The Lukas LK7950-WD has landed - dual channel TI / Sony IMX322 dashcam with Wi-Fi - Ongoing review

[reverend]

Right then, it's that time to start playing with another new dual channel camera!

Lukas have very kindly sent this over for me to take a look at, and it's their new LK7950-WD camera which is a very high specification package all around.

This camera is based on a Texas Instruments TMS320DM8148 ARM Cortex A8 CPU which controls two cameras based on the Sony Exmor IMX322 image sensor.

The Sony sensor has a high dynamic range sensor which means cleaner night video and as it is more sensitive it performs better when in parking mode at night.

Here are the features as listed in the manual:



As you can see this is a high specification Korean made dash camera with two channels, both with the Sony sensor and it has built in Wi-Fi and car battery discharge prevention function.

The GPS supports both GPS and GLONASS standards and so is suitable for use worldwide, including Russia.

The camera has a UV filter installed as standard and also supports a CPL filter.

The LK7950-WD does not feature a screen - to get a touchscreen you would have to opt for the LK9750 - in place of a screen is an LCD display which feeds back messages to you.

The Lukas camera is available worldwide, here are a couple of links:
UK:
http://www.lukashd.co.uk/LUKAS-LK-7950-wifi-duo-Pro.php

Canada / USA:
http://www.calgarydashcam.com/#!sto...-DUO-Built-in-GPS/p/46849339/category=9780156

The camera is not currently shown on www.lukasstore.com

Here are some pictures:

 

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You can see that the rear camera is tiny - I'll have to work out how to get my X2 camera down so that I can do a side by side of how they both look.

The Lukas camera appears to be very well built indeed.

In one of the pictures you can see the very small Wi-Fi adaptor that is included - this plugs into the bottom of the camera and can be enabled or disabled via a switch so that you can control whether it should be accessible via the iPhone or Android apps that Qrontech produce.

The Wi-Fi adaptor is a Realtek RTL8188EU 802.11n USB 2.0 adaptor which supports up to 150Mbps in 802.11n mode - as it's a USB adaptor it means that it can easily be replaced or upgraded at a later time, and as a bonus you can use it in a PC.

 

[Ipol]

Nice one reverend....... enjoy.....I have to drive to boulogne-sur-mer this afternoon About 3/4 hour each way I have bought a samsung SDHC Class 6 32GB card this morning and will try it out in the LK9750 duo to see how it performs ......Ipol

 

[reverend]

I bet it's lovely out there mate - I need to pop out now to get something to eat and the scenery here isn't as nice as you've got there!

I just noticed they preinstall the viewer software and manual on the full size SD card they provide - a nice touch!



The config.bin file is a binary file so it's not something you can edit with Notepad

 

[Sunny]

Nice!
You beat me to it after all.

 

[reverend]

I honestly didn't expect to see it for another week or so mate - I saw a tracking event where it popped up in the building next to where I work (two hours from my house) which I found quite amusing

I've tried the iPhone app and I'm really impressed with it - it's really powerful what it can do.

The bitrate on these is like the BlackVue and quite low though in comparison to the latest Ambarella cameras which have crazy bitrates - I've got it set to the highest within the app but so far it's looking like 7Mbps for the front channel and 5Mbps for the rear - you can still sometimes read numberplates though even at those levels but the overall quality is reduced due to the low bitrates and in camera processing.

On the plus side because of the low bitrate you can fit much more info onto the SD cards.

 

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And then note the power display changes as ACC is removed:

 

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Here's the Lukas LK7950 sat alongside the Panorama X2:



In the Lukas looking from this angle the left most angled USB connector is for the rear camera, and the second cable to the left of the mount is the 3 pronged DC power connector - same as the X2.

On the X2 to the side of it you can see connections for power, rear camera and then the GPS dongle.

I didn't notice it at first but one thing I really like about the Lukas is that it has an angled USB cable for the rear camera - not a right angle but more like a 45 degree angle which would follow your windscreen rake:

 

[Sunny]

Lukas has enough room for LCD on the back just like Panorama so what's the reason behind not having LCD?

 

[reverend]

By default although the camera has two memory card slots - one full size SD card and one microSD card, it appears that the type of file is split.

