Viofo A229 Pro (unboxing & first impressions) (Novatek NT96529, Sony IMX678/IMX675/IMX307, HDR³, GPS⁴, 5Ghz WiFi, 4k front + 2k rear + 1080p cabin)

[Paul Iddon]

Yep, I know

 

[Karagandinez]

That's the problem. What we may deduce about the dashcams that we test here, if it's a YouTube reviewer with 200k subs then of course their review is going to have more clout. Even if they don't know what they're doing or reviewing

Well, yes. Someone cares about the number of subscribers and views. Personally, I don’t.
Although I am pleased to know that my videos help people make choices. And it doesn't matter which way.

 

[Agie]

Well, yes. Someone cares about the number of subscribers and views. Personally, I don’t.
Although I am pleased to know that my videos help people make choices. And it doesn't matter which way.

I should clarify that I mean that the viewers will by default, decide that their reviews have more clout. By virtue of their increased views etc.

None of those reviewers undertake the technical deep dives that a lot of folks such as yourself and others on here do.

 

[Mtz]

Honestly Agie if it wasn't for you we wouldn't have seen this design flaw.

lol. Where is the design flaw? A229 Pro is sharing the same case as A229 and I don't remember about heat problems, generally speaking.

A. Shorten or remove the heatsink and make side vents larger and place ventilation elsewhere.

Dashcam colling is based on heat dissipation and not ventilation holes. There are few holes in each dashcam but they don't help too much in he cooling process.

B. Install a user replaceable fan inside the unit. User replaceable because when it fails or on the verge of failure the noise it will make will be intolerable.

OMG, no!

C. Time to move on from the wedge shape. Start with the standard point and shoot digital camera style and then start trimming the fat. Keep the screen but have backlit soft keys. Or you can make the screen much smaller and drop the live view look and more like pictogram digital display like you find on a printer/photocopy machine.

A good joke to abandon the shape which was making Viofo famous. The wedge design is one of the best designs for dashcams, maybe the best design ever. Lets make the smartphones squares or rounded because some batteries exploded.
The screen is used as heat dissipation too. It is hot because of heat transferred from the main chipset and this is normal.
The more case you have the more the dashcam will be cooler. This is why you cannot put a real 4K dashcam on 2 or 3 channels in small cases. This is why the Viofo Mini 2 is just 4K and it will be never a 4K Viofo Mini 2 Pro.

D. Release a new firmware which takes into account thermal throttling. So instead of on --> overheat hard shutdown have on --> thermal throttling to allow limited functionality --> hard shut down

What limited functionality is possible for a dashcam? To not record? To just stay turned on? You should consider that all the heat problem is when the camera is in parking mode and not in driving mode. The camera must record in parking mode if the user enabled it and not just stay on. The thermal protection it is for shut it down and this is the best option. Maybe next time the driver will try to park the car not facing to the south or he will stop using windshield sunshaders.

Was it in parking mode or was it completely off? I'm assuming the overheating shutdown was done as you started your car.

Agie already told how was the status of the camera you should pay more attention when reading.

If Agies dashcam is shutting down when the car is parked with motor running then it is a problem with the main chipset heatsink, it is not making properly the contact with the chipset or with the case and because of this the heat generated by the chipset is not transferred to the case.
I hope Agie is using the original Viofo card because sometimes the camera shut downs are because of card overheat.
I consider the best thing right now is Agie to take out the rear cover and look inside what it is happening. It is very simple to take out the rear part.

 

[Agie]

lol. Where is the design flaw? A229 Pro is sharing the same case as A229 and I don't remember about heat problems, generally speaking.

Dashcam colling is based on heat dissipation and not ventilation holes. There are few holes in each dashcam but they don't help too much in he cooling process.

OMG, no!

