Dashcam quality on HW3 FW 2019.7.106

[ishareit]

I know that HW3 firmwares aren't fully baked yet, but here is a sample of the video quality from my recently delivered Model 3. Details like license plates aren't fully legible yet. Hopefully will get better soon.

Btw - can anyone on a newer FW for HW3 share their Dashcam clip quality? Thanks!

Youtube link:

 

[derotam]

A more interesting datapoint would be to tell us what the resolution and frame rate of the dashcam video is.

The video as placed on youtube is not the same resolution as what you uploaded. That looks horrible.

 

[ishareit]

A more interesting datapoint would be to tell us what the resolution and frame rate of the dashcam video is.

The video as placed on youtube is not the same resolution as what you uploaded. That looks horrible.

It is horrible when played directly as well - hence my post.

Codec info:
Codec: MPEG-H Part2/HEVC (H.265) (hvc1)
Video resolution: 1280x960
Buffer dimensions: 1280x960
Frame rate: 36.019028
Decoded format: Planar 4:2:0 YUV

 

[derotam]

It is horrible when played directly as well - hence my post.

Codec info:
Codec: MPEG-H Part2/HEVC (H.265) (hvc1)
Video resolution: 1280x960
Buffer dimensions: 1280x960
Frame rate: 36.019028
Decoded format: Planar 4:2:0 YUV

Ok good, just wanted to make sure nothing changed there...I don't think mine has every been that bad, I'll have to look again when I get home.

 

[ngogas]

Can't tell the difference between this video hw3 vs video with hw2.5. Do they really replaced the camera or just the computer for hw3?

 

[Zirak]

no sensors or cameras are replaced. Just the MCU.

 

[M109Rider]

Wouldn’t the difference between HW 3 and 2.5 eventually be related to processing as opposed to video quality. ?

The cameras aren’t changing. ...

 

[Zirak]

Wouldn’t the difference between HW 3 and 2.5 eventually be related to processing as opposed to video quality. ?

The cameras aren’t changing. ...

Yeah I read somewhere on these forums that it'll process like 200 frames as opposed to 20 frames a second per camera or something like that.

 

[XTOTHEL]

Update to 2019.12 and you’ll be fine.

 

[mike95]

What it processes, and what it process to store on the USB are two different things. It is so powerful that it can process 60 frames per second or more, however it then processes or downscales this to 30 frames per second with additional compression for USB storage so you can make any conclusions from the quality you see on usb other than compare to video of previous cpu hardware.

 

[ngogas]

Sounds like you shouldn’t see any changes in camera recordings.

 

[Knightshade]

What it processes, and what it process to store on the USB are two different things. It is so powerful that it can process 60 frames per second or more, however it then processes or downscales this to 30 frames per second with additional compression for USB storage so you can make any conclusions from the quality you see on usb other than compare to video of previous cpu hardware.

... what?


The cameras only record at 36 fps. At 720p. The exact resolution/speed that gets recorded by the dashcam. Nothing is being "downscaled" for USB storage at all.

The issue with HW2.5 was that it couldn't handle 8 cameras at 36 fps (which is 288 fps, almost 50% beyond the max spec of the computer) for EAP/FSD purposes...so they had to crop images/reduce frame rates when processing the AP data.

HW3 on the other hand can process ~2000 fps, so even all cameras at full resolution/frame rate don't use a huge % of its capacity- and it can handle much larger more complex neutral nets than HW2.x can.

 

[r0xx0r]

no sensors or cameras are replaced. Just the MCU.

What change to MCU? No, they only upgraded the APU.

 

[solodogg]

Mine was the same quality on 2019.7.102 and 2019.7.105. Update to 2019.12.1.2 came down the pile last week and resolved the quality issues.

Make sure your car is connected to WiFi at home when it’s parked overnight, and you should get 12.1.2 update soon. They are pushing to everyone quickly.

 

[ishareit]

Mine was the same quality on 2019.7.102 and 2019.7.105. Update to 2019.12.1.2 came down the pile last week and resolved the quality issues.

