Viofo, let’s go! A229 Pro 3-Channel Dash Camera review (+ RTC300 telephoto review & Vantrue Nexus 4 Pro shoot-out!)

Added some 2K 21:9 footage from the Viofo RTC300, to show off that particular resolution in use.

@viofo @VIOFO-Support



Day Footage: 2K 21:9 max bitrate, HDR off:



Night Footage: 2K 21:9 max bitrate, HDR on:

 
Last edited:
Agie said:
Added some 2K 21:9 footage from the Viofo RTC300, to show off that particular resolution in use.

@viofo @VIOFO-Support



Day Footage: 2K 21:9 max bitrate, HDR off:



Night Footage: 2K 21:9 max bitrate, HDR on:

reserved (coming within hours)
Click to expand...

Viewing this footage, the 21:9 format doesn't work for me with a telephoto. Having used a telephoto lens of one focal length or another for 7 years now I've come to think of these lenses as a tool for telling the story of your journey in a way that a standard wide angle lens can't tell on its own. Somehow, this format feels like it is missing part of the story and this seems like this could be even more of a problem depending on the circumstances. For example, there are times when you may want or need to capture objects, actions or parts of the scene above or below what the 21:9 format appears to be cropping from the frame, such as the road surface in front of an approaching vehicle or light poles, bridges and overpasses, or even fully capturing taller vehicles such as buses and trucks at closer approach.

People who are new to, or not yet familiar with what it feels like to run with a telephoto dash cam may not quite get what I am trying to describe here but my comments are based on my long time experience with them. Personally, I would opt for the more rectangular 16:9 ratio.

Edit: There isn't much to work with in @Agie's one minute of provided footage but this screen grab is an example of why I don't think 21:9 works well for a telephoto camera.

21_9_ratio.jpg
 
Last edited:
Dashmellow said:
Viewing this footage, the 21:9 format doesn't work for me with a telephoto. Having used a telephoto lens of one focal length or another for 7 years now I've come to think of these lenses as a tool for telling the story of your journey in a way that a standard wide angle lens can't tell on its own. Somehow, this format feels like it is missing part of the story and this seems like this could be even more of a problem depending on the circumstances. For example, there are times when you may want or need to capture objects, actions or parts of the scene above or below what the 21:19 format appears to be cropping from the frame, such as the road surface in front of an approaching vehicle or light poles, bridges and overpasses, or even fully capturing taller vehicles such as buses and trucks at closer approach.

People who are new to, or not yet familiar with what it feels like to run with a telephoto dash cam may not quite get what I am trying to describe here but my comments are based on my long time experience with them. Personally, I would opt for the more rectangular 16:9 ratio.

Edit: There isn't much to work with in @Agie's one minute of provided footage but this screen grab is an example of why I don't think 21:9 works well for a telephoto camera.

View attachment 73290
Click to expand...


Agree with what you say whole-heartedly. It's not as big of an issue on the standard non-telephoto lens, but ultimately it does cut off parts of the frame that can be used to gather further information in an incident. The issue is compounded as you say because a telephoto effectively 'zooms closer' into the action, making the cut-off even worse.

Don't get me wrong, the 21:9 gives a cool factor to the uninitiated, but we're not here watching HDR movies at home with a surround sound system. I did gather the 21:9 footage for the A229 Pro and VS1, but I have been running both at the normal 16:9 resolution ever since because I want as much of the sky and the road that I can get, in case of an accident.
 
Holy chromatic abberation batman

1720704622822.png
Any license plate enhancement may benefit from AI chromatic aberration removal before AI analysis.
 
mentadent said:
Holy chromatic abberation batman

View attachment 73302
Any license plate enhancement may benefit from AI chromatic aberration removal before AI analysis.
Click to expand...

I get what you are talking about and I see some minor yellow fringing but I think that most of what we are seeing here are halos from over-sharpening in the firmware which manifests at bright high contrast edges. I think toning down the sharpening slightly in the firmware would go a long way to eliminating these problems. This is assuming you find them to be a significant problem, but I'm not entirely convinced it is really that much of an issue here. I think I would need to see raw footage direct from the camera to make a judgement.

sharpening_halos.jpg

BTW, yellow fringing due to chromatic aberration is exceedingly rare. I'm not sure I've ever seen it before, although I understand it is possible. The most common is purple, followed by blue, red and green. (RGB) Yellow would imply a loss of blue because that's how the RBG color model works. (minus blue = yellow)

rgb.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Dashmellow said:
BTW, yellow fringing due to chromatic aberration is exceedingly rare. I'm not sure I've ever seen it before, although I understand it is possible.
Click to expand...

Some further thoughts on the alleged holy Batman level chromatic aberration we are seeing in @Agie's footage.

Reviewing the video further I can't help but notice that the footage has a very pronounced warm color bias, both from the apparent default color balance settings in the camera along with the very warm sunlight bathing the scene throughout most of the video. It is conceivable that what or some of what is being perceived as chromatic aberration could simply be the over-sharpening halos being affected by and overwhelmed by the extremely warm sunlight at that time of day coupled with the warm color balance settings.

