Smallest Ambarella Car DVR a.k.a. Mini 0801

[miji2]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

20130110

Same here. Guess they're having QC issues. Oh well, another crappy dvr for me ... I had high hopes for this one.

 

[V8Rocks]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

20130110

Same here. Guess they're having QC issues. Oh well, another crappy dvr for me ... I had high hopes for this one.

Who knows, maybe the one i have shuts down because of its GPS feature is not working. Try to connect power cable to the camera, not to GPS mount or without GPS mount at all, just to see if any difference.

I do not really care about GPS, so it is not big issue for me, but I asked seller to issue small refund as compensation for this defect.

QC is certainly an issue with chinese made dashcams, no doubt. Or maybe, as it was mentioned earlier, these unbranded cameras are ones that fail QA. So they sell them for discount. It may be true, based on poor availability.

 

[ciuvak]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

20130110

Same here. Guess they're having QC issues. Oh well, another crappy dvr for me ... I had high hopes for this one.

Are you saying that based on V8Rocks first sample picture from here? Does that look better than what you are now getting from your camera (i.e. out of focus shots)?

 

[miji2]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

Same here. Guess they're having QC issues. Oh well, another crappy dvr for me ... I had high hopes for this one.

Are you saying that based on V8Rocks first sample picture from here? Does that look better than what you are now getting from your camera (i.e. out of focus shots)?

Very good question. Yes, V8Rocks's picture looks better, but it's also a JPG (so it may be a picture, not a frame snapshot) ... so to compare apples to apples :

@V8Rocks : are your pictures a frame dump from the video stream or JPG pics snapped straight from the dvr?

 

[ciuvak]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

The russians had this anouncement on April 25th (here) regarding their CX4 (translated):
- no more stock for ProCam CX4 in the warehouse.
- will be available again in mid-May.
- Long break due to the fact that we decided to improve the functionality, namely:
- 8Gb internal memory
- angle 140 degrees
- CMOS sensor OV2710 (High Dynamic Range, respectively, the quality of night video will be one of the best in the segment)

 

[miji2]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

- 8Gb internal memory
- angle 140 degrees
- CMOS sensor OV2710 (High Dynamic Range, respectively, the quality of night video will be one of the best in the segment)

Thanks for sharing. I guess they're trying to create a more upscale product. For me, the current one is good enough as long as it worked as advertised. The new one will probably be more expensive due to increase in specs, so we'll have to see where that goes.

 

[vitali_vg]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

- 8Gb internal memory

8Gb internal memory is very impressive, but I would live with 1Gb without problem...

 

[ciuvak]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

8Gb internal memory is very impressive, but I would live with 1Gb without problem...

I agree. No need for huge internal memory. Of course they can do it, but if it will increase the price a lot, people are not going to buy, it's already a very competitive market.
Hopefully the chinese will sell the same model for less

 

[ciuvak]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

by the way the price for the GPS model has gone up to $108 from $102. The other seller still has it for $110.

 

[V8Rocks]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

Same here. Guess they're having QC issues. Oh well, another crappy dvr for me ... I had high hopes for this one.

Are you saying that based on V8Rocks first sample picture from here? Does that look better than what you are now getting from your camera (i.e. out of focus shots)?

Very good question. Yes, V8Rocks's picture looks better, but it's also a JPG (so it may be a picture, not a frame snapshot) ... so to compare apples to apples :

@V8Rocks : are your pictures a frame dump from the video stream or JPG pics snapped straight from the dvr?

Both are frame dump (bitmap 8.1MB 1080p and 3.6MB 720p) from actual video, I converted it to JPG with Windows Paint - it became 623KB & 226KB

 

[Jazzist]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

Lovely form factor, didn't read this thread until now thinking it was about the 720p smallest cam Could be a nice camera if they sort out any problems.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

 

[jokiin]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

I looked at this but our A2 solution won't fit in this chassis and we'd have to use the public version, not something I want to do, this would probably fit an A7 version but I think that would probably devalue it in the consumers mind to have it in something that looks like the low end version, we are looking at doing something in a smaller more discrete chassis though

 

[Mtz]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

Until now I see the people from our forums are not interested about a nice looking of the dashcams comparet to the korean and taiwanese people for example. I think you already know, we want them full black matte. Of course some logo or other color can be used on the back or top of the camera which is not visible.
Until now this form factor seems to be good except it cannot be rotated to left-right, but have some strong points like display and quick connect.

If you want to make a camera even smaller than this maybe the Omnivision new products will fit in the case.

enjoy,
Mtz

 

[jokiin]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

the CMOS is not such a problem for us at the moment in relation to size, the A7 is going to allow us to get things much smaller due to the SOC architecture, only needs 4 layer PC board versus 8 layer for the A2, on board RAM etc, as far as design goes we're working on that next week, there will be no logo or any printing on anything that faces the window, will be looking to make things as discrete as possible, nothing shiny to attract attention etc

all feedback and ideas are welcome though

 

[irononreverse]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

Doesn't MS paint have really terrible jpeg compression? Could you upload the BMPs for comparison?

 

[ciuvak]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

the CMOS is not such a problem for us at the moment in relation to size, the A7 is going to allow us to get things much smaller due to the SOC architecture, only needs 4 layer PC board versus 8 layer for the A2, on board RAM etc, as far as design goes we're working on that next week, there will be no logo or any printing on anything that faces the window, will be looking to make things as discrete as possible, nothing shiny to attract attention etc
all feedback and ideas are welcome though

come on jokiin, the teasing is killing me Have you started testing an actual prototype yet?

 

[jokiin]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

the CMOS is not such a problem for us at the moment in relation to size, the A7 is going to allow us to get things much smaller due to the SOC architecture, only needs 4 layer PC board versus 8 layer for the A2, on board RAM etc, as far as design goes we're working on that next week, there will be no logo or any printing on anything that faces the window, will be looking to make things as discrete as possible, nothing shiny to attract attention etc
all feedback and ideas are welcome though

come on jokiin, the teasing is killing me Have you started testing an actual prototype yet?

not of our A7 version, that will take a while, we are doing some new tooling shortly that will work for either platform and support multiple lens/CMOS options, there's some new CMOS solutions just released which will be used with A2 solutions for improved night performance, you should see those in the market first

 

[miji2]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

Doesn't MS paint have really terrible jpeg compression? Could you upload the BMPs for comparison?

Even with the JPG compression, his quality seems way above what my unit produces. I've attached a full JPG of my version (since PNG attachments are not allowed). Note how sharp the phone dock is in the foreground.

 

[jokiin]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

Note how sharp the phone dock is in the foreground.

may be an indication that the lens focus has been set a bit shorter than it should be

 

[miji2]

Re: Smallest Ambarella Car DVR

may be an indication that the lens focus has been set a bit shorter than it should be

Yeah, pretty certain that's the case. I was going to pry it open to see if anything can be done, but I didn't want to rip up those warranty stickers just yet.