VIOFO A119 V3

[Kremmen]

I'll offload my footage Monday and give it a side by side whirl on the PC to see. I'd like 60fps to work but if it's just too much then back to 30fps it is. Must remember to check the filesizes as well.

I'm currently set to 60fps and high bitrate.

 

[Paul Iddon]

That's all well and good, but looking at tiny screens and pushing little buttons depending on the amount of ambient light, isn't gonna make it for me.

Buy a Z-Edge 4 or similar. They are massive (4 inch screen) and you'll soon want tiny screens and to push little buttons again. If you didn't want tiny and little buttons, why buy it in the first place?

BTW, I am 100% happy with the performance of mine.

Paul.

 

[Tyestick]

I downloaded the latest software update, (update 2020.0711), and I’m absolutely loving it.

The previous update, was giving me issues with trying to use 1080 resolution at 60fps. I’d get lots of stuttering, and jittery footage.

After downloading the V2.0 firmware, and selecting (2560x1440P, 60fps), I noticed a immediate difference. Footage was much smoother, and the stuttering and jittery footage issue was eliminated.

License plates were also much easier to read which had been a issue for me with the previous firmware.

Thumbs up so far.

 

[Velvetfoot]

Buy a Z-Edge 4 or similar. They are massive (4 inch screen) and you'll soon want tiny screens and to push little buttons again. If you didn't want tiny and little buttons, why buy it in the first place?

BTW, I am 100% happy with the performance of mine.

Paul.

So, you'd be happy pushing little buttons depending on ambient light? I'd prefer not pushing any.

 

[Velvetfoot]

After downloading the V2.0 firmware, and selecting (2560x1440P, 60fps), I noticed a immediate difference. Footage was much smoother, and the stuttering and jittery footage issue was eliminated.

Have you checked it out at night?
I haven't, just in my dark garage.

 

[Paul Iddon]

So, you'd be happy pushing little buttons depending on ambient light? I'd prefer not pushing any.

Yeah, it's fine for me. If it's a bit dark I use the internal lamp. There's many a time that I get firmware updates very late at night and go and put them on. I've done it after midnight and just turn the light on in the car.

No hardship.

Maybe look into a cam with a touchscreen. They glow like a lighthouse at midnight!

 

[Tyestick]

Have you checked it out at night?
I haven't, just in my dark garage.

No nighttime footage as of yet.

How about doing a little ‘test and tune’?

Take a nighttime drive with the newest firmware; using a SD card adapter, you can view the results instantly on a laptop or on your cellphone if you decide to pull over somewhere and make any needed changes to your dashcam.

 

[Velvetfoot]

Yeah, it's fine for me. If it's a bit dark I use the internal lamp. There's many a time that I get firmware updates very late at night and go and put them on. I've done it after midnight and just turn the light on in the car.

No hardship.

Maybe look into a cam with a touchscreen. They glow like a lighthouse at midnight!

Hello...

Apparently, if it's light outside, HDR does not work as well as not.
Apparently, if it's dark outside, HDR works better as not.
Apparently, 30fps works better in the dark compared to 60fps.

You're happy doing the switching modes trick every time the sun goes up or down, be my guest.

 

[Paul Iddon]

TBF, I don't bother with HDR - the video is good enough for cam costing so little but performing so well.

 

[Velvetfoot]

I just finished driving up and down the road comparing 30fps and 60fps. It was early evening so the sun was getting a little lower and there were some shadows. I might've been able to pick up more plates (US) with 60fps, but it was hard for me to tell, with the lighting. I find it interesting that the 60fps files are maybe 60meg smaller (high bitrate, 3 minutes duration). Still haven't tried it at night yet. For all around use, I think I'm sticking with 30fps and HDR off, but this could change as the mood strikes, or other people make some fantastic discoveries.

PS: I had the polarizing filter on, so there's that as well.

 

[SawMaster]

You're happy doing the switching modes trick every time the sun goes up or down, be my guest.

There was a cam which addressed this by switching between day and night configurations at a pre-settable time. It failed due to other issues but IIRC that part of the system did work. AFAIK nobody else has implemented anything similar While a clock-based solution would work, I'd think one based on ambient light conditions would be more ideal, but that would get complex in a hurry and take processor space which might be better allocated to improved vid quality or other purposes. So overall, the clock-based solution is probably best given how dashcams are made.

The other part of this is that same as now, you need to find your own 'best configuration' as things like window tint, CPL use, and the places you normally drive (partially/fully lit city or totally dark countryside plus car speeds involved) will differ for all of us. And of course the time it gets dark itself varies through the year so you'd need to re-do that setting sat least a few times each year But even with all this, the concept is sound and useful and I think it could be a 'selling point' which could swing a buyer toward one cam over another nearly-equal cam which would also benefit the sellers as it benefits us too

Phil

 

[Velvetfoot]

You'd think the electronics already know how light it is-doesn't it use it to make exposure adjustments?

Barring that, GPS would know your latitude.

 

[SawMaster]

You'd think the electronics already know how light it is-doesn't it use it to make exposure adjustments?

Yes, the data is there already, but the issue lies in putting it to this use and whether that would be detrimental to other more important functions. Regardless of how easily (or not) it could be implemented it will most certainly use some of the memory space and processing power of the cam to do it.

How much effort that would take and how much impact that would have is far beyond my knowledge level I just know that it is or was possible with one system, and so I would think that it could still occur with the newer hardware we have now. For sure you and I would like to see this, so maybe our words here will prompt another try by someone else who makes a more successful cam.

That's about all that you and I can do, so now as always it is a 'wait and see' game to find out if and when it happens and who does it first

Phil

 

[gse]

There was a cam which addressed this by switching between day and night configurations at a pre-settable time.

There is such a recorder that uses automatic day and night switching at the time set in the menu and with preset exposure values for a given time of day. I suggested that Viofo implement this in their firmware, but apparently they are not interested in this or .............

 

[Dashmellow]

It would be interesting to see a dual front lens dash cam built using a dual channel chip-set such as the one used in the A129 Duo for example, where one channel is optimized for daylight shooting and the other optimized for night time. Switching between each channel at the appropriate time could easily be accomplished using a photoresistor.

 

[Stras]

I downloaded the latest software update, (update 2020.0711), and I’m absolutely loving it.



License plates were also much easier to read which had been a issue for me with the previous firmware.

Thumbs up so far.

Can you give a link to a file with such a survey, where, with HDR turned on, the numbers of oncoming cars are clearly visible at least during the day and at a convergence speed of about 150 km / h?

 

[Velvetfoot]

Can you give a link to a file with such a survey, where, with HDR turned on, the numbers of oncoming cars are clearly visible at least during the day and at a convergence speed of about 150 km / h?

He didn't say HDR on, just 1440 60fps.
Now, these are US plates

 

[Stras]

US plates

What is this: "US plates"?

 

[gse]

What is this: "US plates"?

These are license plates, plus all symbols on numbers in America are thin, not like in Russia.

 

[IAmATeaf]

It would be interesting to see a dual front lens dash cam built using a dual channel chip-set such as the one used in the A129 Duo for example, where one channel is optimized for daylight shooting and the other optimized for night time. Switching between each channel at the appropriate time could easily be accomplished using a photoresistor.

Why would you need to do that when with simple logic it could be implemented with the current single lens?