niko to have a look when he gets a chance, I'm in China at the moment and don't have reliable internet access right now
 
I am going to download files later on tonight and inspect them.
 
Thanks guys, If it helps: streetlights(daytime) tv arials at 19 seconds + have the halo and jaggy appeareance at 29 seconds the small red car on the left although the number plate can be read it's not really great, I'm sure my mini 0801 would be clearer. At 1 min 38 the sandstone buildings on the left look odd, maybe over saturated. At 1 min 45 the bus lane signpost is readable but only just.
 
Thanks guys, If it helps: streetlights(daytime) tv arials at 19 seconds + have the halo and jaggy appeareance at 29 seconds the small red car on the left although the number plate can be read it's not really great, I'm sure my mini 0801 would be clearer. At 1 min 38 the sandstone buildings on the left look odd, maybe over saturated. At 1 min 45 the bus lane signpost is readable but only just.

OK, I am downloading now and going to check your remarks.
 
I watched video and made screenshots at points you stated earlier.

streetlights(daytime) tv arials at 19 seconds + have the halo and jaggy appeareance

- I think this is combination of background light clouds vs thin dark object. Very hard scene for dashams to balance between high speed recording / writing and processing more less correct colours, light balance etc. Overall a lot of dashcam community people mutually agrees that sky-line is less important. Priority is the road action.

Untitled-7.jpg

at 29 seconds the small red car on the left although the number plate can be read it's not really great

( my replay below the picture )

Untitled-8.jpg

Overall VLC is a good playback software, but I would also recommend you to use RegistratorViewer, it has better playback options.
I did played your video a little bit close and below is the result. As you may see, nubmerplates are seen much better.

Untitled-9.jpg

Using RegistratorViewer zoom I was able to get even better shot.

Untitled-10.jpg

At 1 min 38 the sandstone buildings on the left look odd, maybe over saturated.
- it is normal for dashcam within those conditions it has to balance between sky, clouds, trees from right side, buildings from left, moving cars and dashboard glare. All those factors put a lot of stress to CPU and firmware and for sure there may be some small colour "imperfections".

Untitled-11.jpg

At 1 min 45 the bus lane signpost is readable but only just.

- Bus-lane signpost has almost twice smaller numbers than car numberplate and many dashcam in this situation will not even capture those numbers. Most important is car numberplates letters / numbers size, and it does well in this particular case.
If you use RegistratorViewer zoom then can even see bus signpost numbers.

Untitled-13.jpg


Focus from left to right and in the centre is also fine.

Untitled-12.jpg
 
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Thanks for your detailed reply Niko, maybe I was expecting too much. I might try to tilt the camera more downwards so there is less sky in the image to see if it will help improve things, I don't know if it would work, it probably would bring more of the bonnet (hood for these across the puddle) into view.

I notice when taking photos with a point & shoot still camera lowering the angle to avoid the sky where it's not needed results in a better image, I wonder if the same could apply here.
 
Thanks for your detailed reply Niko, maybe I was expecting too much. I might try to tilt the camera more downwards so there is less sky in the image to see if it will help improve things, I don't know if it would work, it probably would bring more of the bonnet (hood for these across the puddle) into view.

I notice when taking photos with a point & shoot still camera lowering the angle to avoid the sky where it's not needed results in a better image, I wonder if the same could apply here.

Common rule is 40 / 60 ( sky / road ), but in some cases it is individual to each car or personal preferences. It is good idea to test n try different angles. However it is hard to compare to point and shoot cameras. Although dashcams and video- or photo cameras share some similar principles of photo- or video shooting / recording, there are lot of other factors which are different between those two categories and within present price-range can not be always compared 1:1.
 
Those are nice pictures. These are more than acceptable for any new dashcam purchase, imo.
 
Personally, those still images look really nice to me.
The first one is taken almost pointing to the sun and the image of the cars is not darkened at all while the clouds are not overexposed; seems a nice job of the backlight compensation / high dynamic range.

Also other pictures with license plates and fine letters on the bus stop look fairly good. And they are taken when the car is moving and the video compression chip is doing a lot of processing...

The only thing I find strange or innatural-looking is that details of large surfaces (especially the road, the houses walls) are lost: there is no texture, everything is flattened.
But we also have to keep in mind that we are looking (closely inspecting...) still images extracted from a video.

Is the bitrate recording set to the highest value?
 
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