Shadow RX300

[robbsonn]

Hi @quorthonrhar ,
thank you very much for the detailed explanation of the essence of a video file compression and especially for the attached source video files. They finally convinced me to place an order for RX300 with GPS at Foxoffer. Now I've to wait for end of Chinese New Year vacation and then for shipment

 

[quorthonrhar]

Hi @quorthonrhar ,
thank you very much for the detailed explanation of the essence of a video file compression and especially for the attached source video files. They finally convinced me to place an order for RX300 with GPS at Foxoffer. Now I've to wait for end of Chinese New Year vacation and then for shipment

You're very welcome! You wouldn't make a wrong move if you went with GT680W either. Both these cameras are wonderful and do their job nicely. I just liked the shape of RX300 a little bit better, and since it had all the functions and the quality of the GT680W, plus couple of additional (although minor) pluses, I've decided to go with that one. Reading all other posts about experiences with GT680W, I am 100% sure I'd be happy with that camera too. We get unbelievable pieces of technology packed in such a small package, for unbelievable small amount of money. What's not to be happy about?

I know from my personal experience, waiting can be difficult, but after week or two, you should have your camera. The only thing is, I believe they will start shipping after February the 6th, but the good thing about this, you're eligible for some small present (rewarding you for waiting).
Gift should be one of these following items:

Good luck with your purchase!

 

[niko]

Yes, but no one is responding because of New Year vacation time I guess. Still, it wouldn't take more than one minute from someone to respond with both download links, for old as well as new firmware (2.2g and 2.3g). It could solve these problems for everybody with firmware v2.3g until they fix this and release new one.

This is what I see in my Image Rotation menu:

Firmware "issue" need to be clarified with Foxoffer, - they are just a re-seller, so they have to clarify this with manufacturer, but I am sure this will be sorted after CNY.
All I can say that mine RX300 came with v2.4G v2.2G and worked flawlessly.
I just do conclusions based on my experience. When I had my first GT680W ( silver ), it also had v2.6g, but it didn't work properly with GPS, so later after GPS-antenna issue sorted out, manufacturer offered new v2.4G which worked on silver gt680W. Now having GT680W Black ( with logoes ) + RX300, - they both have v2.4G.

Added: GT680W silver , GT680W Black ( with logoes ) have v2.4G, RX300 have v2.2G

So my conclusion is that v2.4G is the right FW for all 3 2 models with GPS: Silver GT680W, Black ( with logoes ) GT680W and RX300., , but mine RX300 is with v2.2G

 

[quorthonrhar]

Firmware "issue" need to be clarified with Foxoffer, - they are just a re-seller, so they have to clarify this with manufacturer, but I am sure this will be sorted after CNY.
All I can say that mine came with v2.4G and worked flawlessly.
I just do conclusions based on my experience. When I had my first GT680W ( silver ), it also had v2.6g, but it didn't work properly with GPS, so later after GPS-antenna issue sorted out, manufacturer offered new v2.4G which worked on silver gt680W. Now having GT680W Black ( with logoes ) + RX300, - they both have v2.4G. So my conlcusin is that v2.4G is the right FW for all 3 models with GPS: Silver GT680W, Black ( with logoes ) GT680W and RX300.

Is there any way to extract the firmware from your RX300? Sorry, are you saying you have RX300 with firmware v2.4G now? I believe I watched some of your videos showing the old one 2.2G. Is there any download link for 2.4G? Heck, even download link for old 2.2G would do it until they release this 2.4G publicly.

Is there any other source I could go to and ask for this new firmware? I'm just hoping there finally will be one good soul who will take 1 minute of their time to post the download link.

 

[niko]

Is there any way to extract the firmware from your RX300? Sorry, are you saying you have RX300 with firmware v2.4G now? I believe I watched some of your videos showing the old one 2.2G. Is there any download link for 2.4G? Heck, even download link for old 2.2G would do it until they release this 2.4G publicly.

Is there any other source I could go to and ask for this new firmware? I'm just hoping there finally will be one good soul who will take 1 minute of their time to post the download link.

