Viofo A119S Video Review (includes A119 comparison)

USDashCamera

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Hey guys, I tested the A119S along side an A119 and here is my video review. This camera is slightly more expensive than the A119, but as of now you can get it for $109 on Amazon.

I feel like I probably said it multiple times over and over in the video but I still wanted to stress the whole night/brightness issue. I have been watching other peoples clips too, analyzing my own, and I have realized a lot of people come to opposite conclusions. I have heard people say the A119S had more contrast, or the A119 had more contrast, or the A119 was more detailed at night and day etc.

I tested both using WDR on, default exposure, no CPL adapter while driving, 1080p60 on both.

My conclusion was that the A119 was noticeably brighter, and in some cases you could actually see further [I will include the comparison screen shots here when I get home later] like in the last comparison in the video. But anytime I paused the videos, and tried to read signs or plates, I could make out text better in the A119S, as shown in the comparison with the highway overhead sign. In the end I conclude that I would prefer the A119S for the night quality, but I have heard other people say the opposite, for the 1440p mode in the A119. I think if anything the A119 is just a bit over exposed because when I watched the footage after watching the A119S, the S clips looked so much more natural, the color and contrast of the city at night seemed just like in real life, where the A119 looked overly bright like it just cranked up the brightness.

I did not include A119 @ 1440p30 vs A119S @ 1080p60 comparisons, I suppose it there was enough demand I could do that but I felt most people who really take these seriously prefer 1080p60 anyways. I personally felt the 60fps is more beneficial than the 360 extra rows of pixels. If you feel differently please comment below. Either way I wanted this video to not drag on too long so I focused on a more direct comparison that youtube would actually show (minus the 60fps of course).

Lemme know what you guys think, am I crazy to think the A119S is better at night? Besides all that color accuracy or whatever, I still felt like I could read signs clearer when I compared side by side footage.

p.s. I also did not include side by side video like I had done with the SG9665GC vs A119 because I felt like that video editor I have degraded the quality a lot. while the difference was still noticeable due to the brightness, it seemed side by side screenshots from the raw footage would be more representative to show detail. Again when I get home I plan to upload those screen shots here. But in the mean time if anyone has any free video editors they feel does good side by side video I'm open ears. I was using VCDC or w/e in the past to do side by side video, maybe I didn't have settings properly calibrated.
 
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p.s. I also did not include side by side video like I had done with the SG9665GC vs A119 because I felt like that video editor I have degraded the quality a lot. while the difference was still noticeable due to the brightness, it seemed side by side screenshots from the raw footage would be more representative to show detail. Again when I get home I plan to upload those screen shots here. But in the mean time if anyone has any free video editors they feel does good side by side video I'm open ears. I was using VCDC or w/e in the past to do side by side video, maybe I didn't have settings properly calibrated.
dont use your screenshoot from your computer because the quality of piture will depending on your computer as well.
The best is: capture a frame from your clips and upload to some host, sent link in here. Using VLC software.
Even you take a picture from a frame from clip and upload into internet. When i see it from my computer maybe diffirent when you see it from your computer. The monitor, hardware of computer will have effect to it too.
And yes. It's my conclusion too. A better sensor will have more natural colour picture.
 
The latest firmware update for the A119S V1.2 makes substantial/impressive improvement in video quality day and night.
Firmware update towards bottom of page:
https://dashcamtalk.com/viofo-a119s/
Found the A119s to be a well engineered mature product.
 
I was going to mention the same thing, the new A119S 1.2 firmware IQ improvement is substantial so you might want to re-do the side by side A119 vs A119S part of the review.
 
I was going to mention the same thing, the new A119S 1.2 firmware IQ improvement is substantial so you might want to re-do the side by side A119 vs A119S part of the review.
looking forward to this :)
 
Ah crap, I didn't think there would be a new firmware so quick, I removed the mounts and was giving my older A119 to a friend from tacoma world tonight (I typically "give" my cams to friends or family in return for any crash videos they capture and rarely ask for them back). I dunno if I would be able to do a new direct comparison anytime soon as I am already using two new cams (thinkware F50 and a new LG innotek cam) and my window can only take so many cams without driving me crazy.

Blackboxmycar did put up a new comparison here, not sure if it's 1.2 though (his is set to not display firmware), I would hope he did when it was posted just this month:


Normally I wouldn't tell people go watch other peoples videos hah, I just don't know if I can get to it now soon enough. While checking to see if there are other good comparisons to see for myself I found this guys channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg-H0tLXzYPReEeX2thNi3w/videos

He even ran two A119S models side by side one with 1.0 and one with 1.2 (although I only see a day comparison):


Looks like it changed the color to be more natural on his, with a bit more sharper picture.

My problem with doing these side by side videos is when I tried one in the past with the GC and A118 it seemed like the video editor was degrading the quality too much, then on top of that youtube compresses it. It's really hard to make an informed judgement based on these youtube videos.
 
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