VIOFO WR 1 unboxing

[jokiin]

I would actually disagree with that. The Yi is more accurate for tone / brightness in my opinion - look at the back of the car in front - it's blown out on the WR1 and clearly over exposed, whilst nicely balanced on the Yi. That said it depends on what you're looking for, maximum view to the side of the road / into the shadows or accurate tonality. It does also show one thing though, you can use Action Cams as dashcam if you don't have an issue with the feature set..

his comparison is with the YI dashcam, not the YI actioncam

 

[sone983]

I would actually disagree with that. The Yi is more accurate for tone / brightness in my opinion - look at the back of the car in front - it's blown out on the WR1 and clearly over exposed, whilst nicely balanced on the Yi. That said it depends on what you're looking for, maximum view to the side of the road / into the shadows or accurate tonality. It does also show one thing though, you can use Action Cams as dashcam if you don't have an issue with the feature set.

I must admit do love my WR1 and especially at night, though, I have to say, technically blown out or not, it really sees well.

As for the daylight video Sone, I think it shows how the WR1 performs best at night. It's by no means bad in the day, but it is a bit blurry compared to the best and when the BMW comes past, even pausing it with the BM just off the bumper, leaves the number plate all but unreadable. I think the WR1 is a great cam, and I got better results than that in daytime (maybe I had better lighting). However, it definitely excels at night whilst its good but not exceptional in the day.

I dont agree with you becaue I never used or owned any action cam so I cant used one as a dashcam, I think dashcams are for dashboards and action cams are for some sort of action. Regarding WR 1 I think its doing a great job even at day conditions. Situation with BMW is next that he's driving 100-110km/h and I was 70-80km/h, so maybe thats the reason WR 1 didnt catch his license plates. Better lightning or not WR 1 has a feature to adjust exposure which Yi hasnt and I like it. Just didnt have much time to experiment with those exposure value settings yet.

 

[Dashmellow]

I agree with you,except in the part regarding first firmware version. I changed my firmware version from fabric V1.0.0 to V1.0.1 , so its not a fabric-first firmware anymore but I understand its realted to improve and decrease a number of hot pixels.

Oh, I didn't realize there was an incremental .1 update. Still, these are early days yet. Glad to see Viofo is on the case with firmware updates. Those of use who have been buying dash cams for years have not always had that experience from many camera developers. Often you would buy a camera and be stuck with what you got. Maybe a single firmware update or two would eventually appear but often not. The manufacturer would have already moved on to a new product.

 

[sone983]

For about 5 months I own Yi no firmware update yet. Regarding WR 1 not a month passed from date I got one and new firmware is released. Hmmmm.... not sure what this means, no problems with Yi or better customer support from Viofo but in case of Viofo so far I like them and their dashcams. Got one A119s V2 with GPS on auction from OCD Tronic on Ebay for a 87.83$ with shipping to Serbia, impatient to try it in a car.

 

[c4rc4m]

I dont agree with you because I never used or owned any action cam so I cant used one as a dashcam, I think dashcams are for dashboards and action cams are for some sort of action. Regarding WR 1 I think its doing a great job even at day conditions. Situation with BMW is next that he's driving 100-110km/h and I was 70-80km/h, so maybe thats the reason WR 1 didnt catch his license plates. Better lightning or not WR 1 has a feature to adjust exposure which Yi hasnt and I like it. Just didnt have much time to experiment with those exposure value settings yet.

I used action cameras for years, in fact many were designed with motorsport in mind. The only difference really is in feature set. If you don't need GPS recording etc, then they are a possible alternative. I wasn't aware the Yi was the dashcam version. Either way, both produce excellent results.

The Yi is more accurate in tone but the greater sensitivity of the WR1 retrieves more detail from dark areas - horses for courses. They both look excellent low light choices to me.

The speed of the BMW was certainly a factor, although your daytime video shows a little more blur than mine. Again, speed may be a factor as mine was shot at urban speeds and yours at motorway. If I was to pinpoint a possible cause, I'd say the blurriness is characteristic of heavy compression / low bit rate. I had heard the WR1 is using 14mbs. File inspection on my PC actually suggests a total bit rate of 12.5mbs with around 11.8mbs for video and 705kbs in mono for sound. Container extension is .mov. That bit rate is very low in my opinion. For comparison, I believe the Opia 2 uses around 25mbs and the Hero 5 60mbs.

 

[sone983]

Daylight sunny conditions
Upper video is WR 1 and lower is Yi

 

[c4rc4m]

The Yi is undoubtedly better in daylight.

However, I'm going to say 1 word here - bit rate.

 

[Dashmellow]

The Yi is undoubtedly better in daylight.

However, I'm going to say 1 word here - bit rate.

bit rate - that's two words!

 

[sone983]

The Yi is undoubtedly better in daylight.

However, I'm going to say 1 word here - bit rate.

I disagree, maybe with this settings on this comparison video above, but WR 1 has an option-feature to change-adjust exposure values and Yi hasnt.

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[CaptureYourAction]

Well, the mount seems to be much better on the WR1. The Yi video is bouncing all around.

 

[sone983]

Well, the mount seems to be much better on the WR1. The Yi video is bouncing all around.

In my case at least.

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[c4rc4m]

I disagree, maybe with this settings on this comparison video above, but WR 1 has an option-feature to change-adjust exposure values and Yi hasnt.

