Is the DashCam feature normally this low-quality?

[camalaio]

Video in question:

I understand you may have suspicions that the free video editor toyed with the video. Here is the front camera source clip, unmodified and directly uploaded:

Questions:

• Is the flickering (especially for the front camera) actually normal?
• Is the extremely low-quality almost-blurry look quite normal? (you can just barely see that the cop came up behind someone in the left turn lane and followed them through, this was extremely clear in person)

I needed to submit a video for insurance but it's in such poor condition that it's hard to tell that I hit a somewhat large box on a highway, between the flickering and the low quality. I was thinking of getting a purpose-built dashcam for higher quality video but thought I'd ask if this is normal first.

Daylight videos are about the same quality by the way.

 

[Akikiki]

Looks normal. You do know do you not, that turning the autopilot cameras into dash cams was an after-thought from a lot of people whining and betting for it. They were not installed to serve as dash cam. Many of us just installed good dash cams separately.

 

[camalaio]

Looks normal. You do know do you not, that turning the autopilot cameras into dash cams was an after-thought from a lot of people whining and betting for it. They were not installed to serve as dash cam. Many of us just installed good dash cams separately.

Oh yeah for sure. Same thing with Sentry mode too which results in very large power draw (keeping the whole car awake instead of just a dedicated dashcam). It is surprising that the car can accurately do much if the vision is this poor though.

 

[webbah]

That’s why I installed a 2 channel Blackvue UHD/4K setup.

 

[sduck]

That’s why I installed a 2 channel Blackvue UHD/4K setup.

This. I bought my car before dashcam was enabled, and one of the first things i did was install a blackvue 2 camera system - I forget the model number, but it's lightyears beyond what the built in stuff can do.

 

[webbah]

This. I bought my car before dashcam was enabled, and one of the first things i did was install a blackvue 2 camera system - I forget the model number, but it's lightyears beyond what the built in stuff can do.

Yup, and only uses 5 watts max and allows the car to sleep.

 

[sceptic]

To answer your question - no - my video recordings look nothing like this, no flicker and much better quality.

 

[enixneo]

That’s why I installed a 2 channel Blackvue UHD/4K setup.

This. I bought my car before dashcam was enabled, and one of the first things i did was install a blackvue 2 camera system - I forget the model number, but it's lightyears beyond what the built in stuff can do.

Where do you guys have your camera wired for power? I also have a dedicated dashcam but I've noticed that it stays on for long periods of time. Like there's hours of footage of my pitch black garage overnight. Sentry mode is disabled at home.

 

[webbah]

Where do you guys have your camera wired for power? I also have a dedicated dashcam but I've noticed that it stays on for long periods of time. Like there's hours of footage of my pitch black garage overnight. Sentry mode is disabled at home.

I had my installer tap into the 12v system of the car. I also installed a kill switch that is hidden under the dash if I want to shut it off for any reason. It’s best to tap into the 12v system and not connect directly to the 12v battery as the Tesla monitors the 12v battery and if the volts drop without the car knowing why you can get error messages about the 12v battery. My cameras pull no more than 5 watts and the Teltonika RUT850 also pulls no more than 5 watts. My car sleeps without issue, but does wake up a few times per day to recharge the 12v battery (normal behavior). I may swap out the crappy 12v battery that ships with the M3 to an Ohmmu LiPo4 battery but will wait until this one dies. Been installed for months now with no issues.

 

[Watts_Up]

I had my installer tap into the 12v system of the car. I also installed a kill switch that is hidden under the dash if I want to shut it off for any reason. It’s best to tap into the 12v system and not connect directly to the 12v battery as the Tesla monitors the 12v battery and if the volts drop without the car knowing why you can get error messages about the 12v battery. My cameras pull no more than 5 watts and the Teltonika RUT850 also pulls no more than 5 watts. My car sleeps without issue, but does wake up a few times per day to recharge the 12v battery (normal behavior). I may swap out the crappy 12v battery that ships with the M3 to an Ohmmu LiPo4 battery but will wait until this one dies. Been installed for months now with no issues.

It's a little bit expensive, but would you considere installing the additional Blacvue batterie allowing you to keep recording while the car is sleeping?

 

[camalaio]

To answer your question - no - my video recordings look nothing like this, no flicker and much better quality.

Do you happen to have an example of this?

 

[Akikiki]

I had my installer tap into the 12v system of the car. I also installed a kill switch that is hidden under the dash if I want to shut it off for any reason. It’s best to tap into the 12v system and not connect directly to the 12v battery as the Tesla monitors the 12v battery and if the volts drop without the car knowing why you can get error messages about the 12v battery. My cameras pull no more than 5 watts and the Teltonika RUT850 also pulls no more than 5 watts. My car sleeps without issue, but does wake up a few times per day to recharge the 12v battery (normal behavior). I may swap out the crappy 12v battery that ships with the M3 to an Ohmmu LiPo4 battery but will wait until this one dies. Been installed for months now with no issues.

I too tapped into the 12V away from the battery. I like you idea of the hidden switch to turn it on and off. I installed a remote relay (remote switch) so I too can turn it off and on.