You right, in my review I stated RX300 I have with v2.2G, so in my last post, having so many different gadgets ( especially ShadowTech ones ) and replaying on different threads her on forum, I mixed up with Gt680W series v2.4G ( my bad ).
Double-checked again and corrected my last post.
My RX300 I was reviewing and which had no FW issue, had all menu functions as stated in review, it is on v2.2G. Just made a picture for you ( below )

 

[quorthonrhar]

You right, in my review I stated RX300 I have with v2.2G, so in my last post, having so many different gadgets ( especially ShadowTech ones ) and replaying on different threads her on forum, I mixed up with Gt680W series v2.4G ( my bad ).
Double-checked again and corrected my last post.
My RX300 I was reviewing and which had no FW issue, had all menu functions as stated in review, it is on v2.2G. Just made a picture for you ( below )


View attachment 3639

Thank you Niko. Yes, this proves the old firmware v2.2g did not have this Image Rotation, missing AUTO option issue. They removed it from firmware v2.3g which is unfortunately installed in my RX300. I also wasn't able to test IR function. I believe that got screwed up with this new firmware too.

Could you, when you have couple of minutes of free time, check if IR works fine with v2.2g?

Thanks!

 

[quorthonrhar]

Niko, I have one question/request for you (and everybody else who might know something about this subject). I hope you can help me. Please, take a look at this article here in DashCamTalk forums:
http://dashcamtalk.com/gs1000/#Firmware_Backup

1.) Can you check for me if this would work with RX300 too? There must be a way to backup existing firmware back into bin file.

I'd appreciate if you could get back to me on this one. I'll post this in that thread in forum, just in case someone else has some more information on this subject (I just did that).

2.) If we can back up our firmware, would you help me by sending me your v2.2g? I'm not patient enough to wait until CNY and who knows how long until they finally answer my emails. I'd rather install the old firmware with those functions working fine, than have new and completely broken firmware.

Thanks in advance Niko and everybody else who might have any insight on this!

 

[jokiin]

Have not seen any firmware backup function on any Novatek based cameras

 

[quorthonrhar]

Have not seen any firmware backup function on any Novatek based cameras

Thank you jokiin. Unfortunately, that's exactly the answer I wasn't hoping to hear There must be a way to extract it...

Anyway, is there any way to get my hands on old firmware v2.2g (for RX300 of course). Shouldn't be there some location SeeZeus or whoever is developing software portion, where they keep these firmware files?

I just hope all this is little bit more organized than it is at the moment. I see quite some number of people having trouble with v2.7 for GT680W. Developing/testing/releasing firmware is a serious business. Super easy to brick your device if something goes terribly wrong. I believe they should pay a lot more attention before releasing fully tested firmware file in the wild.

 

[niko]

Super easy to brick your device if something goes terribly wrong.

- thats why I suggest not to experiment and just to wait when CNY is over, so Foxoffer can replay to those issues.

 

[quorthonrhar]

- thats why I suggest not to experiment and just to wait when CNY is over, so Foxoffer can replay to those issues.

I've always been an adveturous one. Anyway, something tells me there will be not much different even after CNY vacation time is over. I mean c'mon... Releasing new firmware that's not even been tested properly, installing it on all new units they ship out, and all that without ever notifying its user database about what's updated, fixed or changed. I'm not talking about RX300 specifically. Look what happened to GT680w and its firmware v2.7.

I'm not expecting them to post new firmware at all. That could take weeks/months until they fix everything. I'm just hoping someone from their team would post a download link for old, good working firmware v2.2g. Everything worked perfectly fine with that one, plus I compared options from 2.2g (frm a video on YouTube) with my 2.3g. There is absolutely nothing new added in 2.3g, except they screwed up two options that worked fine before in 2.2g.

I just hope they'll post a download link for 2.2g, that's all.

In the mean time, could you Niko please check if IR function works fine in v2.2g, because it definitely does not in 2.3g?

Thank you in advance.

 

[quorthonrhar]

Here is a download link for another footage from RX300 at the bottom of this post. YouTube does its own compression, there is no workaround, so I didn't even bother uploading to YT. Even though this little camera gives pretty nice low light videos (nightime), like with all cameras, more light = better results. This video will show the quality under bright sunny light, inside shadows, and bright snow glow into the camera lens.

A screenshot pulled out of this video when playing inside Datacam Player v5.6.0.3 (Registrator Viewer):

Anyone interested can download source video from the link below. It's completely untouched, straight from the camera SD card. You can even load it up into your Drive log player (such as Datacam Player - Registrator Viewer, Driving Recorder Player or DOD Player is), to see how it's reading Speed, GPS positioning, compass information.

