Nigel
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- Dash Cam
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Viofo A129 Pro Dual Dashcam - 4K Front + 1080 Rear
The dash camera we have been waiting for, a 4K version of our favorite A129 Duo that records real 4K at a decent bitrate, and works at night!
There are a few people with early versions of this camera now, so here is a thread to post your videos and frame grabs on...
Overview
This is a high resolution version of the A129 Duo, most of the features are identical, and it looks identical. The exceptions being:
Daytime performance is excellent with good dynamic range, excellent exposure and high bitrates. While some 4K dashcams only use 1080 bitrates for their 4K, the A129 Pro can actually use 4x the bitrate of the A129 Duo, which makes sense as it has 4x the number of pixels. Lower bitrates are available for if you don't want to fill the memory card too fast. It can also provide H265 encoding, which may improve image quality a little if you do select a lower bitrate and aren't driving under trees. H265 can mean difficulties on playback since many devices will struggle with high bitrate 4K encoded in H265, the normal H264 is of course available and is the default.
When it comes to dark performance where we expect a 4K camera to perform poorly, while the Sony IMX317 isn't actually a STARVIS sensor like in the A129 Duo, it is quite close in dark performance. At times there is a bit more motion blur than with the A129 Duo, but not always, and if you are driving straight then the extra resolution results in more number plates being read than on the Duo, even at night, sometimes it actually wins on the motion blur against both the A129 Duo and A119 V3.
The 5GHz Wi-Fi is significantly faster than that on the A129 Duo, typical transfer rates being around 10 MBytes per second while the Duo often only manages 1-2 MByte per second depending on the device it is talking to. Of course it needs to be faster due to the size of the 4K video so it is still not exactly rapid! It is still faster to put the microSD card in a high speed card reader if you want to copy the files off, but it will keep up with playing the 4K video files without stutter, assuming that your phone/tablet/computer can also manage!
4K dash cameras are known for overheating in hot weather, especially when used for parking mode inside a roasting car at mid summer. I live in the UK, so my testing has been limited to UK weather, nothing extreme. So far I have encountered no heat related problems other than it feeling a bit warm on sunny days. Best not to touch the metal of the USB ports but otherwise no problems. We will have to wait for reports from hotter places for a conclusion, but I do expect it to do a lot better than some of the competition which have been having issues...
Notes
If you view your video on a 1080 monitor, you need to make sure you use a video player or dashcam viewer that has a good zoom feature, otherwise you will not see the 4K detail! Even if you have a 4K monitor, the zoom feature is still highly desirable.
If you are going to be using maximum bitrate then a Class 10 or U1 memory card may not be sufficient unless it is actually faster than the U1 specification, thus a U3 card is recommended. Some U1 cards are actually quite a lot faster than the U1 specification requires, some are close to U3, so may work OK.
If you live somewhere hot then it may be worth looking for a memory card that can handle high temperatures since the card is quite likely to have temperature problems before the camera.
I've been using a Viofo 128GB MLC microSD memory card which has proven 100% reliable so far and has excellent performance. Maybe one of the best cards available since the "extreme" cards from the big brand names such as Sandisk are not using MLC memory and may not have the lifetime of real MLC.
Viofo has supplied pre-release versions of the A129 Pro to some forum members for test purposes, and probably also publicity purposes. The release version may have differences to what has been posted on the early part of this thread, hopefully improvements resulting from the testing. Link:
Unboxing Video (Paul Iddon)
Link: What the A129 Pro (4K Dashcam will look like)
Videos and Frame Grabs
To follow...
The dash camera we have been waiting for, a 4K version of our favorite A129 Duo that records real 4K at a decent bitrate, and works at night!
There are a few people with early versions of this camera now, so here is a thread to post your videos and frame grabs on...
Overview
This is a high resolution version of the A129 Duo, most of the features are identical, and it looks identical. The exceptions being:
- 4K 1/2.5 inch "Sony Exmor R" front image sensor, giving 4x the detail of the A129 Duo
- 4K F1.8 130° all glass front lens.
- 5GHz high speed Wi-Fi.
- Improved quality and more sensitive audio.
- More powerful version of the Novatek processor allowing recording at 4x the bitrate of the A129 Duo.
- Power consumption - Uses nearly twice the power, approaching 1 amp at times, not too bad for 4x the resolution!
- Weight - it is noticeably heavier, due to the cooling system.
Daytime performance is excellent with good dynamic range, excellent exposure and high bitrates. While some 4K dashcams only use 1080 bitrates for their 4K, the A129 Pro can actually use 4x the bitrate of the A129 Duo, which makes sense as it has 4x the number of pixels. Lower bitrates are available for if you don't want to fill the memory card too fast. It can also provide H265 encoding, which may improve image quality a little if you do select a lower bitrate and aren't driving under trees. H265 can mean difficulties on playback since many devices will struggle with high bitrate 4K encoded in H265, the normal H264 is of course available and is the default.
When it comes to dark performance where we expect a 4K camera to perform poorly, while the Sony IMX317 isn't actually a STARVIS sensor like in the A129 Duo, it is quite close in dark performance. At times there is a bit more motion blur than with the A129 Duo, but not always, and if you are driving straight then the extra resolution results in more number plates being read than on the Duo, even at night, sometimes it actually wins on the motion blur against both the A129 Duo and A119 V3.
The 5GHz Wi-Fi is significantly faster than that on the A129 Duo, typical transfer rates being around 10 MBytes per second while the Duo often only manages 1-2 MByte per second depending on the device it is talking to. Of course it needs to be faster due to the size of the 4K video so it is still not exactly rapid! It is still faster to put the microSD card in a high speed card reader if you want to copy the files off, but it will keep up with playing the 4K video files without stutter, assuming that your phone/tablet/computer can also manage!
4K dash cameras are known for overheating in hot weather, especially when used for parking mode inside a roasting car at mid summer. I live in the UK, so my testing has been limited to UK weather, nothing extreme. So far I have encountered no heat related problems other than it feeling a bit warm on sunny days. Best not to touch the metal of the USB ports but otherwise no problems. We will have to wait for reports from hotter places for a conclusion, but I do expect it to do a lot better than some of the competition which have been having issues...
Notes
If you view your video on a 1080 monitor, you need to make sure you use a video player or dashcam viewer that has a good zoom feature, otherwise you will not see the 4K detail! Even if you have a 4K monitor, the zoom feature is still highly desirable.
If you are going to be using maximum bitrate then a Class 10 or U1 memory card may not be sufficient unless it is actually faster than the U1 specification, thus a U3 card is recommended. Some U1 cards are actually quite a lot faster than the U1 specification requires, some are close to U3, so may work OK.
If you live somewhere hot then it may be worth looking for a memory card that can handle high temperatures since the card is quite likely to have temperature problems before the camera.
I've been using a Viofo 128GB MLC microSD memory card which has proven 100% reliable so far and has excellent performance. Maybe one of the best cards available since the "extreme" cards from the big brand names such as Sandisk are not using MLC memory and may not have the lifetime of real MLC.
Viofo has supplied pre-release versions of the A129 Pro to some forum members for test purposes, and probably also publicity purposes. The release version may have differences to what has been posted on the early part of this thread, hopefully improvements resulting from the testing. Link:
Unboxing Video (Paul Iddon)
Link: What the A129 Pro (4K Dashcam will look like)
Videos and Frame Grabs
To follow...
Last edited: