Yi Ultra Dash Camera

jokiin said:
He doesn't hide the fact that he posts affiliate links, it's mentioned on his website

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He also mentions that not all products are purchased, some stuff has been pre release
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That's changed then. šŸ™
 
c4rc4m said:
Actually this concerns me from a quality perspective. At night, or in lower light eg a dull day, why would you reduce the data rate? In theory at night you can see less, so less detail, so you might be tempted but there maybe a lot of detail there in the form of noise, and as the encoder presumably can't tell the difference between it and a genuine pixel, presumably that detail can in turn cause compression artefacts where high compression is used (low bit rate) due to the high level of detail being compressed - just a guess but seems logical). However, at night, the quality looks much lower in the above examples and when it's dull in the day it looks lower as well. When it's dull I can't see any justification for reducing the bit rate as the detail is still there and visible.

It seems to me that reducing the data rate according to the light conditions is just an anal way of saving SD card space and adversely affects quality. Why not simply set a data rate and leave it the same bright light, dull light and night? People will miss quality far more than an extra minutes recording space! Maybe someone needs to revisit the parameters of the VBR and up the minimum level considerably or switch it to CBR.
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I agree... Using VBR, I would've thought at lower light levels it would be a higher bit rate than bright days... The opposite of what the camera is actually doing.
So for now I have switched back to H.264 codec where the bit rate is constant..... Maybe another firmware will fix this...

But at least by using @wacko911 modified app we can play around with it and have the choice of either codec......
 
Wastedagen said:
I agree... Using VBR, I would've thought at lower light levels it would be a higher bit rate than bright days... The opposite of what the camera is actually doing.
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then the camera is doing as expected when using VBR
 
The camera should be varying the bit rate according to the detail yes. Although it doesn't necessarily follow there's substantially less detail at night (due to noise) or low day light (due to the fact that on a dull day you can see pretty much the same as on a bright day in the absence of mist, just not as brightly!) Ultimately the parameters of max and minimum bit rate are set by the programmer. You can find the settings in any video encoder when processing your own video in post. The hard encoder must have similar settings. My best guess would be the minimum bit rate setting is way to low to maintain the quality. There could be other causes though. I wouldn't claim to be a professional or to have an answer that's fact. I can only give my opinion on a possible cause.

At programming level I'd be unsure if there are also threshold settings for various levels of reduction such as if there's some kind of curve profile used of bit rate vs light level with threshold points added to control the shape of the curve. If so, maybe there are some issues here as well. I'm guessing you'd know the answer on that one Jokin being a manufacturer.
 
c4rc4m said:
The camera should be varying the bit rate according to the detail yes. Although it doesn't necessarily follow there's substantially less detail at night (due to noise) or low day light (due to the fact that on a dull day you can see pretty much the same as on a bright day in the absence of mist, just not as brightly!) Ultimately the parameters of max and minimum bit rate are set by the programmer. You can find the settings in any video encoder when processing your own video in post. The hard encoder must have similar settings. My best guess would be the minimum bit rate setting is way to low to maintain the quality. There could be other causes though. I wouldn't claim to be a professional or to have an answer that's fact. I can only give my opinion on a possible cause.

At programming level I'd be unsure if there are also threshold settings for various levels of reduction such as if there's some kind of curve profile used of bit rate vs light level with threshold points added to control the shape of the curve. If so, maybe there are some issues here as well. I'm guessing you'd know the answer on that one Jokin being a manufacturer.
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There seems to be a few variables when using VBR... (clues in the name, lol) so it would be a lot easier if the firmware could just be changed to CBR @ 13mb/s..... Halve of that of H.264. But I guess that would need the programmer to set that.. With this camera being able to take 128gb cards, trying to reduce file sizes too much is not necessary now.....
 
Wastedagen said:
There seems to be a few variables when using VBR... (clues in the name, lol) so it would be a lot easier if the firmware could just be changed to CBR @ 13mb/s..... Halve of that of H.264. But I guess that would need the programmer to set that.. With this camera being able to take 128gb cards, trying to reduce file sizes too much is not necessary now.....
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Personally if going own that route I'd suggest just have it CBR at the same rate as for h.264 and have increased quality in any event. There's no loss of storage space if the amount of data stored is the same as for h264, and if that much storage was acceptable for h264 then why not use it fully for h265?
 
c4rc4m said:
Personally if going own that route I'd suggest just have it CBR at the same rate as for h.264 and have increased quality in any event. There's no loss of storage space if the amount of data stored is the same as for h264, and if that much storage was acceptable for h264 then why not use it fully for h265?
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True and what with H.265 being a better codec anyhow, it would be a win win from both sides....
 
