VIOFO A229 Plus - Testing / Review - RCG

[rcg530]

VIOFO asked me to try using the VLC player on my Android devices to see if VLC could successfully stream the "Live View" video using the RTSP URL rtsp://192.168.1.254

When the A229 Plus is configured as a 2-channel (front+rear) with a resolution of 1440p60+1440p30, VLC has the same rate of failure showing/playing the live stream. That means 95% of the time it shows nothing on the screen and on a few very rare attempts it will show a few frames to a few seconds of video. VLC will attempt to play for a short time and then VLC gives up on the RTSP stream. If no video is displayed in VLC and I retry the RTSP request several times, the A229 Plus eventually freezes and then reboots.

The video information screen during the 2-channel attempts shows no video data is being streamed to the client device.



When I reconfigure the A229 Plus to a single channel configuration with 1440p60 for the front camera, VLC quickly displays the video feed from the A229 Plus front camera, and it continues to play the feed for as long as I let it. The video information for the RTSP stream shows this:

 

[ozguy]

In Denmark wee say " waiting for paint to dry " or "watching paint dry"
It is generally what best describe all employed by government.

Or, Like "Watching the grass grow" lol

 

[rcg530]

I tested VLC on my iPhone running iOS 15.7.9. With the A229 Plus having a resolution setting of “1440P60+1440P30”, the iPhone does no better than the Android devices.

While testing with VLC on the iPhone, I did discover that the RTSP feed will display correctly and keep up with the actual live content when the A229 Plus is NOT recording video to the microSD card. The memory card is a VIOFO 128GB MicroSD Card. I’ve tried a couple of different cards.

1440P60+1440P30 + Writing to memory card = Failure to stream video to VLC/app
1440P60+1440P30 + Not writing to memory card = Successful
1440P30+1440P30 + writing or not writing to memory card = Successful
1440P60 (front only) + writing or not writing to memory card = Successful

I ran a test with the VIOFO app on my Tripltek 8 Pro Android 10 device for 30 minutes having the A229 Plus configured with resolution 1440P60+1440P30” with recording turn off (repeated double beeps). The VIOFO app displayed the “Live View” screen just fine.

I believe this proves that it’s not the client device. It’s the A229 Plus that cannot keep up with the workload when writing to the memory card for resolution “1440P60+1440P30”. Repeated failures of the RTSP feed to the “Live View” panel in the VIOFO app seem to be enough to trigger a reboot or the load on the processor is too much.

Here’s a Google Drive link to a screen capture from my Tripltek 8 Pro tablet demonstrating the resolution and/or writing to the memory card behavior:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RdOl-TASsgPZrZX4FpDAdE6H09ec7DlT/view?usp=sharing

 

[Agie]

I tested VLC on my iPhone running iOS 15.7.9. With the A229 Plus having a resolution setting of “1440P60+1440P30”, the iPhone does no better than the Android devices.

While testing with VLC on the iPhone, I did discover that the RTSP feed will display correctly and keep up with the actual live content when the A229 Plus is NOT recording video to the microSD card. The memory card is a VIOFO 128GB MicroSD Card. I’ve tried a couple of different cards.

1440P60+1440P30 + Writing to memory card = Failure to stream video to VLC/app
1440P60+1440P30 + Not writing to memory card = Successful
1440P30+1440P30 + writing or not writing to memory card = Successful
1440P60 (front only) + writing or not writing to memory card = Successful

I ran a test with the VIOFO app on my Tripltek 8 Pro Android 10 device for 30 minutes having the A229 Plus configured with resolution 1440P60+1440P30” with recording turn off (repeated double beeps). The VIOFO app displayed the “Live View” screen just fine.

I believe this proves that it’s not the client device. It’s the A229 Plus that cannot keep up with the workload when writing to the memory card for resolution “1440P60+1440P30”. Repeated failures of the RTSP feed to the “Live View” panel in the VIOFO app seem to be enough to trigger a reboot or the load on the processor is too much.

Here’s a Google Drive link to a screen capture from my Tripltek 8 Pro tablet demonstrating the resolution and/or writing to the memory card behavior:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RdOl-TASsgPZrZX4FpDAdE6H09ec7DlT/view?usp=sharing

tripltek LoL what a name

 

[rcg530]

I tested VLC on my iPhone running iOS 15.7.9. With the A229 Plus having a resolution setting of “1440P60+1440P30”, the iPhone does no better than the Android devices.