I installed one 900 in the front and left rear quarter window. Then another 900 in the liftgate glass and the secondary on the right rear quarter window. I know what I am looking for when I look, so at a glance, I can see when both are powered and waiting on something to happen. Very good insurance against something without seeing it. Yes, its really nice that Tesla has dash cams too. My thinking is, you can't have too much dash cam recording options. The Tesla dash cam feature is useful when I want to drain my battery

 

[webbah]

It's a little bit expensive, but would you considere installing the additional Blacvue batterie allowing you to keep recording while the car is sleeping?

No need in a Tesla. Mine is always on for the most part with parking mode and when needed the car wakes up and charges the 12v battery. For the cost of the Blackvue battery you can almost buy an Ohmmu replacement for the 12v!

 

[KenC]

I just ordered a Vava dual-cam on sale for $99. Originally $149, minus $40 promo code, "kVAVACAM", and another $10 off if you click some box at Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R5MBNZ7/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It's not 4k, but it works well, transfers live videos and pics to your phone via wifi, has a record button remote dongle. It also spins around, so you can record travel logs, caraoke vids, etc.

I have the single-cam version and it works great, so I thought I'd get the dual-cam version for my Tesla, and move the single-cam back to my old car.

 

[ChrisPDX]

Oh yeah for sure. Same thing with Sentry mode too which results in very large power draw (keeping the whole car awake instead of just a dedicated dashcam). It is surprising that the car can accurately do much if the vision is this poor though.

Keep in mind what we get recorded is not the raw camera footage. The AP system has a chip dedicated for MPG encoding (lacking in AP 2.0 which is why they don't have the dashcam feature). This chip greatly reduces the quality and adds a lot of compression artifacts in order to make the file sizes manageable. What's fed to the NN for processing should be much clearer.

I had a 4K dashcam and discovered it was pointless. It so heavily compressed the video, the compression artifacts made it impossible to read a license plate even when directly in front of the car! Lowering it to 1080P allowed it to keep the quality well enough that it was then much more usable. A good quality dashcam will do a good job of video compression. Sadly that's not the case with Tesla, but at least it's better then nothing and super easy to install!

 

[Watts_Up]

No need in a Tesla. Mine is always on for the most part with parking mode and when needed the car wakes up and charges the 12v battery.
For the cost of the Blackvue battery you can almost buy an Ohmmu replacement for the 12v!

You say you use Parking mode, but I guess you don't set Sentry mode? Otherwise the battery will drain very fast?

When I have to leave my car unplugged, I also disable the Summon, from the Autopilot menu, to save consumption.

I was considering using a 12 V jump start battery, I have one with a 40 Wh Lithium Ion battery, but I don't think I can keep it on.

 

[Knightshade]

Keep in mind what we get recorded is not the raw camera footage. The AP system has a chip dedicated for MPG encoding (lacking in AP 2.0 which is why they don't have the dashcam feature). This chip greatly reduces the quality and adds a lot of compression artifacts in order to make the file sizes manageable. What's fed to the NN for processing should be much clearer.

Yup- greentheonly has posted the 2 different types of footage showing a big difference in quality... start here and a buncha more info following the first tweet- only item of note is he says the dashcam stuff is maxxing out node B on the NVIDIA HW2.x AP computer... which suggests they might be able to offer much higher dashcam quality on HW3 once they stop running emulated 2.x code on it.

green on Twitter

 

[webbah]

You say you use Parking mode, but I guess you don't set Sentry mode? Otherwise the battery will drain very fast?

When I have to leave my car unplugged, I also disable the Summon, from the Autopilot menu, to save consumption.

I was considering using a 12 V jump start battery, I have one with a 40 Wh Lithium Ion battery, but I don't think I can keep it on.

I’m referring to Parking Mode on the Blackvue. I rarely use Sentry mode as I want the car to sleep which is one of the main reasons I bought the Blackvue setup.

The second biggest reason I went this route is the quality of the video. With the UHD/4K Blackvue it is amazing quality and easy to read license plates on cars with super detail. Review the footage on the Tesla Sentry videos in different lighting and you’ll find that it is often not easy to read license plates or see details you would likely need if something were to happen. After all, the main purpose of these cameras is to have quality evidence if something happens right? Just like backups for a computer it is wise to validate BEFORE you actually need them. Have a look at your footage and see what I mean with Sentry.

The FSD cameras were not originally designed for high quality security videos and Sentry was added as an afterthought after a lot of breakins to Tesla’s. This is also why it keeps the car awake as it must keep the car computer on and running to record and process from the cars cameras. All this compared to a low 5 watts max for the Blackvues.

 

[holmgang]

Im curious why 95% of the videos (though not ones shown here) have such a strong green hue. Perhaps Tesla grades the videos that way for its recognition algo.

 

[enixneo]

I too tapped into the 12V away from the battery. I like you idea of the hidden switch to turn it on and off. I installed a remote relay (remote switch) so I too can turn it off and on.

Where did you tap into the 12V line? Did you follow guide or do it yourself? This is a weekend project I'd like to tackle rather than my current situation where the camera's recording nearly around the clock.