Ok so this thread was very interesting to me as probably the biggest "blewspew" fan here these days. So i decided it to give it a test, I use a 650 (2CH) and the SG9665GC every day both as my regular front cams.
It seemed surprising how dark the blackvue images were it just seemed strange how dark it was, so i tried it myself.
First up is the awesome SG9665GC:
You'll have to forgive the reflection, but i tried covering it later, and it didn't make a different really. Whats important is looking at the curb line, or the cars. The blackvue will also have some reflection:
so what do you know... it is pitch black like the original images posted here!
then i did something crazy! I turned my lights on! I don't have HID lights or anything, and actually my lights are pretty dirty. so here is the GC with my lights on, you can see the bunny to show this was at the exact same time (the time on my GC is not correct):
this again with my 650:
so the GC definitely shows a better brighter picture. It looks more detailed, and you can see more. but its sure different then just a pitch black parking lot. I decided to turn the brightness all the way up, because the default brightness on the 650 models is 20%. this is with 100% brightness (15 min later in the same spot):
one thing to point out is you do see a lot more of the brush on the right side but the picture still doesnt look as nice as the GC. the blacks dont look very black either anymore.
so most people would say, wow the GC is so much better. We can ignore the fact that the blackvue models have always had lower bitrate or not as good of video quality, but in exchange have other features like built in gps, wifi, iOS/android apps, and now a cloud service that lets it connect to a hotspot and alert you when your car is hit (if you pay that premium to have a hotspot in your car). it could be very great for companies with fleets though, allows live monitoring over the 4G network so the big boss man back at home base can view a live feed and gps location of every vehicle in its fleet. but lets ignore all of these features that make blackvue cams cost twice as much. say you don't care about any of those features, you just want something that records while you drive.
this is what it amounts to, this is a close up of a sign 20 feet in front of my car, at the exact same time (when the bunny was in the image) with head lights on:
It really doesn't matter how much brighter or clearer the GC image looks if you still cant read a license plate 20-30 feet in front of you any more than another cam with supposedly worse video quality.
This isn't to bash the GC or the blackvue, I love my GC and 650. but the constant bashing of blackvue around here to me is hilarious. In the end they are both 1080p30 cams, and at the end of the day you can't even make out a sign or license plate anymore so then the blackvue sitting at a stand still in a parking lot. I understand that a lot of people here like street guardian, so do I (which is why I have the GC and ZC12RC in my car) but there ARE people who wan't special features like blackvue over the cloud, wifi, proper parking modes etc etc. and at the end of the day what really matters in these video quality arguments is if you can read a plate or not, its not as big of a victory for street guardian as people make it seem around here.
) and I can't imagine fault changing at all based on small details like what the driver was doing. but again I am still just thinking about what my insurance company will care about at the end of the day.