Make sure your car is connected to WiFi at home when it’s parked overnight, and you should get 12.1.2 update soon. They are pushing to everyone quickly.

Got the 2019.12.1.2 update yesterday and the quality is good now!

 

[mswlogo]

I know that HW3 firmwares aren't fully baked yet, but here is a sample of the video quality from my recently delivered Model 3. Details like license plates aren't fully legible yet. Hopefully will get better soon.

Btw - can anyone on a newer FW for HW3 share their Dashcam clip quality? Thanks!

Youtube link:

Thanks for sharing this. But it looks about the same. I think the bottleneck is the USB 2.0 and they use high compression to make USB 2.0 work. Hopefully what HW3 computer “sees” is better.

Typically if I view people’s TeslaCam videos on my phone they look pretty good on the small screen. On my large computer screens they look pretty bad. What you just posted was just “ok” on my phone.

It seems to vary wildly too. Certain lighting or something makes a huge difference.

There are some videos around showing what cpu sees and they are much better.

Maybe future HW3 optimized code or other code changes improve it.

 

[Knightshade]

Thanks for sharing this. But it looks about the same. I think the bottleneck is the USB 2.0 and they use high compression to make USB 2.0 work.

Nope.

USB2 is many many many times faster an interface than this feature needs.

Each camera is recording at 0.5MB/sec.

That's 1.5MB/sec for 3 cameras.

USB2 can do 60 MB/sec. 40 times more than the car needs.

Whatever compression they're using is not to accommodate USB2.

 

[mswlogo]

Nope.

USB2 is many many many times faster an interface than this feature needs.

Each camera is recording at 0.5MB/sec.

That's 1.5MB/sec for 3 cameras.

USB2 can do 60 MB/sec. 40 times more than the car needs.

Whatever compression they're using is not to accommodate USB2.

I come out to 3.5 MB/sec (uncompressed 8bit color 3 cameras)
USB2 theoretical limit might be 60 MB/sec but in practice it's half that.
So now we are down to 8.5x "more than it needs".

Tesla may have targeted it working on lower quality USB Flash drives as well.
Not sure how USB controllers work but it might need to reserve bandwidth for Music Flash drive as well.

One thing I do know, if I try to do Music on the Flash drive my TeslaCam will often corrupt.
If I don't use Music the TeslaCam will run fine for months.

Could be poor compression or over compression.

My guess is, it's partly a really crappy USB2/FAT32 driver that has poor bandwidth and then they over compress it to make it all work.

 

[chillaban]

Looks to me like terrible terrible settings picked for the HEVC hardware encoder onboard. Hopefully something they can patch in software.

 

[Knightshade]

I come out to 3.5 MB/sec (uncompressed 8bit color 3 cameras)

Not sure where you got that from.

They're actually recording at 0.5MB/sec. So 1.5MB/sec for 3 cameras.

(hence why a 1 minute clip is 30 MB-... 60 seconds times 0.5MB per second= 30MB)

So no, we're still at USB2 theoretical limit being 40 times more than needed. So "only" 20x is you want to cut that in half.

Tesla may have targeted it working on lower quality USB Flash drives as well.

I suppose they might have. But even the lowest quality ones are 5-10 times faster at writing than this application needs, so it continues to not be remotely near an actual problem.

Not sure how USB controllers work but it might need to reserve bandwidth for Music Flash drive as well.

They don't work like that at all, so not really. Apart from which there's 2 ports independent from each other (4 technically, but the 2 rears don't have independent data cables on the back end like the fronts do)

One thing I do know, if I try to do Music on the Flash drive my TeslaCam will often corrupt.
If I don't use Music the TeslaCam will run fine for months.

And yet many others get corruption on the teslacam drive even if it's the only thing on the drive.

Even people running SSDs, so we know it ain't the speed of the device.

Could be poor compression or over compression.

My guess is, it's partly a really crappy USB2/FAT32 driver that has poor bandwidth and then they over compress it to make it all work.

... that sentence does not make a lot of technical sense. Drivers don't have bandwidth.... and tesla is using LINUX- both USB2 and FAT32 drivers have been mature in the LINUX Kernel since before Tesla was selling cars