A good joke to abandon the shape which was making Viofo famous. The wedge design is one of the best designs for dashcams, maybe the best design ever. Lets make the smartphones squares or rounded because some batteries exploded.
The screen is used as heat dissipation too. It is hot because of heat transferred from the main chipset and this is normal.
The more case you have the more the dashcam will be cooler. This is why you cannot put a real 4K dashcam on 2 or 3 channels in small cases. This is why the Viofo Mini 2 is just 4K and it will be never a 4K Viofo Mini 2 Pro.

What limited functionality is possible for a dashcam? To not record? To just stay turned on? You should consider that all the heat problem is when the camera is in parking mode and not in driving mode. The camera must record in parking mode if the user enabled it and not just stay on. The thermal protection it is for shut it down and this is the best option. Maybe next time the driver will try to park the car not facing to the south or he will stop using windshield sunshaders.

Agie already told how was the status of the camera you should pay more attention when reading.

If Agies dashcam is shutting down when the car is parked with motor running then it is a problem with the main chipset heatsink, it is not making properly the contact with the chipset or with the case and because of this the heat generated by the chipset is not transferred to the case.
I hope Agie is using the original Viofo card because sometimes the camera shut downs are because of card overheat.
I consider the best thing right now is Agie to take out the rear cover and look inside what it is happening. It is very simple to take out the rear part.

Yes using the original 128GB Viofo card.

 

[Nigel]

A. Shorten or remove the heatsink and make side vents larger and place ventilation elsewhere.

The vents need to be the right size for the application, just as a chimney has to be the right size for a fire, too big and it doesn't draw the air through fast enough, too small and it doesn't draw enough air. Just making the vents bigger doesn't work.

B. Install a user replaceable fan inside the unit. User replaceable because when it fails or on the verge of failure the noise it will make will be intolerable.

It is too hot in there for a fan, fans are designed to draw cool air, which keeps the fan itself cool as well as the thing it is cooling, and there is no cool air to draw - the fan will fail very quickly in hot weather.

C. Time to move on from the wedge shape. Start with the standard point and shoot digital camera style and then start trimming the fat.

The wedge shape is the best shape for a dashcam, not the best for heat, but 99% of the time I do not have a heat problem, and I prefer the advantages of the wedge shape over being able to use the camera in 40+°C temperatures.

D. Release a new firmware which takes into account thermal throttling. So instead of on --> overheat hard shutdown have on --> thermal throttling to allow limited functionality --> hard shut down

We already have that on the A139 Pro, but I'm not sure it makes a big difference, once the air gets too hot, a bit of throttling doesn't make much difference to when the memory card overheats.

Also I've been beating on it like a drum (some people here agree with me, some don't), but why can't Novatek implement better solutions with their chipsets. Smaller node processes for their chipsets would go a long way to improving efficiency, lowering heat etc. The fact they're using nearly a decade old architecture doesn't sit right with me.

They can do that, it needed huge investment in their factory, but next year we will see the results...

 

[vvs49]

My dvr shoots a video with a color rendering error, a photo, perhaps a firmware error, or an error in the device!!
And all three cameras shoot this way!
Gentlemen, can you check something like this on yours??
Thank you

 

[Nigel]

My dvr shoots a video with a color rendering error, a photo, perhaps a firmware error, or an error in the device!!
And all three cameras shoot this way!
Gentlemen, can you check something like this on yours??
Thank you

That seems a big difference!

The dashcam is designed to sit behind windscreen glass, which filters out a lot of the red, so it is not unusual for the white balance to be a bit out when not looking through glass, also it is expecting outdoor light, not inside lighting. It generally doesn't adjust the white balance too much because people don't like it continuously changing as they drive between trees or around corners.

I think when you install it in the car, you will get a good result, although probably still not the same as the Canon, Canon cameras often have a slightly different colour balance to other cameras.

It is not a sensor fault, it is just a different colour balance to the other camera.

 

[vvs49]

I think when you install it in the car, you will get a good result

I think you're right, when the weather gets better, I'll put it in the car and see what happens!!