Download link:
https://db.tt/gGE8pSwd

Hope this helps a bit to anyone who is interested in and playing to buy one of these little dashcams. I personally, am super happy with RX300, and planning to order another one for the rear window. I was thinking to try out the GT680, but since they both are same price, there is no point in going backwards. RX300 is really powerful little camera and I am really happy with its performance and results. OK, it has those annoying IR LEDs, but in the same time it has better capacity battery than GT680, so you can even use it for 30+ minutes without being connected to your car's power plug.

 

[jokiin]

The firmware change could be related to a hardware change also and may not be backward compatible, happens often with these types of cameras

 

[quorthonrhar]

The firmware change could be related to a hardware change also and may not be backward compatible, happens often with these types of cameras

Then... they better fix this firmware and upload new one. This camera is advertised as camera with Auto-Rotate Screen feature. I'm just saying... they never mentioned releasing new piece of hardware under exactly the same name, that would be really misleading. Big changes like that should be noted so potential customers know what they're buying.


Quote:

Shadow Tec/Seezeus RX300 Car Dash Camcorder, super night vision car DVR
RX300W support GPS logger feature, the GPS module is optional.

• WDR technology
• 2.7” TFT LCD screen
• FULL HD 1080P High-definition video recording
• 6G sharp glass lens
• F/1.6 Aperture Range
• Appearance Patent
• Parking monitoring
• Auto-rotate screen
• GPS tracking function
• GPS speeding alert function
• GPS screen saver
• SOS emergency lock function
• Anti fatigue driving function
• Motion detection recording function
• Loop recording, Time and date Stamp
• G-sensor function
• Support to 32GB Micro TF card
• Stop voice recording function
• Start and record automatically function
• Orbit offset remind function

 

[jokiin]

They may or may not be able to do an update, really depends on why things have changed and if the hardware now supports this

 

[quorthonrhar]

They may or may not be able to do an update, really depends on why things have changed and if the hardware now supports this

Well, that's easy to solve then. Camera I received is called RX300, there is no single letter or character to distinct it from RX300 that was advertised with auto-rotate screen option. I ordered it from the page with all this info because I wanted those features. If in the mean time they developed another piece of hardware that doesn't have those features, and sent me different one than the one I ordered and diligently paid for, that sounds like false advertising. In that case I'll ask for my money back and order the product I wanted originaly.

All that being said, I still believe they screwed up firmware, nothing else. They did not change hardware of GT680w either, but that did not stop them to kind of screw it up with firmware v2.7 (camera completely freezing when GPS screensawer kicks in, compass not working, etc.)

Bottom line... If one wants to be considered serious business and don't have to be afraid of competition, they should at least keep everything organized when it comes to releasing firmware updates, make them accessible for customers who paid for the product, and keep everyone informed about changes and updates. I do not see any of that, nor there is an official place where we could inform ourselves about firmware updates. In normal conditions, that's not good... But especially in this case when something is terribly wrong with firmware, and we're stuck with no way of helping ourselves. IR feature don't work either. Regardless of the fact that IR is turned ON, LEDs never lit up, nor there is any single improvement in recording quality in dark space (inside of the car, recording passengers for example). IR function is completely useless at this point. Either that, or I've received faulty camera. And again, I'm stuck because now I have to wait for who knows how long for an answer from FoxOffer.

 

[jokiin]

Expect an answer from Foxoffer in another week or so, you won't hear from them during CNY holiday period

I'm just saying hardware may or may not have changed which could alter what functions are supported, stuff like this happens at times without the reseller knowing, fact of life, I'm sure if it's something that can be addressed then Foxoffer will follow up on it, they are a reliable seller

 

[niko]

Hmmm, quickly tested IR leds = ON, but didn't see any effect ( maybe I do something wrong ? ),. My RX300 is on v2.2 FW.
Will try to do deeper tests within 1-2 days, now I am in hurry.

 

[mariomart]

Hmmm, quickly tested IR leds = ON, but didn't see any effect ( maybe I do something wrong ? ),. My RX300 is on v2.2 FW.
Will try to do deeper tests within 1-2 days, now I am in hurry.

They should only activate when it's dark (light sensor) and the only way to test is to see if it records an image in a completely dark environment.

 

[jokiin]

If you view an IR light via a digital camera (mobile phone is good for this) you can see if they are on or not