Viofo A229 Plus vs Viofo VS1 vs Thinkware Q200 vs FineVu GX35

[safedrivesolutions]

Here we go. This is a sample video of some 2K dash cameras on the market.
Fine Vu sent us a GX35 a while back and we finally got around to having some video comparison.

We wanted to analyze some of the differences of these dash cameras while driving.

Fine Vu GX35 - 5MP - IMX675 STARVIS 2
Viofo A229 plus - 5MP - IMX675 STARVIS 2
Viofo VS1 - 5MP - IMX675 STARVIS 2
Thinkware Q200 - 4 MP - Omnivision

In the future we will have tunnel test, parking mode tests as well.

Enjoy

 

[Mtz]

Scary to see how people are wasting money on non-HDR dashcams. And some of them are not cheap at all.

 

[Nigel]

Why is the Finevu jerky on the corners? It looks like 24fps?

 

[Mtz]

I hope they are not duplicate frames because that is the behavior of duplicate frames!

 

[Nigel]

I hope they are not duplicate frames because that is the behavior of duplicate frames!

I had a closer look, it was recording at 30fps, but we are only seeing 20fps, every 3rd frame is either missing or duplicated, need to look at the original files to distinguish which.

 

[safedrivesolutions]

I had a closer look, it was recording at 30fps, but we are only seeing 20fps, every 3rd frame is either missing or duplicated, need to look at the original files to distinguish which.

What would you like me to look at?

 

[Nigel]

What would you like me to look at?

I assume the original file is marked as 30fps?

If you step through the original video file, one frame at a time, either in a player or editor, I think you will find that either frames are missing, or duplicated. If you watch a lamp post moving, each step it makes is a different distance, despite constant speed. Maybe sometimes it doesn't move at all?

Of course things may have gone wrong in your editing, so it would be good to know that the problem is in the original file, don't want to blame Finevu if it is not their problem!

 

[safedrivesolutions]

I assume the original file is marked as 30fps?

If you step through the original video file, one frame at a time, either in a player or editor, I think you will find that either frames are missing, or duplicated. If you watch a lamp post moving, each step it makes is a different distance, despite constant speed. Maybe sometimes it doesn't move at all?

Of course things may have gone wrong in your editing, so it would be good to know that the problem is in the original file, don't want to blame Finevu if it is not their problem!

I will check that out for sure

 

[safedrivesolutions]

Scary to see how people are wasting money on non-HDR dashcams. And some of them are not cheap at all.

I agree

 

[safedrivesolutions]

I assume the original file is marked as 30fps?

If you step through the original video file, one frame at a time, either in a player or editor, I think you will find that either frames are missing, or duplicated. If you watch a lamp post moving, each step it makes is a different distance, despite constant speed. Maybe sometimes it doesn't move at all?

Of course things may have gone wrong in your editing, so it would be good to know that the problem is in the original file, don't want to blame Finevu if it is not their problem!

 

[Nigel]

Excellent video, it is hard to explain that in words, you have done an excellent job in showing people what the problem actually is.

For what appears to be quite an expensive camera, as you said, "Not good" at all, in fact once you have seen and understood the problem, it seems like serious failure.

The image sensor is collecting frames at 30fps, they should pass through several processing stages to the memory card at 30fps, but something isn't keeping up, and the next stage in the process is having to reuse the previous frame because the next hasn't arrived by the time it is needed, the correct frame then gets lost. A fairly common problem during development, but cameras shouldn't be released to the customers in that state, there are a lot of frames missing, not just one per minute, more like 600 per minute.

It is possible that your editor has added the duplicate frames because the missing frames were not in the original file and it needs 30fps for its timeline; need to pull the file apart to check that, but it doesn't really matter, and it is most likely the duplicates are recorded in the original file. It is a failure of the camera either way.

 

[safedrivesolutions]

Excellent video, it is hard to explain that in words, you have done an excellent job in showing people what the problem actually is.

For what appears to be quite an expensive camera, as you said, "Not good" at all, in fact once you have seen and understood the problem, it seems like serious failure.

The image sensor is collecting frames at 30fps, they should pass through several processing stages to the memory card at 30fps, but something isn't keeping up, and the next stage in the process is having to reuse the previous frame because the next hasn't arrived by the time it is needed, the correct frame then gets lost. A fairly common problem during development, but cameras shouldn't be released to the customers in that state, there are a lot of frames missing, not just one per minute, more like 600 per minute.

It is possible that your editor has added the duplicate frames because the missing frames were not in the original file and it needs 30fps for its timeline; need to pull the file apart to check that, but it doesn't really matter, and it is most likely the duplicates are recorded in the original file. It is a failure of the camera either way.

So oddly enough i did some testing on my 4K dash cameras I have available. I think I may know why the FineVu is having an issue.


FineVu - use to use AVI files in GX1000 and GX33.

The new GX35 will output MP4 files directly through SD card as well as downloading it via smartphone. There is a problem. i am guessing it is in their software when they are converting it to MP4. I imagine it is still AVI but they have probably added something into to convert it to MP4. Which is 100% on their software. I have verified multiple videos operate this way.

 

[Nigel]

i am guessing it is in their software when they are converting it to MP4. I imagine it is still AVI but they have probably added something into to convert it to MP4. Which is 100% on their software.

AVI and MP4 are just containers. The video inside is probably H264 encoded in both cases for any recentish dashcams, so no conversion involving frames would be needed to transfer them, just copy the video out of one container and into the other without any re-encoding.