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Exposure is not the issue. The issue is with sharpness and recorded detail. No amount of exposure compensation will improve that. In fact if anything, the WR1 has the more accurate exposure anyway - look at the sky.

What I am seeing is blurring in highly detailed areas such as trees which is a typical symptom of high compression as is the overall softness and blurriness. You can see it quite clearly in this tree lined shot:

That tends towards lens or compression. However, from experience I have reason to believe that it's compression as in my opinion no amount of sharpening will get rid of areas of colour that represent the leaves - the details simply been discarded.

Furthermore, the picture is much sharper and clearer at night, another indicator symptom as at night much of the picture is black = no detail in those areas = less detail overall = less data = less compression required so the picture sharpens. That's different from the gains purely from a more sensitive sensor.

12mbs is a very low data rate. The Yi uses 20mbs and personally I'd like to see at least 25mbs. I doubt the camera's hardware / thermal design could probably manage more than 25, it might not even manage that, but for really low artefact video, 50-100mbs is desirable. Most professional HD cameras use 100mbs+. This might not be a broadcast camera, but there are still some lessons to be learnt even if hardware limitations mean professional compression levels aren't achievable.

 

[sone983]

Exposure is not the issue. The issue is with sharpness and recorded detail. No amount of exposure compensation will improve that. In fact if anything, the WR1 has the more accurate exposure anyway - look at the sky.

What I am seeing is blurring in highly detailed areas such as trees which is a typical symptom of high compression as is the overall softness and blurriness. You can see it quite clearly in this tree lined shot:

That tends towards lens or compression. However, from experience I have reason to believe that it's compression as in my opinion no amount of sharpening will get rid of areas of colour that represent the leaves - the details simply been discarded.

Furthermore, the picture is much sharper and clearer at night, another indicator symptom as at night much of the picture is black = no detail in those areas = less detail overall = less data = less compression required so the picture sharpens. That's different from the gains purely from a more sensitive sensor.

12mbs is a very low data rate. The Yi uses 20mbs and personally I'd like to see at least 25mbs. I doubt the camera's hardware / thermal design could probably manage more than 25, it might not even manage that, but for really low artefact video, 50-100mbs is desirable. Most professional HD cameras use 100mbs+. This might not be a broadcast camera, but there are still some lessons to be learnt even if hardware limitations mean professional compression levels aren't achievable.

I didnt know that, I was thinking maybe with exposure adjust you can improve image-video quality. I dont have too much expirience in dashcams or in video quality. So my mistake and something new to learn from you is the best way to improve my knowledge about this subject.

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[c4rc4m]

I wouldn't claim to be an expert myself, but in my opinion / experience, I'd say it's likely to be data rate that's the culprit.

Unless the WR1 is at the limits of it's hardware capabilities, it's an easy fix. A simple firmware update can either increase the data rate or offer the option of an increased data rate in the advanced options.

Although probably not a technical explanation, exposure adjusts the brightness (and to an extent the contrast) of an image. It can affect detail by over or underexposing areas (making them too dark or light) but generally doesn't have much of an affect on sharpness or blur which are usually down to the lens, and occasionally the sensor or processing, but can also be down to compression where a picture is detailed enough to cause a lot of information to be discarded. Compression works by referencing areas of similar colour, and then storing a colour reference for all similar areas of pixels en masse, rather than recording the actual detail of each individual pixel thereby reducing the amount of information to be stored (my understanding). The downside to compression, is the exact colour of each pixel isn't always correct so when the picture is viewed, areas can have lost detail and / or become areas of blurred blotches of colour rather than defined detail. A frequently seen indicator for this can be the leaves on trees and bushes as these are areas of very high detail due to the sheer number of leaves and subtle variation in colour between them. The more compression a camera applies, the more detail is lost and that eventually reaches a point where it becomes visible. Video cameras are worse for this than stills cameras simply because the individual picture files stored need to be smaller, because you're storing 25 to 60 pictures per second, every second, as opposed to a still photo where you take and store a single picture.

I hope that helps explain simply, and I hope I'm myself correct in what I've said.

 

[sone983]

Today afternoon I came to work (my WR 1 isnt in my working car no more ) and I forgot to insert car charger of WR 1 from cig lighter hole, because my car battery isnt new anymore and I was afraid to left it plugged in. This morning the moment I entered my car I noticed this little blue led light was ON on WR 1's car charger, so then I took my phone,connected to app and start watching what WR 1 catched during that time ( from afternoon until morning ). Off course motion detection was ON.
This is some videos I accidentally caught on my WR 1 in parking mode with Motion Detection ON:
Day-afternoon
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1wyKejQMohGdE5nMTVDcnVmd2c/view?usp=sharing
Twilight-Dusk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1wyKejQMohGZERrRHNNMFlDS0k/view?usp=sharing
Night-early morning
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1wyKejQMohGQWo0M1kweFg4eDA/view?usp=sharing
Enjoy watching...

 

[sone983]

 

[sone983]

The newest firmware for WR 1 V.1.1
http://support.viofo.com/support/solutions/articles/19000061782-viofo-wr1-car-dash-camera-firmware

 

[sone983]

Just got update for Viofo app for WR 1 on my cellphone, hope app works much better.

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