Hey what's up guys? Time for a 4k dashcam shootout. Now I've been running the Blackvue
DR900S-2CH ever since it came out. It was the first real 4K dashcam and it had
noticeably better video quality over the 1080p dashcams that preceded it. However,
I have kind of been noticing recently that maybe compared to some of the newer dashcams, I think
the Blackvue looks kind of muddled in terms of its detail and resolving capabilities. It looks like
some of the newer 4k dashcams, even though they also record at 4K like the Blackvue, they actually
have better video quality and that actually got me really curious and so, I got 5 different 4K
dashcams all loaded up on my windshield and then once I started trying to edit and look at all that
footage it got a little bit ridiculous and so I've actually narrowed it down now to my favorite 3 4k
dashcams. We've got the Blackvue DR900S-2CH, the Thinkware U1000, as well as the Viofo A129 Pro
Duo. Now I've covered all three of these dashcams in more detail in my complete comparison review of
the best dashcams on the market you can click the button on screen or link in the video description
if you want to watch that video. That's not what this video is about. This is actually going to be
focused just on the the video quality differences. Now when I started diving into the details,
I started to find some maybe technical differences in the specs. There's things like how all of the
dashcams record at 4K up front but the Viofo's bitrate is actually twice as high as the Blackvue
and the Thinkware which means when there's motion involved like you're driving down the road or
other cars are driving past you, the Viofo should actually be able to do a better job of resolving
any important details like license plates. Maybe with the rear cameras, you know the Blackvue
and the Viofo record at 1080p out the rear. The Thinkware records at 1440p out the rear so higher
resolution should be able to capture information a little bit farther away, but then the Viofo
again has a higher bitrate out the rear so if there's motion involved because you're driving,
it should do a better job of capturing detail there. What about the different sensors that are
being used with different low-light capabilities? What about different lenses and different field
of views? Like eventually trying to go into all the details... and so for that reason,
let's just throw all that out the window for now and just take a look at a bunch of different
dashcam footage. We'll take a look at videos of cars that are close up vs. farther away. Cars that
are stationary vs. moving. We'll look at sunny vs. cloudy. Daytime vs. nighttime. Front camera
vs. rear camera. A whole bunch of different situations and what I wanted to look for is:
Are there times when maybe one dashcam is able to capture license plates but the other dashcam
is not? What are the situations where all of the dashcams can do it? What are the situations
where no dashcam is capable of recording that important information? and that's really what
I'm curious about, you know? What are the limits of the dashcams and what are the situations that
maybe one dashcam is able to capture what I need and maybe another dashcam is not? and so with
that said, let's just take a look at a bunch of dashcam footage that I've compiled together
just taking a look from different situations and just see how all these dashcams compare.
So as you can tell there's definitely some differences between the dashcams, right?
Overall it looks like the Thinkware and the Viofo do indeed do a better job of capturing important
details like license plates compared to the Blackvue, despite the fact that they all record
at 4K up front, right? There's definitely some differences there. Now I could cherry pick footage
and find times when the Blackvue is the best. I can find times when the think where is the best,
or maybe the Viofo is the best, but overall big picture I find that the Thinkware and the Viofo
definitely do a better job at capturing details than the Blackvue does. And then maybe comparing
the Thinkware and the Viofo itself, it goes back and forth, but I think I personally would prefer
the Viofo. I just think it is able to capture the details in even more situations than the
Thinkware. Maybe that's a bitrate thing? That's my best guess as far as why that's the case,
but that's actually pretty surprising and impressive considering the Viofo,
it's actually a much less expensive dashcam than the Blackvue or the Thinkware. Again,
a big part of the reason is that it doesn't have some of the fancier advanced features like the
cloud capabilities. It's focused more on the dashcam video recording itself, but if you just
want a dashcam that records good video quality, that Viofo A129 Pro is really impressive. If we
take a look maybe at night time, I do think though that the Thinkware does a better job when it comes
to low-light recording compared to either the Blackvue or the Viofo. The Blackvue is just kind
of darker overall. The Viofo does do a better job at making things brighter, but it introduces a lot
more noise. I did do a little bit of testing with the HDR and super night-vision stuff. Those are
usually best optimized for parked recording just because they add even more noise. You'll see weird
artifacting with some of the HDR technologies when it's trying to combine two different exposures
into one frame while you're driving, and so I don't normally run that while I'm driving,
but kind of overall I do think Thinkware does a better job when it comes to low-light sensitivity,
but I think in terms of detail, which is kind of the main focus of this test,
I think I would give the slight edge to the Viofo over the Thinkware, even though again we can find
situations where one dashcam does better than the other two. Overall big picture, Thinkware
and Viofo do better than the Blackvue, and I think the Viofo has a slight edge, presumably due to the
higher bit rate over the Thinkware. So, anyway yeah, hopefully you guys found this helpful.
There was ton of dashcam footage I know to look through. If you want any one of these dashcams,.
I'll have links down in the video description to where you can pick them up. And yeah, if
you want more information, if you want to see my complete review and comparison of these dashcams,
there's more to a dashcam of course than just the video quality although that's probably the
most important thing. If you want to see my full comparison review between the dashcams, just click
the link in the video description for my best dashcams on the market comparison. So, yeah thanks
so much for watching! I hope you guys found this helpful and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.