It is something to consider here when evaluating this footage.


warm-color_balance.jpg

warm2.jpg

warm_3.jpg
 
Hey @Agie! Action Road is a very cool and intriguing name for a thoroughfare. Makes me wonder how it got that name and what it's like to drive on Action Road or, well, just what the hell goes on? :joyful:

action_road.jpg
 
Dashmellow said:
BTW, yellow fringing due to chromatic aberration is exceedingly rare. I'm not sure I've ever seen it before, although I understand it is possible. The most common is purple, followed by blue, red and green. (RGB) Yellow would imply a loss of blue because that's how the RBG color model works. (minus blue = yellow)
Click to expand...
You posted some earlier:
colorfringe-jpg.73257

Yellow fringing is just as common as blue, they go together, on either side of the lamp post, as do cyan and red, opposites on your colour model, and somehow you managed to get both combinations in that image!

The Viofo telephoto lens doesn't have yellow fringing, it has purple and green fringing, green is opposite purple on your colour model.
 
Nigel said:
You posted some earlier:
colorfringe-jpg.73257

Yellow fringing is just as common as blue, they go together, on either side of the lamp post, as do cyan and red, opposites on your colour model, and somehow you managed to get both combinations in that image!

The Viofo telephoto lens doesn't have yellow fringing, it has purple and green fringing, green is opposite purple on your colour model.
Click to expand...

That's not a typical image and I don't know where it came from or how it was made as it was grabbed off the internet. The image is likely the product of some cheap plastic lens. I posted it because it does a good job of illustrating what color fringing looks like for the uninitiated, but yes, any color is theoretically possible as I've already acknowledged but in my experience both as a professional photographer and a custom color printer, yellow chromatic aberration in most general photography is quite rare, especially with quality lenses.
 
Dashmellow said:
I get what you are talking about and I see some minor yellow fringing but I think that most of what we are seeing here are halos from over-sharpening in the firmware which manifests at bright high contrast edges. I think toning down the sharpening slightly in the firmware would go a long way to eliminating these problems. This is assuming you find them to be a significant problem, but I'm not entirely convinced it is really that much of an issue here. I think I would need to see raw footage direct from the camera to make a judgement.
Click to expand...
Perhaps there is a way to modify the sharpening to work with the chromatic aberration. It may be exaggerating it. I wonder how much it affects it at night.
 
mentadent said:
Perhaps there is a way to modify the sharpening to work with the chromatic aberration. It may be exaggerating it. I wonder how much it affects it at night.
Click to expand...

I don't know. It may take more time for people to test out this lens under a variety of circumstances and lighting conditions to really obtain a full objective evaluation of its performance. As I mentioned, all M12 lenses have some level of chromatic aberration.

I'm still curious about my color balance/warm lighting/oversharpening theory. I've noticed a warm color balance in some footage others have posted too.
 
mentadent said:
Perhaps there is a way to modify the sharpening to work with the chromatic aberration. It may be exaggerating it. I wonder how much it affects it at night.
Click to expand...

BTW, I mentioned recently that my first dash cam from 14 years ago had menu level controls for sharpening, contrast, brightness and other parameters but I've never seen that again with the exception of the Mobius. I would LOVE it if we could this get again in modern dash cams but I think manufacturers fear that customers who don't know what they are doing will screw things up and want to return their cameras. Of course, this could be done using a hidden sub-menu for access as well as a single setting to return to the factory default imaging settings. (Plus a prominent disclaimer in the owners manual that states that if you FUQ with the imaging settings you are on your own. :smuggrin: )
 
Dashmellow said:
Hey @Agie! Action Road is a very cool and intriguing name for a thoroughfare. Makes me wonder how it got that name and what it's like to drive on Action Road or, well, just what the hell goes on? :joyful:

View attachment 73309
Click to expand...
Having lived in the area years ago, I can assure you there is no action going on (thankfully or out of boredom!).

There is a business park that's five minutes drive north from here that's even worse with street names though.

Excellence Drive, Conquest Way, Inspiration Drive, Distinction Road, Motivation Drive, Triumph Avenue, Challenge Boulevard, Leadership Way, Achievement Way, Competition Way, Opportunity Street, Integrity Way, Vision Street.

Would hate to be an employee when the boss cracks a joke about the street you are on, and how you should be working harder....
 
Agie said:
Having lived in the area years ago, I can assure you there is no action going on (thankfully or out of boredom!).

There is a business park that's five minutes drive north from here that's even worse with street names though.

Excellence Drive, Conquest Way, Inspiration Drive, Distinction Road, Motivation Drive, Triumph Avenue, Challenge Boulevard, Leadership Way, Achievement Way, Competition Way, Opportunity Street, Integrity Way, Vision Street.

Would hate to be an employee when the boss cracks a joke about the street you are on, and how you should be working harder....
Click to expand...

I was hoping for a different kind of answer. :mad: I was hoping it might be more like Electric Avenue!! :D
 
Off-topic but sub stream recording as well would be useful for homemade cloud solution
 
Dashmellow said:
Yeah, when I first saw the name was Action Road I figured it was a place one might go to hook up with hot Aussie babes. :smuggrin:
Click to expand...
Haha sadly not lol. Reminded me just now of this television advert from aeons ago, you wouldn't get away with it these days but back then no one got so easily offended:

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top