The list of shame fake 4K cameras and CMOS size

Recently I found a new model of SJCAM...SJ7 Star which sell in real 4k native with 30 fps....is it real or fake too?

Details:
  • SJ7 Star
  • 12 MP Sony
    IMX117 Sensor
  • Ambarella A12
  • Body: Metal
  • 4K – native
  • 2K – 60 fps
  • 1080p – max. 120fps
  • 720p – max. 200fps
  • Display: 2″ touch
  • Battery: 1000 mAh
  • Image Stabilization: yes
  • wifi: yes
  • Bluetooth: ?
  • Remote Control: yes
  • microSD: up to 62GB
  • A/V out: yes
  • Mic in: yes
  • Case & Mounts included
 
Duty RS said:
Recently I found a new model of SJCAM...SJ7 Star which sell in real 4k native with 30 fps....is it real or fake too?
Click to expand...
Hi, I'm interested as well, and this is a terrific topic, we could also build a list of "real 4K" cameras, as I've got some sample to test + a refering test card I think this would be a great idea ..

The best cam I've seen yet is the DJI Mavic gimbal unit and the sony xperia phone .. in terms of resolution/noise of course .. Real 4K videos usually takes more CPU than false ones ..

I basically use a test card at the same light settings / put the cam on a tripod / move it so it fits the camera frame borders then crop a video frame @ 100% resolution the middle numbers to compare the noise ..

Test card reference : https://i.snag.gy/ufMRX1.jpg ( seeing the little 30 is a good point for any "decent" cam )

Attached : firefly 6S video frame sample / Mavic video frame sample
 

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The Sj7 star should be true 4K footage, if you research the sensor used and the chipset A12 you will also find they both support 4K/30 fps the SJ camera claim to be able to do.

I should have raw footage from the SJ7 star for your own close inspection on your own computer later this coming week.
 
Nice, I've seen couple of IMX117 + A12 claiming to perform the "Real 4K", 4 of them did not complete as well as I've expected
Yet I trust none of these dull promises .. shall I have a test card sample for the GoPro in order to compare ?

But I'll be happy to know there's a real 4K camera out there I'll can fit on a drone, with an image quality matching the Mavic's One

Do I also have a correct referential using the Mavic Cam as best reference yet ?
 
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Yeah you still have to be carefull cuz some might claim IMX117, but really its a IMX078 or something.
I have nothing to compare the SJ7 to at least not at 4K, i will just do my best to provide footage from similar places people can be expected to use their action camera, and i assume it will get a flight below my friends phantom 1 quadcopter too.

And i will provide raw footage too, so people can DL and have a look on their own computer.
 
Thanks a lot, might you provide us please a video frame including this test card fully fitting into the frame ? This is my "best" resolution comparison method yet .. https://i.snag.gy/ufMRX1.jpg
 
I dont have any way to print that out, and on my old 1080p TV it look like a size that will have to be down scaled to fit.
 
Hey guys I wanted to buy a action camera and I am very not sure what to buy, I have a problem with
Campark extreme 2 or act76 as called
vs
eken h8r
any help or video comprehantion whould be glad. its very important I would like to buy one of them in the next days.
just to say I want it as a cam A.
I got a cam now SJ8000r as cam B.
 
ben74 said:
Nice, I've seen couple of IMX117 + A12 claiming to perform the "Real 4K", 4 of them did not complete as well as I've expected
Yet I trust none of these dull promises .. shall I have a test card sample for the GoPro in order to compare ?

But I'll be happy to know there's a real 4K camera out there I'll can fit on a drone, with an image quality matching the Mavic's One

Do I also have a correct referential using the Mavic Cam as best reference yet ?
Click to expand...
The Mavic has a very narrow angle lens, mainly so that it doesn't see the propellers since the camera is mounted very close to them. Most action cameras, including all the 4K ones I've seen have much wider lenses, not really suited to most drone use since they make you fly too close to things and have a lot of fisheye distortion which looks bad when you tilt the camera, on a drone the camera is rarely horizontal.

You might be interested in the Gitup Git2P action camera which also has a narrow angle lens with almost zero distortion but does not do true 4K, but it is a very good drone camera due to its narrow lens and gyro stabilisation correctly calibrated to the narrow lens. If you are editing down to 1080 resolution anyway then it gives a very good image. It also has an input that can be plugged into an aircraft remote control receiver to control video recording and photo taking. Photos can be 16MP raw format - very good.
 
No one heard of those cameras to compare?
I see only git2 all the time, but I would like to choose from the two I mentioned:

1. Eken H8R
2, Campark Xtreme II

Hey guys I wanted to buy a action camera and I am very not sure what to buy, I have a problem with
Campark extreme 2 or act76 as called
vs
eken h8r
any help or video comprehantion whould be glad. its very important I would like to buy one of them in the next days.
just to say I want it as a cam A.
I got a cam now SJ8000r as cam B

Campark Xtreme ii:
Eken H8R:
 
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Thanks @Mtz for a very informative thread, hoping it has helped many users not get duped by these companies when purchasing their cameras. As others have said already, it's unfortunate that none of these companies can be held to accountability - I guess this is a product of the non-application of consumer protection laws when we are dealing with e-commerce without borders.
 
4K encoding is much more complicated than 2K so at the beginning, the real 4K cameras will be not so stable and will need few firmware updates. And if the companies which are using Ambarella chipset are not directly supported (this is very rare) by Ambarella some things will not work as expected ever. I trust more the Novatek chipsets and I hope until summer they will launch a 4K chipset for action cameras.

