Starting with V3, a few questions

[regressist]

Hi all,
I have received the nice toy and I started using it. Just a few questions, maybe stupid:
1) One of the two adhesive plates slides in relatively well, the other is quite hard, the tolerances are a bit loose I guess; I slid it in and out maybe a few hundred times with the hope to loose it, but I had little improvement. I am now using the first because I think with the other I would detach the whole plate if I tried to slide the camera out, and also with this maybe it will stress the glue. Question: is it really possible to unplug the camera without removing also the plate? How long does actually last the glue?
2) Being no expert of videos I am surprised by what is probably called flickering; I see in videos recorded at 14:00 with good light, traffic lights blinking and also the stop lights of SOME cars but not all. My frequency is at 50Hz. Do you have any explanation for this and any suggestion to improve it (I will try 60Hz tomorrow)?
3) I hoped the car plate was easier to identify. Do you suggest a piece of software, possibly free, able to extract single frames of the mp4 video? Maybe extracting a few and looking them slowly in sequence it is possible to reconstruct the whole sequence.
Thank you very much to whomever will reply

 

[kamkar]

Ciao regressist. Welcome to the forum.

Wedge cameras can develop a slop in the mount, hence why most supply 2 EVA foam pads you can out on back of camera or mount to fill up the gap, but this is usually not needed for a long while.
The dual sided tape the camera are mounted with, it is extremely rare it let go of the glass, to remove old stick on cameras you often use a piece of string to saw thru the sticky pad, they are most often on there really good.
it can stick so good that if you use a metal tool to try and pry the mount off the glass, you risk cracking your windscreen.
So if glass are nice and clean when you out it on, it should stay on, even if the mount are a bit tight.

Your camera need to be tuned to the Hz of your local mains power, so up here in Denmark that is 50Hz, but some times you will still see things flicker, most often these will be LED lights.
That could be other cars rear lights or for that matter front lights, but also signs and billboards, there is not much you can do in this regard i am afraid.

In good lighting a camera will most often capture a plate just fine, but that do not have to change drastic for plate capture to be a problem.
So you could drive in the middle of the best summer day of the year, but then drive in between some tall trees that line the road and maybe give shade on the road, and then plate capture might not happen.
If you are driving in a flat open landscape, you can capture plates at highway speeds ( 80 kmh ) even on a somewhat grey and rainy day, but add some dark green trees / bushes along the road and metering will change to where a plate become a blur due to speed.

You can see this in this video of mine, about mid way there are some trees at the road on the left side, this mean the general image are darker and metering change to a slower exposure, so the cars i meet there are less good plate capture.

This video with another camera ( different viofo model but same sensor and so on ) and also on a grey day, well it just prove that often the changes are so small you barely notice them, but it make a big difference for plate capture.

If some testa di cazzo hit your car and drive off, well if your car are still in good working condition, i would turn around catch up to him and read and call out his plate for the microphone in the camera to hear.
Never trust 100 % on a dashcam being able to capture a plate.


BTW the way i make these videos is in editing program i do a freeze frame, and then use pan & zoom on that still image, you can of course only do a little digital zoom before that make things unreadable.

Most regular video players for PC will have a option to "capture " a single frame, and of course go back and forth in video 1 frame at the time.

 

[Kremmen]

Stick the mount to a cleaned windscreen and wait at least 24hrs before using it. Once it's stuck it's stuck. It can seem stiff but with the firmly stuck mount it does come off quite easily with practice.

Your best player and to extract screenshots is VLC.

 

[regressist]

Ciao regressist. Welcome to the forum.

Wedge cameras can develop a slop in the mount, hence why most supply 2 EVA foam pads you can out on back of camera or mount to fill up the gap, but this is usually not needed for a long while.
The dual sided tape the camera are mounted with, it is extremely rare it let go of the glass, to remove old stick on cameras you often use a piece of string to saw thru the sticky pad, they are most often on there really good.
it can stick so good that if you use a metal tool to try and pry the mount off the glass, you risk cracking your windscreen.
So if glass are nice and clean when you out it on, it should stay on, even if the mount are a bit tight.
.....


BTW the way i make these videos is in editing program i do a freeze frame, and then use pan & zoom on that still image, you can of course only do a little digital zoom before that make things unreadable.

Most regular video players for PC will have a option to "capture " a single frame, and of course go back and forth in video 1 frame at the time.

Thank you for your welcome and the reply.

Good news that the glue should last long

So I leave 50 Hz and that's it.