 

[vvs49]

No, installing it in the car didn’t help, there’s a lot of red!!
Temperature 229PRO, in the cabin +24C

 

[Nigel]

No, installing it in the car didn’t help, there’s a lot of red!!
Temperature 229PRO, in the cabin +24C

Can you post an image with it outside the car and in the sunshine? Include some green trees or grass if possible.
Just wondering if it is missing the IR cut filter!

Presumably you have removed any plastic protection film from the lens and both sides of the CPL?

 

[vvs49]

The problem turned out to be with the OS, on the other laptop the video runs great!!
So, sorry for introducing a non-existent error!!

 

[vvs49]

comparison about reading numbers

 

[yowstudent]

I too would like to apologize!

I thought I had done enough research to have posted my opinion however it was only after I posted did I start to find much more information to contradict my viewpoint - I truly wish there was a way that I could have deleted my post at the time lol.

I had actually put in an order for the VIOFO A229 Pro 2-Channel then cancelled it.

However I can happily say I am re-ordering it now (well in the process of) as well as the hardwiring kit directly from VIOFO for the A229 Pro, a bluetooth button, and an 8m cable. I have a 2009 Toyota RAV4 with the door opening tailgate. Furthermore I found a company to install it for me.

Finally I won't have to worry (well a lot less than before) about rocket propelled sheets of ice from other vehicles in the winter and cyclists in Montreal and to a lesser extent Ottawa.

Also, I forget which thread it was in but thank you VIOFO for letting me know that I could order a CPL for the rear cam of my soon to own A229 Pro rear cam.

"Let us celebrate our new arrangement with the adding of chocolate to milk." - Homer Simpson

Now question; Novatek. I tried searching online for some information about the 96529 chip. However all I was able to find was just the company website. Does anyone have a spec sheet for that chip just like how Sony has done for their sensors: https://www.sony-semicon.com/en/products/is/security/security.html

 

[Agie]

I too would like to apologize!

I thought I had done enough research to have posted my opinion however it was only after I posted did I start to find much more information to contradict my viewpoint - I truly wish there was a way that I could have deleted my post at the time lol.

I had actually put in an order for the VIOFO A229 Pro 2-Channel then cancelled it.

However I can happily say I am re-ordering it now (well in the process of) as well as the hardwiring kit directly from VIOFO for the A229 Pro, a bluetooth button, and an 8m cable. I have a 2009 Toyota RAV4 with the door opening tailgate. Furthermore I found a company to install it for me.

Finally I won't have to worry (well a lot less than before) about rocket propelled sheets of ice from other vehicles in the winter and cyclists in Montreal and to a lesser extent Ottawa.

Also, I forget which thread it was in but thank you VIOFO for letting me know that I could order a CPL for the rear cam of my soon to own A229 Pro rear cam.

"Let us celebrate our new arrangement with the adding of chocolate to milk." - Homer Simpson

Now question; Novatek. I tried searching online for some information about the 96529 chip. However all I was able to find was just the company website. Does anyone have a spec sheet for that chip just like how Sony has done for their sensors: https://www.sony-semicon.com/en/products/is/security/security.html

No spec sheets they're hard to find for the chipsets. Even manufacturers are pretty coy about revealing exactly what specs are in them.

 

[Paul Iddon]

@yowstudent You're asking for the Holy Grail.... like all mankind you're never gonna find it

 

[haiou_f]

请求的 Viofo A229 Pro 与 Vantrue Nexus 4 Pro 的对决现已可供您观看：@Panzer Platform @viofo @VIOFO-支持

https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threa...true-nexus- 4-pro-shoot-out.49838/post-604661

太感谢了，这个帖子很有价值！

 

[vvs49]

ZV camera 229 Pro disassembly!!
(Disassembly is no different from disassembling the camera ZV T 130)

 

[vvs49]

I put on the CPL filter from 119V3, as foto, used 0.1 mm 2-sided tape, it holds for years dead

 

[vvs49]

And night comparison 139PRO 229PRO