Camera Quality

[Archer11]

If anyone @Rivian is listening... Today I had my first and very minor experience of EV hate (I'm assuming). I've had this truck for over two years now (vin 5xxx) and still absolutely love it! I pulled up the cameras from the drive cam and other than the vehicle, nothing is readable, license plate, face of occupant. It's all just a blur. If this had been a serious event I would have very little for the police to build on. If this is a hardware thing, please provide an upgrade. If it's a codec, trying to save space on a hard drive please allow me to choose the quality, I travel with a 2TB drive, it can handle plenty of video.

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[SoCalGuy]

Supposedly Gen2 does 4K video at 60fps… it’s 3-4x sharper and double the frame rate of Gen1

 

[Biturbowned]

It’s good enough quality to make out that he’s an a$$hole

 

[COdogman]

Police won’t do anything even if you had better cameras. You’re on your own out there. You can handle it??

 

[FrankieJ]

If anyone @Rivian is listening... Today I had my first and very minor experience of EV hate (I'm assuming). I've had this truck for over two years now (vin 5xxx) and still absolutely love it! I pulled up the cameras from the drive cam and other than the vehicle, nothing is readable, license plate, face of occupant. It's all just a blur. If this had been a serious event I would have very little for the police to build on. If this is a hardware thing, please provide an upgrade. If it's a codec, trying to save space on a hard drive please allow me to choose the quality, I travel with a 2TB drive, it can handle plenty of video.

I completely agree. I’m like you I absolutely adore my R1T, but given how premium the vehicle is overall the fact that the cameras are such low quality is really frustrating. I would be completely fine with an upgrade path at my cost but I suspect that would make selling Gen2s a bigger challenge.

 

[Whale Blubber]

So I asked this before but ... I wonder what happens if you DIY a replacement lens for the existing cameras? Would the computer totally freak the X out, or would the car dutifully display and record the higher quality signal? Surely there's a DIYer around here with fancy electrical engineering degree or two who's dying to start selling kits like the horn guys.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

Police? What laws are violated here? They’d probably laugh behind your back if you file a report over a middle finger. These clowns act out to get a response, a rise out of you. Don’t acknowledge. Don’t engage. Don’t be bothered by pond scum. They and their sorry existence don’t deserve a single thought from you. You give them that and they’ve won.

 

[Dave Cundiff]

@UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan: When someone deliberately opened their car door into mine, with an audible impact -- but no physical damage to the plastic side panels of our Saturn Vue -- a city police officer declined to take a report on the basis that, "Being a jerk is not a crime!"

That being said, the OP's point (as I understand it) was that IF THIS INCIDENT HAD BEEN SERIOUS, he would have been left with little actionable evidence because of the low-resolution Gen 1 camera.

I wasn't in the room when Rivian decided on the Gen 1 cameras -- but I remember there was a global pandemic in 2020, with significant supply-chain challenges in many areas. Rivian may have been doing the best they could with what they had.

I'm with @Archer11 and @Whale Blubber, though. I'd pay for better cameras in our Gen 1's if it were feasible to install them....

Best to all!

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

@UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan: When someone deliberately opened their car door into mine, with an audible impact -- but no physical damage to the plastic side panels of our Saturn Vue -- a city police officer declined to take a report on the basis that, "Being a jerk is not a crime!"

That being said, the OP's point (as I understand it) was that IF THIS INCIDENT HAD BEEN SERIOUS, he would have been left with little actionable evidence because of the low-resolution Gen 1 camera.

I wasn't in the room when Rivian decided on the Gen 1 cameras -- but I remember there was a global pandemic in 2020, with significant supply-chain challenges in many areas. Rivian may have been doing the best they could with what they had.

I'm with @Archer11 and @Whale Blubber, though. I'd pay for better cameras in our Gen 1's if it were feasible to install them....

Best to all!

I was not born in this country. I arrived when I was barely 11 and spoke no English. For four decades I’ve experienced much more discrimination than this one random act. You all can survive a little anti-EV hate.

 

[Riviot]

I got u @Archer11

 

[TRap015]

In some scenario where you have a hit & run driver in a parking lot. If you have license plate, you could file claim on their insurance. There is a use case for better camera quality, not specific to this incident

Police won’t do anything even if you had better cameras. You’re on your own out there. You can handle it??

 

[Whale Blubber]

I was not born in this country. I arrived when I was barely 11 and spoke no English. For four decades I’ve experienced much more discrimination than this one random act. You all can survive a little anti-EV hate.

I'm paying $2000 for just that this week when I pick mine up from the body shop. Sadly, I don't even have potato-quality video of the vandal to work with, as he or she managed to key the fender without triggering Gary. Regardless, if there's cameras, and they can be improved, seems like there's more than enough risk of hit-run or other unfortunate potential use cases to justify doing it.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

I'm paying $2000 for just that this week when I pick mine up from the body shop. Sadly, I don't even have potato-quality video of the vandal to work with, as he or she managed to key the fender without triggering Gary. Regardless, if there's cameras, and they can be improved, seems like there's more than enough risk of hit-run or other unfortunate potential use cases to justify doing it.

I’m curious if it’s even possible for the aftermarket to step in and offer higher-res camera modules and if there is enough computing power present to handle it. In other words, is it the way it is because of data processing limitations or that these were the best cameras Rivian could negotiate for back in circa 2018.

 

[Chewy734]

IMO, part of the problem of hoping for an aftermarket upgrade solution is how well it’ll work with Driver+ (if at all).

Because all that training data was taken using the current set of cameras, and likely won’t function well with a new camera system.

That being said, they could get fancy with it and trick the Driver+ algorithm to use some decimated lower-resolution video that’s downsampled so it could be used for that, while still maintaining a high-resolution capability for gear guard, etc.

Again, it’s doubtful that Rivian would even entertain such a solution, but I’m sure a lot of current R1 customers would be willing to pay for it (me included).

 

[COdogman]

How does he handle it when he can’t even see the perp’s face or license plate?

First, there is no guarantee that would be captured even with better cameras, whether because GG is not triggered or the perpetrator deliberately took actions to ensure their car/ self was not identifiable.

Second, if all you get is footage of the perpetrator or their car without a License #, pretty much every law enforcement office across the country will tell you there is nothing they can do with that.

It sucks that this is even a discussion we need to have. My only point is that better cameras will not solve the problem - humans are trash too much of the time and law enforcement has other things to worry about.

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