I am shocked by the beauty of your videos, which tool are you using?

 

[regressist]

Stick the mount to a cleaned windscreen and wait at least 24hrs before using it. Once it's stuck it's stuck. It can seem stiff but with the firmly stuck mount it does come off quite easily with practice.

Your best player and to extract screenshots is VLC.

Thanks for the reply,

I have VLC, but I found only the Take a snapshot item which is just like the Windows Print screen, I was looking for a tool like "give me the frames in the next 3 seconds"

 

[kamkar]

Thise videos are worked over using powerdirector 17, no "photoshop" are added, i have only made the pan / zoom plate capture effect, and then upscale to 4K as youtube tend to go more easy on that.
Upscaling do not make the video better looking, if there are any issues in the video those will also get blown up to a higher resolution.

There are normally always a extra sticky pad in the box, but it is 3M dual sided tape they use, i can not recall the specific model ( number ) but like regular glue there are sticky tape for this and sticky tape for that.
The one with dashcams that work good on smooth glass, it might not work very well on say the fairly smooth plastic trim of the car, for that another model 3M tape would be better.

 

[kamkar]

The way i make the pan / zoom part is first i go to full screen and then i go 1 frame at the time until i find the best frame of the plate on the other car, i then make a freeze frame of that, and i then do the pan / zoom on the freeze frame that as i recall are a default length of 6 seconds.
It is fairly simple once you get the hang of it. pan & zoom in on plate the first 2 seconds, the stay there for a few seconds, and then the last 2 seconds pan and zoom back out to full image.

Powerdirector 17 are old, i think the latest version are 20 or something like that.

That flashing LED light, you also see that on expensive action cameras ASO, it is the damn LED light that can have a frequency all of their own, they might run on XXX volt 50 Hz, but the LED light might be flashing at 89 Hz or some other stupid number.

 

[regressist]

Another question is popping after one week usage: even though I set audio off now I realize that it switched to ON, very annoying.

Is it possible that when the device assumes that there was an accident and goes in emergency it turns on the audio (in the setup)? Due to the bad road conditions 1/3rd of the videos go in the dir RO.

Thanks

 

[OldEastSider]

Another question is popping after one week usage: even though I set audio off now I realize that it switched to ON, very annoying.

Is it possible that when the device assumes that there was an accident and goes in emergency it turns on the audio (in the setup)? Due to the bad road conditions 1/3rd of the videos go in the dir RO.

Thanks

What have you set your G-sensor to? If 1/3 of your files are being saved in the RO directory you may want to adjust it to "Low" which is the setting Viofo recommends.

I'm not sure what's happening with your audio settings. I have a A119v3 and when I turn off the audio it stays off. Maybe someone else has some ideas about that.

 

[kamkar]

If you have reset settings, or flashed new firmware, then you probably need to turn of MIC again.
It could also be you accidental pressed that button going for something else on the camera, i have done that a few times over the years.

If you can not turn off the G-sensor for while driving then for sure you need to set it to low, that is what i do on cameras that do not have a OFF setting for the G-sensor, and my some times a bit too frisky driving and the state of the Danish roads rarely trigger a event then.

If there are no one approacking a roundabout ( average size 20 - 25 M outside diameter 1 lane roundabout ) well i go thru those at +60 KMH, hitting all the lines.

This one for instance, i drive thru that at least 4 times a week, even if i have a BMW behind me, when i hit 80 again that will be 50 M or more behind me as they will brake like pussies BMW drivers are, me i just downshift brake from 80 KMH on the approach and stay off the brake and do it in #3 gear.

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

 

[Kremmen]

I've had my oldest V3 for about 3 or 4 years, since they first came out and I've never had any files written anywhere but the standard location.

I've got parking mode off and all sensors either off or low as available.

My theory is that having all recording in one folder in time order is the way to go.

 

[VIOFO-Support]

Another question is popping after one week usage: even though I set audio off now I realize that it switched to ON, very annoying.

Is it possible that when the device assumes that there was an accident and goes in emergency it turns on the audio (in the setup)? Due to the bad road conditions 1/3rd of the videos go in the dir RO.

Thanks

Have you reset the camera or updated the firmware during the period? If yes, the settings will be set back to default. So you need to set it again. Please also choose Low Sensitivity in the settings if there are too many RO video files not needed.

 

[regressist]

What have you set your G-sensor to? If 1/3 of your files are being saved in the RO directory you may want to adjust it to "Low" which is the setting Viofo recommends.

Yes it is on Low but on the road in town there are often holes...