The Lukas LK7950-WD has landed - dual channel TI / Sony IMX322 dashcam with Wi-Fi - Ongoing review

[niko]

By default although the camera has two memory card slots - one full size SD card and one microSD card, it appears that the type of file is split.

On the full size SD card it now looks as per the following:

View attachment 11686

And the microSD card looks like so:
View attachment 11687

The file layout by default is as follows:

Full size SD:
AlwaysMovie - Driving mode video from both channels (with F or R suffix)
MotionMovie - Parking mode video from triggered motion sensor

MicroSD:
EventMovie - Event mode video from when G Sensor is triggered

The Lukas camera records in .AVI format - both channels are encoding using VBR video.

The VBR on these cameras is extremely aggressive and you can see that front video has an average bitrate of 7.2Mbps and a peak of 17.3Mbps.

View attachment 11688

The rear camera is a lower bitrate - you can see in this instance it's got an average of 5.2Mbps and a peak of 9.7Mbps

View attachment 11689

By default you can see the front and rear files are signified by a suffix of either _F (for front) or _R (for rear):

View attachment 11690

Bitrate Viewer is a good program !

 

[reverend]

Yeah I think @Mtz pointed me in it's direction first - definitely a great little app. It's surprising how aggressive the VBR is on these to run at lower levels but the graph shows it. The big spikes seems to have been when I went through a tunnel and the AE worked out what was going on in there

 

[niko]

Yeah I think @Mtz pointed me in it's direction first - definitely a great little app. It's surprising how aggressive the VBR is on these to run at lower levels but the graph shows it. The big spikes seems to have been when I went through a tunnel and the AE worked out what was going on in there

I also just downloaded it after seeing your screenshots and was exited to test some videos, - quite interesting graphs to see how data changes depending on surrounding light conditions. Thx to @Mtz as well !

 

[reverend]

@Mtz is the video master

It turns out the Lukas viewer does have a map view - I was just blind!

You get HDOP and Satellite figures to show the quality of the GPS lock as well.

 

[reverend]

Demos of the Lukas software in use:

 

[Sunny]

Man you not leaving anything out for my review.

 

[reverend]

These things always behave differently in different countries mate, I'm looking forward to seeing that landscape you've got out there! You'll love the size of the rear camera in comparison to something like a G90 or G1W hanging down there!

 

[Sunny]

These things always behave differently in different countries mate, I'm looking forward to seeing that landscape you've got out there! You'll love the size of the rear camera in comparison to something like a G90 or G1W hanging down there!

I was just messing with you.
Keep them posts coming.

 

[reverend]

Right some raw daytime footage from today.

The camera records at a low bitrate due to having both channels recording onto the same card at the same time, so bear this in mind. For the bitrate used these are actually good quality captures.

Front camera:
https://mega.co.nz/#!5R4wSIwA!hkPLLUg1NR9eBJVKWKXhHuAJBnngiSLpK9h685foAVE
https://mega.co.nz/#!UFxiiRSa!lTIzTFPbwqhxr5q4SDd1s_4zNNl6ghbig0lR7BGv_DU
https://mega.co.nz/#!8RYUkRCJ!UnA-iVnAAQ-7xWw0HPtn2upFB4jMK6qvN-jdCXgz0yM

Rear camera:
https://mega.co.nz/#!dAIkFSKS!fzM1YUYTLQL_Jd1zC65ZFM6mWk72b5bNsZXBoGfpfyI
https://mega.co.nz/#!YB5nzSoC!0qm_6Fq3ZA2kLRWVd1V27Y_SqWcm_QI9dXcu2ueNE-Q
https://mega.co.nz/#!5MAQnAwD!iSYtG7IK5euKjgM3p5pewRxSWUlfW9wEYPFVjoxz6iE

The rear camera I think is excellent and it's even better when you realise it's recording at just 5Mbps average!

 

[Sunny]

Right some raw daytime footage from today.

The camera records at a low bitrate due to having both channels recording onto the same card at the same time, so bear this in mind. For the bitrate used these are actually good quality captures.

Front camera:
https://mega.co.nz/#!5R4wSIwA!hkPLLUg1NR9eBJVKWKXhHuAJBnngiSLpK9h685foAVE
https://mega.co.nz/#!UFxiiRSa!lTIzTFPbwqhxr5q4SDd1s_4zNNl6ghbig0lR7BGv_DU
https://mega.co.nz/#!8RYUkRCJ!UnA-iVnAAQ-7xWw0HPtn2upFB4jMK6qvN-jdCXgz0yM

Rear camera:
https://mega.co.nz/#!dAIkFSKS!fzM1YUYTLQL_Jd1zC65ZFM6mWk72b5bNsZXBoGfpfyI
https://mega.co.nz/#!YB5nzSoC!0qm_6Fq3ZA2kLRWVd1V27Y_SqWcm_QI9dXcu2ueNE-Q
https://mega.co.nz/#!5MAQnAwD!iSYtG7IK5euKjgM3p5pewRxSWUlfW9wEYPFVjoxz6iE

The rear camera I think is excellent and it's even better when you realise it's recording at just 5Mbps average!

I'm confused.
If there are two separate drives showing up in the PC, F: (AlwaysMovie) and H: (EventMovie), how is it writing to only one drive?
Or is the H: only saved for event videos and both front/rear videos are recorded in F:?
I think I've answered my own question.

 

[reverend]

You've got it mate - I had two separate cards hooked up via a multi reader

 

[niko]

Right some raw daytime footage from today.