While testing with VLC on the iPhone, I did discover that the RTSP feed will display correctly and keep up with the actual live content when the A229 Plus is NOT recording video to the microSD card. The memory card is a VIOFO 128GB MicroSD Card. I’ve tried a couple of different cards.

1440P60+1440P30 + Writing to memory card = Failure to stream video to VLC/app
1440P60+1440P30 + Not writing to memory card = Successful
1440P30+1440P30 + writing or not writing to memory card = Successful
1440P60 (front only) + writing or not writing to memory card = Successful

I ran a test with the VIOFO app on my Tripltek 8 Pro Android 10 device for 30 minutes having the A229 Plus configured with resolution 1440P60+1440P30” with recording turn off (repeated double beeps). The VIOFO app displayed the “Live View” screen just fine.

I believe this proves that it’s not the client device. It’s the A229 Plus that cannot keep up with the workload when writing to the memory card for resolution “1440P60+1440P30”. Repeated failures of the RTSP feed to the “Live View” panel in the VIOFO app seem to be enough to trigger a reboot or the load on the processor is too much.

Here’s a Google Drive link to a screen capture from my Tripltek 8 Pro tablet demonstrating the resolution and/or writing to the memory card behavior:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RdOl-TASsgPZrZX4FpDAdE6H09ec7DlT/view?usp=sharing

I've been waiting for VIOFO to reproduce this issue. They have stated it cannot be reproduced, but yet both I can @Panzer Platform can get the problem of the delayed/slow/no live view video with the A229 configured as a 2-channel dash camera with a resolution of "1440P60+1440P30". VIOFO thinks I may have a defective A229 Plus, but I'm not sure that is the case (yet). During my tests, the A229 Plus will eventually lock up and then reboot during my test.

Since the problem involves the writing of video content to the memory card, I ran a couple more tests with two different “Bitrate” settings.

• Bitrate “Maximum”
  • After a few minutes, the A229 Plus will freeze, then reboot and all the while no video content will be streamed to the client device
    • There might be one or two frames of video content displayed on the video client, but that occurs very, very rarely
• Bitrate “Normal”
  • The A229 Plus does not freeze and live view content is successfully streamed to the client device.

When I tested the bitrate setting of “Normal”, I was able to successfully stream live view content to my Tripltek 8 Pro Android 10 device for more than 30 minutes. The dash camera behaved correctly during this entire test run with a “Normal” bitrate setting.

It's looking like the A229 Plus (or just my A229 Plus) cannot handle the amount of data being written to the memory card when the "Resolution" setting is set to "Maximum" with a resolution setting of "1440P60+1440P30" and a live view session (RTSP client: VIOFO app or VLC) is active.

When gathering my power consumption test data, I set all dash cameras that I test (not just the A229 Plus) to its highest possible video bitrate since that usually consumes more power than using lower bitrate settings. All other dash camera's I've tested have been able to handle this type of test. I've run this test using several different VIOFO microSD cards and a SanDisk Max Endurance microSD card and the memory card doesn't not seem to change this behavior.

 

[Deleted member 85644]

whoops...posted in wrong thread.

 

[Mplay020]

My first post was in a wrong thread, haha. Been lurking for a bit and have my eye on the plus, great to see everyone here trying to help iron out the bugs in the firmware!

 

[Panzer Platform]

both I can @Panzer Platform can get the problem of the delayed/slow/no live view

Confirmed & verified.

 

[rcg530]

I recently received updated firmware files for the A229 Plus front/rear cameras. The rebooting issue that would occur during a "Live View" session with the video resolution set to "1440p60 (Front) + 1440p30 (Rear)" has been resolved. I'm able to get a "Live View" session running for all available video resolutions. The file rotation issue (front / rear / interior rotating at slightly different times) looks like it is resolved as well.

I completed my power consumption test suite for all camera configurations (3CH, 2CH Front+Rear, 2CH Front+Interior, 1CH) and normal recording resolution settings and all parking modes. I updated post #3 of this thread with the power consumption data. The firmware versions listed in the power consumption charts of v1.0_231117 (front) and v1.0_231116 have not been released yet, I'm hoping @viofo will update the publicly available firmware versions in the near future to include the fixes included in the versions I tested.