So it is unlikely there is anything to do with AVI on the new camera. Something in the processing sequence is simply not working fast enough to keep up. Maybe they are doing too much ADAS stuff or something for the amount of processing power they have!

 

[safedrivesolutions]

AVI and MP4 are just containers. The video inside is probably H264 encoded in both cases for any recentish dashcams, so no conversion involving frames would be needed to transfer them, just copy the video out of one container and into the other without any re-encoding.

So it is unlikely there is anything to do with AVI on the new camera. Something in the processing sequence is simply not working fast enough to keep up. Maybe they are doing too much ADAS stuff or something for the amount of processing power they have!

I turn off all the adas stuff. Hmm, I emailed FineVu for them to look at it. Now I know how to look that up and analyze it. Probably be a future video

Cheers

 

[Nigel]

I turn off all the adas stuff. Hmm, I emailed FineVu for them to look at it. Now I know how to look that up and analyze it. Probably be a future video

Cheers

I just tried playing the demo videos embedded on their GX35 website page, no controls for stepping through frames, but they look just as jerky as the FineVu in your OP. Presumably they are perfectly happy with this?

FINE

www.finevu.com

 

[rcg530]

@safedrivesolutions sent me the original GX35 videos so I could check for dropped/duplicated frames.

I checked the video footage with two different programs. MPC-BE (64-bit) video player version 1.6.10 and Adobe Premiere Pro v24.3.0 (Build 59). Using MPC-BE, I was not able to detect any duplicated or dropped video frames when I stepped through each video file frame-by-frame. Using Adobe Premiere Pro, I observed a duplicated video frame at the start of each video file. When I would check those same frames using MPC-BE, there were two distinct frames there (no duplicates). It appears that Adobe Premiere Pro has a problem with the first two frames of each GX35 video file.

 

[Nigel]

@safedrivesolutions sent me the original GX35 videos so I could check for dropped/duplicated frames.

I checked the video footage with two different programs. MPC-BE (64-bit) video player version 1.6.10 and Adobe Premiere Pro v24.3.0 (Build 59). Using MPC-BE, I was not able to detect any duplicated or dropped video frames when I stepped through each video file frame-by-frame. Using Adobe Premiere Pro, I observed a duplicated video frame at the start of each video file. When I would check those same frames using MPC-BE, there were two distinct frames there (no duplicates). It appears that Adobe Premiere Pro has a problem with the first two frames of each GX35 video file.

Are you seeing 30 frames per second?
And are their frame times correct?

 

[rcg530]

Are you seeing 30 frames per second?

Yes

And are their frame times correct?

Mostly yes - after the file transition duplicated frame (only in Adobe Premiere Pro is there a duplicated frame at the start of each video file). When I walk through all of the remaining frames in the video file, the video content is different for each frame. I do find that the FineVu status line timestamp does not always transition on the appropriate frame (each 30 frames). Looking at the video content, there are no additional duplicated frames, but there are occurrences when the status line timestamp will take 31 frames to change its value.

My Adobe Premiere Pro timeline is a 2560x1440 30fps timeline. I show the first video frame with the status line time value of 00h13m36s which is positioned at 03:44:00 in the Adobe Premiere Pro timeline. I advance 30 frames in the timeline and it is also the first frame that shows 00h13m37s in the status line.


Looking that the video content at the file transitions, I position the playhead to the point in the first file where it shows 00h14m35s in the status line at that is 04:42:00 in the timeline.



I advance the playhead to the first frame of the next video file. The video content of that frame and the "second" frame is the same. I only observe that behavior in Adobe Premiere Pro. Using the frame-by-frame feature in the MPC-BE player, the first and second frame have different video content. The screenshots show the Adobe Premiere Pro first three frames of the second video file. The first time have the same video content and the third has a slight change in the position of the streetlight.



Moving the playhead to 30 frames forward from when the time value first displayed 00h14m35s, it still displays 00h14m35s (which is wrong).



Moving one frame forward, it now displays the time value of 00h14m36s.



There are only 29 frames with the 00h14m36s timestamp in the status line in Adobe Premiere Pro. The first frame that displays the 00h14m37s timestamp is 04:44:00 in the timeline.

 

[safedrivesolutions]

@safedrivesolutions sent me the original GX35 videos so I could check for dropped/duplicated frames.

I checked the video footage with two different programs. MPC-BE (64-bit) video player version 1.6.10 and Adobe Premiere Pro v24.3.0 (Build 59). Using MPC-BE, I was not able to detect any duplicated or dropped video frames when I stepped through each video file frame-by-frame. Using Adobe Premiere Pro, I observed a duplicated video frame at the start of each video file. When I would check those same frames using MPC-BE, there were two distinct frames there (no duplicates). It appears that Adobe Premiere Pro has a problem with the first two frames of each GX35 video file.

Thank You for giving a second opinion of testing.

 

[rcg530]

Thank You for giving a second opinion of testing.

No problem. I did some checking in CapCut 3.8.0 for Windows. The "duplicated frame" at the beginning of each video file is not present in CapCut. CapCut has its own issue at the end of each video file. The last video frame of each video file and the first video frame of the next video file seems to drop a frame. I can see this by the amount of distance an object (car or sign) moves at the file transition point. The object seems to travel the amount of distance that it should take two frames to achieve.

Here are a series of screenshots of the CapCut timeline. The status timestamp incremented exactly at 30 frames. There is what appears to be a dropped frame at the video file transition point. Weird how CapCut and Adobe Premiere Pro have two different behaviors with the same video files.