On the full size SD card it now looks as per the following:



And the microSD card looks like so:


The file layout by default is as follows:

Full size SD:
AlwaysMovie - Driving mode video from both channels (with F or R suffix)
MotionMovie - Parking mode video from triggered motion sensor

MicroSD:
EventMovie - Event mode video from when G Sensor is triggered

The Lukas camera records in .AVI format - both channels are encoding using VBR video.

The VBR on these cameras is extremely aggressive and you can see that front video has an average bitrate of 7.2Mbps and a peak of 17.3Mbps.



The rear camera is a lower bitrate - you can see in this instance it's got an average of 5.2Mbps and a peak of 9.7Mbps



By default you can see the front and rear files are signified by a suffix of either _F (for front) or _R (for rear):

 

[reverend]

Lukas has enough room for LCD on the back just like Panorama so what's the reason behind not having LCD?

The 7950 doesn't need one thanks to wifi mate - Lukas have the LK9750 series which has an LCD and operates with a similar interface to the Panorama X1 / X2 and FineVu cameras (they're all going down the Windows 8 Metro appearance these days)

 

[reverend]

In terms of configuration options this is the most advanced camera I've seen to date.

The Lukas provided Viewer software lets you change the configuration of the camera from within the GUI and the options are shown below - there are more options exposed from the Windows app than from the iPhone application.









The options for adjusting whether you have a tinted window are excellent - I've changed the settings so that mine is now set to dark tinting to see how this works - I'll go out later and see what the footage is like.

It's also interesting that the software can let you factor in voltage loss across the cable - the X2 used the same settings by default as the Lukas has here where 0.3v is configured to cope with voltage loss across the cable.

 

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Here's a screenshot of the Lukas viewer in action:



It's very simple - basically the graph shows the figures from the G Sensor, and you pick the file from the top right side of the screen.

The software automatically syncs up the front and rear channel video and plays them back to show data from both sides.

No matter if you double click the front or rear channel video in the list it will play the front channel in the larger window and rear channel in the smaller section at the bottom right of the viewer window.

To enlarge either you just double click and that video becomes full screen.

To access the map functionality in the Lukas viewer software just click the information tab.

You can't resize the window either - it's either the size in the screenshot or you can maximise it - there's no in between.

Speed wise you can play the video back at double speed by changing the little icon at the bottom near the video control icons and you can change the size of the video and then pan around if required.

 

[Sunny]

Looks good.
I like different files for rear and front. Is the X2 same way or dual channel video in one file?

 

[reverend]

The X2 writes 15Mbps video to separate video cards mate, so basically one is the front card and the other is the rear - it's like two totally separate dashcams all controllable from one screen.

This Lukas writes all video to the full size card - I need to read the book as there will be an option somewhere. It makes a change for me to RTFM

 

[Sunny]

The X2 writes 15Mbps video to separate video cards mate, so basically one is the front card and the other is the rear - it's like two totally separate dashcams all controllable from one screen.

This Lukas writes all video to the full size card - I need to read the book as there will be an option somewhere. It makes a change for me to RTFM

I see. I have larger microSD than regular SD so need to use adapter as it's writing two files at the same time so will use more space.
However, I see the file size is very small at around 156mb for front and around 105mb for rear.
Older G1W has around 300mb per 3 minute clips.

How long clips are these?
Both front and rear are 1080p so why size difference?
Why so low file size?

 

[reverend]

A lot of the Korean cameras do use a lower bitrate mate, I'm not actually sure what triggered the rise in bitrate.

@Mtz was telling me about his iTronics camera which also has a very low bitrate.

It does impact the quality but so far I can read numberplates etc and see what is happening nicely.

I've uploaded some clips to Youtube here:

It's not the nicest day here but the camera seems to be handling numberplates fine.

 

[Sunny]

What class card are you using?
With two files being written at the same time, did Lukas recommend any class or just a common sense to use class 6 or higher? It comes with SD card but if needed to add.
If the bit rate is little higher on these, class 6 can't keep up and definitely need class 10.

What about UHS card compatibility? I think I have some 16gb UHS 1 cards to try.