 

[Panzer Platform]

The rebooting issue that would occur during a "Live View" session with the video resolution set to "1440p60 (Front) + 1440p30 (Rear)" has been resolved. I'm able to get a "Live View" session running for all available video resolutions. The file rotation issue (front / rear / interior rotating at slightly different times) looks like it is resolved as well.

That's great news.

What about night time HDR performance, would you say it's now acceptable, or unacceptable?

 

[rcg530]

That's great news.

What about night time HDR performance, would you say it's now acceptable, or unacceptable?

I don't know about the A229 Plus HDR performance yet. I won't install a dash camera in my car unless I can get it to pass all of the tests in power consumption test suite. I've been testing many test versions of the A229 Pro firmware related to tuning the HDR performance. It's getting better and better... Tomorrow, I will install the A229 Plus (1CH for now) in my car to start gathering day/night footage over the next week.

 

[rcg530]

Hello,

i am planning to buy either the A229 plus or 2x mini 2
I would prefer the A229 Plus,
but according to the Youtube Video of "Safe Drive Solutions - Dash Cam Specialists" the night performance is on the level of the WM1

Also the WM1 looks bit sharper on daytime on the WM1

Is this a hardware issue of the A229 Plus ? Cannot believe that it performs so much worse than the A119 Mini 2 and is more like the WM1.

I had to wait for an A229 Plus firmware update to resolve a "Live View" / reboot problem which allowed me to complete my power consumption testing. With that done, I installed the A229 Plus in my car. I just started gathering A229 Plus footage. The only footage I have right now is daytime footage, but the A229 Plus front camera daytime footage looks very good. It will be a couple of days before I can start to gather A229 Plus nighttime footage.

 

[rcg530]

I just completed my A229 Pro / A229 Plus / A139 Pro nighttime comparison video.

 

[Vortex Radar]

I just completed my A229 Pro / A229 Plus / A139 Pro nighttime comparison video.

Thanks for the comparison! I noticed you ran 1CH, 2CH, and 3CH configurations. Do you find that the results are comparable despite any front cam bitrate changes that come from running different configurations?

 

[rcg530]

Thanks for the comparison! I noticed you ran 1CH, 2CH, and 3CH configurations. Do you find that the results are comparable despite any front cam bitrate changes that come from running different configurations?

The A229 Plus front camera video is always 28.67 Mbps no matter what channel/camera configuration as long as the video resolution is set to 2560x1440p 30/60 fps.

The A139 Pro generates 44.86 Mbps video with resolution setting 3840x2160 30fps in a 2CH configuration (front + rear).

The A229 Pro generates 36.0 Mbps video with a resolution setting of 3840x2160 30fps in a 3CH configuration.

In the recent past, I did have my second A229 Pro in a 1CH configuration. I didn't find the video quality all that different from the 3CH configuration.

Right now, I my front windshield is maxed out with six dash cameras, so the channel configurations I selected for the A229 Plus / A229 Pro / A139 Pro were due to not having any more space left (front or rear).

 

[Vortex Radar]

Very interesting regarding the Plus!

Also interesting that you didn't note a huge difference between A229 Pro 1CH vs 3CH. I suspect the biggest differences would be when motion is present?

I hear you regarding the maxed out windshield, lol. I've got 4 on my WS already and the two new Blackvues just arrived... Not sure how best to rearrange things again...

 

[rcg530]

If you're considering the purchase of a VIOFO A229 Plus 2CH/3CH dash camera, you might want to check out my blog post on my company website. I have a discount code that will save you an additional 5% off the Amazon (US) price and $10 USD off the purchase price if you purchase it on the VIOFO website.

RetroCarGuy530, LLC - Blog Post - Save Money On Your VIOFO A229 Pro/Plus 2CH/3CH Purchase

 

[haiou_f]

很有价值的评测！请问a229plus和a229pro实际效果差距大吗

 

[rcg530]

很有价值的评测！请问a229plus和a229pro实际效果差距大吗

I prefer the A229 Plus at the moment based on how its video image quality looks in comparison to the A229 Pro (daytime brownish look to the video).

 

[haiou_f]

目前我更喜欢 A229 Plus，因为它的视频图像质量与 A229 Pro 相比（白天的视频呈棕色）。

谢谢