The camera records at a low bitrate due to having both channels recording onto the same card at the same time, so bear this in mind. For the bitrate used these are actually good quality captures.

Front camera:
https://mega.co.nz/#!5R4wSIwA!hkPLLUg1NR9eBJVKWKXhHuAJBnngiSLpK9h685foAVE
https://mega.co.nz/#!UFxiiRSa!lTIzTFPbwqhxr5q4SDd1s_4zNNl6ghbig0lR7BGv_DU
https://mega.co.nz/#!8RYUkRCJ!UnA-iVnAAQ-7xWw0HPtn2upFB4jMK6qvN-jdCXgz0yM

Rear camera:
https://mega.co.nz/#!dAIkFSKS!fzM1YUYTLQL_Jd1zC65ZFM6mWk72b5bNsZXBoGfpfyI
https://mega.co.nz/#!YB5nzSoC!0qm_6Fq3ZA2kLRWVd1V27Y_SqWcm_QI9dXcu2ueNE-Q
https://mega.co.nz/#!5MAQnAwD!iSYtG7IK5euKjgM3p5pewRxSWUlfW9wEYPFVjoxz6iE

The rear camera I think is excellent and it's even better when you realise it's recording at just 5Mbps average!

Not bad for low bit-rate data. I wonder if Lukas have plans to rise bit-rate for both cameras, or it is operating at the moment at maximum level what TI solution can handle for stable performance ? Most Korean developers I have been in contact who uses TI, they all complain about TI limitation in regards of rising a bit-rate vs stable performance.

P.S. - I see you like to listen to house music ?

 

[reverend]

Any dance music is good mate - I usually recognise a few tracks from your videos

I'm wondering if it's possible to obtain more performance similar to what has been done on BlackVue - I guess their biggest limitation is the SD card and how fast it can write - it makes sense why @alexsoll recommends a Samsung Pro card now as it has higher sequential write speeds and blazing fast random access which would be good for this sort of workload.

I'm going to get some night footage shortly and see how it fares now it's dark - that back camera I'm really impressed with - I think I need to tweak the focus of my X2 rear camera next

I like the voltage reading that Lukas have - that would be great on the X2 I reckon especially in parking mode!

 

[reverend]

OK now for some night footage. It's bright and sensitive to light even on pitch black roads, if
anything maybe a bit too bright as some fine detail is lost but this can maybe be tweaked with the many settings on offer on the camera - we shall see over the next couple of weeks.

As for the rear camera that really handled my privacy glass well at night time - I need to do some A-B comparisons to see how it stacks up against the X2.

Anyway, here are some Youtube clips:

I found out the camera speaks the hour - it was quite funny hearing it announce "It's 10 o'clock"!

And the raw clips:
https://mega.co.nz/#!sIZzzZzB!OWV8RmJbkTVV4Wf7WVKbsv6qxy1CVRI81w_1RYFeZjg
https://mega.co.nz/#!1IIjhYDJ!pu04lmVWRCApIE3VR7-7yQyMliOEmjl1KzTRvtk6oQA
https://mega.co.nz/#!IYpCwTpS!AbN2HPTwTUZfS1WmHVgsL8rPuRf3Noo-0TBIzEhOvjc
https://mega.co.nz/#!IRBH2YjJ!PTJsLUL5UxAJV1E0XLyRyB3JFUOt_o7vrDZVSMwoWI4
https://mega.co.nz/#!MQxn1ByQ!qRYZWocvm-8Fn9OfYzDYPDIowkgRJ3YUuCBsEdvfDtE
https://mega.co.nz/#!YJhWyLJS!d9gnn_BDKyQeB0L8vA37X4xjl5lFGBWhOoSDEkdYbkk

 

[Ipol]

@ Reverend Thanks for the post.......hehe Sunny is right you have left nothing for him to write about @Sunny how about reference a Reverend.....DITTO......Ipol

 

[reverend]

I noticed I'm getting a lot of interference with the AM radio when the cigarette lighter is used - I need to order some more add a circuits so I can try it hard wired to see if that helps at all.

 

[jokiin]

I noticed I'm getting a lot of interference with the AM radio when the cigarette lighter is used - I need to order some more add a circuits so I can try it hard wired to see if that helps at all.

AM is a problem at the best of times, ideally a nice ground plane is needed, the old antenna sticking up out of the guard was the ideal solution, doesn't bode well on the styling front these days, things like amplified in glass antennas are all the rage, nice clean looks, but not great performance in a lot of cases

 

[BlackBoxed.ca]

We got a test unit too and I found the Lukas app to be amazing. Very responsive. I like it much better than the BlackVue app. I'm really looking forward to what Lukas has to offer in the future.

Kelvin

 

[reverend]

I got wondering what all the information at the bottom of the screen means in the video clips - here we go:



Item #8 appears to be wrong and should be camera model instead of Recording Resolution.

 

[reverend]

Well there's a bug in the Milage field anyway on firmware Fi05 - I've uploaded this three min clip to show an example:

https://mega.co.nz/#!1ZQihYoI!AbN2HPTwTUZfS1WmHVgsL8rPuRf3Noo-0TBIzEhOvjc

At the start of the video I'm on 38.2 miles and three minutes later I'm on 59.4 miles so the camera thinks I've done 20 miles in 3 mins (400mph) - my old diesel is definitely not that fast!

The issue has been reported to Lukas.