Back to our topic, look for example at SJCam. They launched few 4K cameras for example at $100. Now they are launching another 4K camera at $200 for example. What will say people that the same 4K resolution costs much more for their latest model? SJcam will use the word REAL every time they will say something about their real 4K camera. What will say people with fake 4K resolution previous cameras? ”Hey, SJCam you cheat me with previous model because I paid $100 for a 4K camera”. SJCam will tell them, ”Yo man, there is an * somewhere in our page which is explaining you somewhere in another page that the BIG 4K written without the * on the front case is just interpolated (Fake)”.

Compared to the poor (bastards?) chinese 4K-fake-and-poor camera manufacturers, SJCam used good CMOS like Sony or Panasonic so their fake 4K is looking good even their 4K is interpolated. The SJCam image from fake 4K cameras is not bad at all.

Now their real 4K is using also a small CMOS, lens are not bigger compared to previous fake 4K SJCams so can a real 4K image be so good using small image components? Their real 4K specifications deserve much more money compared to their previous 4K cameras?
If their fake 4K cameras were advertised from the beginning as real 2K resolution when they launched now the real 4K they could say: ”man, this sh*t is costing much more because is offering 4K, a real 4K compared to our previous 2K cameras”.

But most chinese companies are not thinking like that because is Shenzen the companies life is short. They must make money today, no matter how.

enjoy,
Mtz
 
Mtz, these cameras are capturing 4K as MJPEG because it's less CPU intensive as h264. So if the sensor can support a 4K image capture why wouldn't it be real 4K just not at a high quality MJPEG setting? I need to do some more comparison but with a tool like FFMpeg one can pull the individual JPEGs from the MJPEG file and examine them for interpolation artifacts as well as indications of a lower quality setting.
 
still waiting for that man to tell me what is better to take, what camera, Mtz I saw you dont like Ambrella chipset but look at the diffrance between my cameras, one is sony IMX073 12mp and one is IMX176 with Ambrella 16mp, you still think I should not go with ambrella?
 
I don't have a problem with Ambarella as chipsets, they are great, much better than others chipsets like Allwinner. My problem with Ambarella is lack of support after sales. If you have an Ambarella camera with no problems you should not worry at all. But I remember some GoPro had problems with Wi-Fi and GoPro is their biggest client ever.
From your examples I like more the Eken. And they have Ambarella support compared to other chinese companies, maybe they are the only.
Captain Bebops said:
So if the sensor can support a 4K image capture why wouldn't it be real 4K just not at a high quality MJPEG setting?
Click to expand...
A maximum real resolution to be supported, it needs to be supported by CMOS and chipset. If just one of them is not supporting 4K then the 4K is real.
4K is just a number. If you consider some 3840x2160 consecutive (poor) pictures recorded at 15 FPS to be 4K you are right, is real 4K but for me is not. You can shoot with a smartphone 7680x4320 consecutive pictures and then create a video even at 5FPS. For me that video is not 8K even the resolution is true, 7680×4320.
When you are looking at your TV a 2K video which is looking better than a 4K video do you still consider the 4K is real? Do you want to buy a 4K camera which is recording a 4K video which is worse than some 2K camera which can be even 50% more expensive than the 4K one?
I already wrote my opinion about this in this thread I don't want to repeat again the same idea even using same words.

enjoy,
Mtz
 
Mtz said:
I don't have a problem with Ambarella as chipsets, they are great, much better than others chipsets like Allwinner. My problem with Ambarella is lack of support after sales. If you have an Ambarella camera with no problems you should not worry at all. But I remember some GoPro had problems with Wi-Fi and GoPro is their biggest client ever.
From your examples I like more the Eken. And they have Ambarella support compared to other chinese companies, maybe they are the only.
Click to expand...

so your saying because Campark xtreme ii doesnt use Ambrella chipset you wont recommand it? instead of looking on the 16mp camera and the footage that it takes?
I mean I would go with Eken H8R too but its a 12MP camera and that is kind of making stuff aquward. as more MP in the camera the better the picture will look right?
so how can it be that a Eken 12mp is better quality in 1080P? (by the way I am not looking at the 4K specs, just want a camera that has a small display in front, will have a long last battery video and will capture well at least for its low camera rage price.)
 
12MP or 16MP are not important for a video camera because for 1080P a 2MP CMOS is enough. Maybe for a photo camera can be important. Much more important is the quality of the lens, for example.
Because both cameras are fake 4K I don't want to discuss more about this subject. My advice is to not buy Eken or Compark just because are liars, I will never buy from them.
Try to buy from honest companies like GitUp which they have a great 2K camera Git2 which can record also at interpolated 4K like the liars but they not put the big 4K on the case just to lie and sell. And I can say the Git2 have better image than any fake 4K camera from this thread. But is more expensive. Do your money what you want.

I just have a problem with liars even in real life, I have the freedom to stay away from them and select my friends.

enjoy,
Mtz
 
how can you say a 12mp and 16mp is not important for a video camera?
videos are made of pictures and lots of them. 30-60 fps is pictures in a sec so the better quality of the camera lens that take the picture will show you a better video quality right?
i am not talking now about fake or not fake.Even in git that you get a 12mp video cam and a 16mp video cam you would go for the 16 no?
I am just saying something is boughtering me about the chipset and that I cant tell.
thats why you masters are here to figure it for me out. and for the cameras I chose, if anyone could give a record of the campark ii on how long did it take him to shoot a video to tell me.
or at least do a compared video between the two on 1080p 60fps please
 
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