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Did you know, that a 43mm CPL Filter fits out of the box on the Yi Ultra dashcam? There is no step up adapter needed compared to the other yi dashcam like here Xiaomi Yi Car DVR - Easy CPL filter !
The ayex MRC CPL Filter-43mm Multicoated Polfilter Slim needs no extra modification.

Pictures and recordings will be available the next days.

Sorry guys, it was early evening and i mounted it the wrong side, but the polarization only works one direction. Next filter with 46mm will be delivered on thursday.
 
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Just to confirm the stuttering issues I was having with h.265 recording was due to using the stock SD card. Replaced with Samsung as suggested and both cams working fine.
 
Any comparison foothage / shots?
 
I'll give it a week and check. Looked about the same quality to my untrained eye at half the filesize
 
Dashcam Bandit said:
Nice comparision to Viofo A119 (with beta HDR firmware)

vlcsnap000.jpg
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Hi guys, I'm currently using Viofo A119 and the pics are sharp.. in the above pics, the A119 seems to be sharper significantly more than the Yi Ultra Dash cam... and the A119 has lower resolution than the Ultra... so does anyone have real life usage experience of these 2 dash cams and is the Yi Ultra really shaper (in day and night) due to its higher resolution? Thanks a lot for your advice..... cheers!
 
wacko911 said:
I'll give it a week and check. Looked about the same quality to my untrained eye at half the filesize
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Are you still using the YI Ultra?

I've just reinstalled mine after a good few months using the DOD LS475W+. A camera 3 times the price but certainly doesn't produce 3 times the video quality...

So just wondering if you and others on here are still using the YI, and if you're using H.265 or H. 264 codec...

Thanks...
 
Wastedagen said:
Are you still using the YI Ultra?

I've just reinstalled mine after a good few months using the DOD LS475W+. A camera 3 times the price but certainly doesn't produce 3 times the video quality...

So just wondering if you and others on here are still using the YI, and if you're using H.265 or H. 264 codec...

Thanks...
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Yes still using in both cars. H265 all the way but have switched to 1080p 60fps as the number plates are blurry at 30fps so bit of a waste on a 1440p camera.
 
Ok great... Yep, I have mine set at 1080p/60 too.. I'm all for smoothness too.... I need to change it to H.265 as I'm on H.264. Forgot to change it when I set up the app...
 
wacko911 said:
Wastedagen said:
Are you still using the YI Ultra?

I've just reinstalled mine after a good few months using the DOD LS475W+. A camera 3 times the price but certainly doesn't produce 3 times the video quality...

So just wondering if you and others on here are still using the YI, and if you're using H.265 or H. 264 codec...

Thanks...
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Yes still using in both cars. H265 all the way but have switched to 1080p 60fps as the number plates are blurry at 30fps so bit of a waste on a 1440p camera.
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Also meant to ask.. Are you still using H.265 as it's better quality video, or just for its storage capability..
 
Wastedagen said:
I agree... Using VBR, I would've thought at lower light levels it would be a higher bit rate than bright days... The opposite of what the camera is actually doing.
So for now I have switched back to H.264 codec where the bit rate is constant..... Maybe another firmware will fix this...

But at least by using @wacko911 modified app we can play around with it and have the choice of either codec......
Click to expand...

In low light there is less information available for the camera to capture so bitrate drops. This is very common with security cameras that run 24/7, bitrate is much lower at night
 
jackalopephoto said:
Wastedagen said:
I agree... Using VBR, I would've thought at lower light levels it would be a higher bit rate than bright days... The opposite of what the camera is actually doing.
So for now I have switched back to H.264 codec where the bit rate is constant..... Maybe another firmware will fix this...

But at least by using @wacko911 modified app we can play around with it and have the choice of either codec......
Click to expand...

In low light there is less information available for the camera to capture so bitrate drops. This is very common with security cameras that run 24/7, bitrate is much lower at night
Click to expand...
Ok, understood. But why does it only do this when using the HEVC codec and not the H.264.
I would've thought at night it would need all the help it an get..

Some of my nighttime HEVC video captures were as low as 500 kb/s data rate.... Looked OK on the phone but on a TV I'm guessing it would look pants.......
 
Wastedagen said:
Ok, understood. But why does it only do this when using the HEVC codec and not the H.264.
I would've thought at night it would need all the help it an get..

Some of my nighttime HEVC video captures were as low as 500 kb/s data rate.... Looked OK on the phone but on a TV I'm guessing it would look pants.......
Click to expand...

I think the H264 codec is a lot less good at saving data. Even if most of the image is unchanged, it still somehow wastes data on storing it. HEVC is way more efficient and some home security systems like Lorex use it to get very low data rates even with 2560x1440 and 4k resolutions. It works really well for home security because most of the image is just static, and only things like people walking through the frame needs to be recorded
 
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