VIOFO А119V3 FIRMWARE

[vvs49]

In the latest firmware V2.6T of A119V3, HDR Auto and Two driving safety alarms are added. Check details from below vid #viofo #dashcam #A119V3... | By Viofo Dash Cam | Facebook

In the latest firmware V2.6T of A119V3, HDR Auto and Two driving safety alarms are added. Check details from below vid #viofo #dashcam #A119V3...

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[Mtz]

In thinking about my confusion about the AUTO setting, I think the settings might better have been designated OFF/ON/TIMER.

@VIOFO-Support also I agree with the TIMER name instead of AUTO name because that AUTO is confusing and creating users expectations which cannot be fulfilled right now or ever on A119 V3.

Of course, the best AUTO is with a photodiode twilight sensor but with actual hardware I think it is impossible.
Setting it by some automatic calculation is almost impossible because are too many regions.

But can be some little help for the users:
A 15 days reminder like the one of card formatting. With some warning at the start of the camera with a message like: Please adjust the HDR Timer.
Some very relative automation can be by adding or deleting 30 minutes on each first of the month. Of course here can be never ending debates about how that half hour is not OK in the winter or in the summer, or on sunrise and sunset different offset and most important, what is happening when the DST is changing the hour.
So the TIMER setting to have 4 options:
HDR OFF
HDR ON
15 days reminder On/Off
30 minutes offset On/Off

Regarding the time of HDR enabling/disabling I think it is important for people to know how to adjust it, so maybe you can give some ideas.
For example: check your sunset/sunrise hours for your zone on internet. Subtract half hour from your region sunset, add half hour for your region sunrise. Using dusk/down by international users is not so easy for them.

Example: sunset is at 16:45 so I will use 16:15 for HDR On. Sunrise is at 7:50 so I will use 8:20 for HDR Off.

 

[Dashmellow]

@VIOFO-Support also I agree with the TIMER name instead of AUTO name ASAP, because that AUTO is confusing and creating users expectations which cannot be fulfilled right now.

Of course, the best AUTO is with a photodiode sensor LED but with actual hardware I think it is impossible.
Setting it by some automatic calculation is almost impossible because are too many regions.

But can be some little help for the users:
A 15 days reminder like the one of card formatting. With some warning at the start of the camera with a message like: Please adjust the HDR Timer.
Some very relative automation can be by adding or deleting half hour on each first of the month. Of course here can be never ending debates about how that half hour is not OK in the winter or in the summer and most important what is happening when the DST is changing the hour.
So the TIMER setting to have 4 options:
HDR OFF
HDR ON
15 days reminder On/Off
30 minutes offset On/Off

Regarding the time of HDR enabling/disabling I think it is important for people to know how to adjust it, so maybe you can give some ideas.
For example: check your sunset/sunrise hours for your zone on internet. Subtract half hour from your region sunset, add half hour for your region sunrise. Using dusk/down by international users is not so easy for them.

Example: sunset is at 16:45 so I will use 16:15 for HDR On. Sunrise is at 7:50 so I will use 8:20 for HDR Off.

Great post! I absolutely agree.

And for designating the menu selection for enabling the manual TIMER setting as AUTO, it is not only confusing, it makes absolutely NO sense!

Think about this!

The word AUTOMATIC is literally the antonym for the word MANUAL.

ANTONYM - A word having a meaning opposite to that of another word: The word "wet" is an antonym of the word "dry."

The word "auto" is the opposite of the word "manual".

 

[IAmATeaf]

Can’t day/night be determined by the amount of light coming into the lens? Or would this not be possible due to other limitations?

 

[Mtz]

Just in theory.
A twilight dusk sensor is detecting the natural solar light which have different wave from the street city lights. If the car is on a very illuminated road, the HDR can be automatically disabled which can be wrong because nothing compares to the sun light.

 

[Dashmellow]

Can’t day/night be determined by the amount of light coming into the lens? Or would this not be possible due to other limitations?

That is what is what I was speculating about earlier but the current technology in the chip-set is unable to accomplished that, especially because of the reasons @Mtz mentioned.

if the camera now could somehow automatically turn ON and OFF HDR at dawn and dusk perhaps by analyzing the sensor

 

[Karagandinez]

I tested all official firmware from Viofo and all MODs from vvs49 on my DVR.
The Samsung EVO Plus 128GB card has always been used.
There were no problems.
I am using this card: MB-MC128GA/EU

Try another memory card.

 

[Dashmellow]

I've been using the Samsung EVO Select (128GB) in my A119 V3s for two years without any issues. The EVO Select and the EVO Plus are the same card sold under different branding labels.

 

[Mtz]

What value do you have set in loop recording?

