Viofo A139 Testing thread

joe384

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Dash Cam
2 x DR590W-2CH, Cellink B
I haven't had the chance to do a proper review of the camera (we are technically in lockdown in my part of the UK, although everyone seems to be ignoring it!)

So I thought I would do a thread with all my testing results, issues and questions.

One of the first things I have noted with the camera is after 5 minutes of enabling wifi, wifi will turn off and if you try to turn it back on after this point the button will not work.

The only fix is to power cycle the camera and then use the wifi button again.
 
Wifi in dashcams is normally not intended for continuous use as it adds to the heat which has to be handled, so I would see the 5 minute auto-cut-off as a feature. A nice 'find' in the testing (y)

Phil
 
One of the first things I have noted with the camera is after 5 minutes of enabling wifi, wifi will turn off and if you try to turn it back on after this point the button will not work.
It should disable wifi after ten minutes with no connection, if your phone is connected then it should stay enabled, even if you are not running the app, when you park up and walk away from the car it should disconnect 10 minutes later.

I've tried mine with the 10 minute disconnect, after both not connecting and after connecting, and the button works fine in both situations.
Must be a reason yours did what it did, did you disconnect it in an odd situation, like leaving a video playing?
 
The first time it happened I was downloading clips. I had just finished downloading the 3rd clip, when I clicked to bring up the forth clip I got a connection error.
I noticed the wifi light had gone out so I tried to enable it but the button was unresponsive.

I then power-cycled the camera and enabled the wifi again. I downloaded the other small clips I wanted then browsed the settings and then I was in Live View for a while and the same thing happened again, wifi disconnected, light went out and button did not respond (no beeps)

I may try another phone as no-one else has had this issue.
 
First try playing with video editing and youtube:


There is not a huge difference at night time, you can see the A139 looks slightly sharper although in trying to get both videos on screen for a comparison I've butchered them somewhat. Will be interesting to see how well the HDR implementation works when it is done.

The rattling noise is one of the loose cables I think, I'm not sure if I have an external mic available to try
 
Mashing the 2 videos are okay for demonstrating low light performance, but otherwise you should go by the middle 50% of each feed, by tutting off the top and bottom 25%
But then you also have to insert text yourself as you loose the identifying writing at the bottom.
 
Overall exposure seems to be about the same on both. I noticed a bit more glare from headlights and streetlights on the A139.

The A139 video is stuttering. Is your original video like that?
 
I think you are right, I can just about see some stuttering when I look at the road markings, it looks smoother on the original but hard to tell.

I lost some of the audio track from the blackvue and I went through about 3 video editing programs, I am now using open shot as all the others I tried had limited free version.

I will redo it I think. Tommorow the car is going to be parked up on the road, good opportunity to test low bitrate parking mode some more.
 
Hmm, the original file is at 60fps, I did have it set to 30fps, but when you remove one of the cameras, it resets back to 60fps. So I was encoding the file at 30fps but the original was 60fps so that probably doesn't help.
 
Hmm, the original file is at 60fps, I did have it set to 30fps, but when you remove one of the cameras, it resets back to 60fps. So I was encoding the file at 30fps but the original was 60fps so that probably doesn't help.
30fps shouldn't be a problem, but it is quite common in editing programs to end up converting it to 24fps at some point, and that can cause obvious stuttering. Since you went through multiple editors I guess that is the cause.
 
This looks better (took ages for youtube to process)


I can't see any stuttering in that video, although the roads are quite bumpy which doesn't help trying to spot anything!
 
In this video it looks like there is stuttering


The bottom is the Viofo A139, it looks like the bollards stutter as I pull into the right turn lane, this was saved at 30fps, so obviously the video editor is messing it up a bit.
 
Had the car parked on the road today, it seemed to switch to parking mode fine. When I eventually drove off it switched back to driving mode (I guess it is going by the GPS).

The Normal and Parking mode files share the same space even though they are in different folders, what I mean by this is that normal driving files will get deleted eventually if you are in parking mode for too long. This is what I expect (y) Just thought I'd mention this as some dashcams have set % of space for certain files.

Protected files obviously don't get overwritten.
 
Haven't had the chance to test as I did not receive one
 
@joe384 Are you using a HWK? Have you viewed any of the parking files?

I still need to check the G-sensor when parked, but the motion detect works though maybe a bit too sensitive.

Phil
 
The Normal and Parking mode files share the same space even though they are in different folders, what I mean by this is that normal driving files will get deleted eventually if you are in parking mode for too long.
Have you checked this is true? Does sitting in parking mode when the card is full result in over-writing the driving mode files? I recall one iteration of the A129 firmware where they were in the same folder but had their own separate loop overwrite process and % space allocation.
 
I don't have a hardwire kit, I assume the camera is going into parking mode by using the GPS/G-sensor.

I moved my car at lunchtime and took the card out, there were only a couple of driving mode files from when I moved it at lunch time, the driving mode files from the morning where not there as the card had filled up during the morning with parking mode files (low bit rate). If they had their own separate allocation I would expect the driving mode files from the morning to be there.

Parking mode files are in a seperate folder
 
I had a slightly odd issue, this morning. I put in a bigger card from another dashcam, the viofo started beeping (not unexpected really)
I went into the app to format the card, then exited out the menu and started recording, but the viofo was still beeping.
When I power-cycled the viofo it started recording as normal and the beeping stopped

Not a big issue, advice on here is generally to do a proper format on a PC and reset settings etc when using a different card.
 
Was the recording light on solidly as it was beeping?

I sometimes forget to click the record button in the app for that before exiting the app, but phone apps aren't my strongest point :rolleyes: Maybe 1/4 of the time the app will give me a "device disconnected" error message somewhere along the way while using it but it reconnects with a click of the "connect" button. That's usually accompanied by a "wifi isn't connected to the internet" message from my phone so I think my problem is my phone. Not a big deal for me and I like the rest of how the app works :)

Phil
 
I didn't actually see the lights on the unit as I was sitting on the other side of the car. I was in a bit of a rush anyway so it's likely I might have not started the recording correctly :LOL:
 
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