Why are you keeping responding to forum posts written in other language than English? When musti21 posts will be deleted your posts will be useless.

 

[Kremmen]

Apologies if this has been answered.........

I've got 2.6T loaded and set HDR on/off 23:00/08:00

I'm assuming that the HDR gets assessed and set during boot up and the unit doesn't have to be on to perform the switch at the times set ?

My next 2 journeys will be Fri afternoon, HDR off, then Sunday morning, 06:00, HDR on.

 

[Mtz]

HDR status will be changed automatically. If this will happen during drive the recording will stop for few seconds and start again after the HDR status was changed.
You 23:00 hour is strange, I expect something like 17:00 during winter.

 

[Kremmen]

I never go out after 15:00 so 23:00 will be fine.

You mention the HDR will change automatically and there will be a few seconds gap. I understand that. What I'm trying to get my head round is ......

As an example :

I drive during the day, HDR should be off. I park up and the unit turns off.
When I next drive it will be 06:00.
The unit was powered down with HDR off so when will it switch to HDR on ?
During boot up or later when it realises HDR should be on ?

 

[Karagandinez]

The DVR will boot up, detect the present time and switch the HDR.

 

[Dashmellow]

Please don't forget to show it to us.

I will, assuming there is something worth showing.

We had a bit of an ice storm recently up here on my little mountain so it took me longer than I anticipated to begin testing v.2.6T as I couldn't even get out to where my truck is parked to retrieve my cameras to install the firmware without donning crampons.

Anyway, here are some initial results. Basically, no matter what colors or lettering I try to capture from various state license plates, the smaller plates you will find in North America cannot be captured adequately at night on the A119 V3 using HDR (this includes the plates in the USA, Canada, Mexico and most of Central America and the Caribbean) (edit: also various South American countries) This really only seems to work well with certain large white non-reflective European style plates.

So far, these were my best results.





HDR works well when vehicles are stationary or moving slowly.

 

[gse]

So far, these were my best results.

Can you upload a video?

 

[Dashmellow]

Can you upload a video?

I do occasionally upload some videos here on DCT but rarely. Unfortunately, I live in a rural area where I have very poor bandwidth. My fastest available connection is DSL 3 Mbps/768 Kbps. This means it takes me about an hour to upload a three minute 1080p video. It would take much longer for a 2K video from the V3, so I've never even tried it. For the time being I have to make do with screen shots.

My closest neighbor is about 1/3 to 1/2 a mile away and he was recently able to access high speed cable internet but they have yet to bring the cable up to where I live farther up on the mountain.

 

[Dashmellow]

Can you upload a video?

BTW, I selected these screen shots by carefully going through the video clips frame by frame on a 5K monitor, so these were indeed the best frames available to show.

 

[Dashmellow]

So, here is the second test I tried with v2.6T.

Usually, my habit is to set the exposure to -1/3 because it provides the best overall results. Here, I set the exposure to the default of 0 to see how it might affect the results. The result was that during the day the footage looked unusually washed out. Part of this was because the weather was overcast and it was beginning to get dark out. Still, I was surprised that a modest change in the exposure setting appeared to de-saturate the colors to such a degree. Motion blur during daylight hours appeared worse as well.



Most of the attempts to capture license plate at night were poor as well, but there were a few exceptions.

With certain frames, results were fairly good. By "good" I mean that you can capture the individual numbers and letters on the plate,
however, with this license plate size the results are too poor to be of any practical use.

Once again, this seems to confirm that HDR on the V3 only works well to capture European sized license plates at night.

In this image, I switched on my fog lamps to see if it might improve the results I could capture, and it did!






Most of the time, plate captures looked like this, or worse.

 

[Kremmen]

Thanks for the comments and pictures. I've only tried - 1/3 once and it was too dark, lacking detail.

When I first loaded a previous mod based on 2.5 I was very pleased with the daytime colour. It was more vibrant and pleasing. It was only when I needed a sharp frame of a new speed camera design that I ran into problems.

For my next journey I switched back to 1.03 and a sharp shot was available. Same speed, weather, daytime lighting, etc.

Over 90% of my annual journeys are daylight so that's where my interest lies. I have a 2.6T daytime journey (but an overcast day) waiting to be offloaded when I get home - watch this space

 

[Kremmen]

My results :

First a 2.6T daytime screengrab :

OK but very slight blur.

Next a 1.03 daytime screengrab, same speed :

Is it just me or is it sharper ?

Then a 2.6T dark screngrab :

The numberplate is almost visible so 2.6T is optimised for night. Certainly better than 1.03 at night.

Decisions decisions .......

Given that I drive mainly in daylight I think 1.03 does it for me.