I’m not that guy, but I do have a fair bit of (now obsolete) experience with video compression algorithms, mostly from the MPEG2 days, but the current generations use many of the same basic principles.
These algorithms do take more bits to encode more “complex” (for some definition of complex) scenes, and in a constant bitrate configuration this will result in lower video quality, and in VBR modes bitrates will increase to try to maintain video quality. Scenes that have a lot of ‘noise’ in them tend to be hard to compress - the extreme case of this is random static, but things with ‘rich texture’ in nature are examples of natural things that are hard to compress. Some examples of this are moving water - in particular waves/choppy water in the ocean for instance, and tree foliage blowing in the wind. Also, sharp lines are often softened during compression, so this doesn’t help things like text.
My specific knowledge is archaic at this point, but from what I understand even the modern algorithms are macroblock based, and use similar (but much more sophisticated) inter and intra frame motion compensation techniques.
(Nostalgia time - I was working on this at C-Cube Microsystems, in the mid-late 90s, and at the time C-Cube had the ‘world leading’ MPEG1 encoding chipset, which took 7-8 chips to do real-time encoding of 720x480 video. Here’s a picture of an encoder board, which was fairly hard to find. Things have come an incredibly long way since then. Also, several of the high level technical people from C-Cube went on to form Ambarella, although that was several years after I left.)
Thanks, that’s interesting. Will be interesting to see if dropping to 720p could actually improve things then… I guess it may come down to whether the uncompressed data actually has the required info, combined with the bitrate chosen for the 720p files.
(I actually work with images as my day job, but they’re either uncompressed or lossless, so this is not my area…)
It’s hard to know what is better here, especially as license plates have fine detail that could benefit from higher resolution. I’m not sure if we know if the bitrate is the same between 720 and 1080. There can also be HW limitations, such as how many motion compensation vectors could be generated per frame, which would affect image quality somewhat independently of bitrate.
If bitrate is truly the primary limiting factor for quality, it could be that for many scenes 720 could ‘look better’.
Wow 
. That’s basically useless. Definitely a bitrate and not a resolution problem. And Garmin doesn’t understand the importance of bitrate (look at versions of virb edit).
Hurrumph. That sucks donkey balls.
I was super excited when I saw the product in my news feed. I ordered one on Garmin’s website immediately. Then right afterward, I thought I should probably check out one of the reviews to get up to speed on how it worked and how to use it. Of course DCR was the first one I read. I canceled my order ~15 min after I placed it :-/
I was super bummed, as I’ve been waiting for this concept to come together for a long time. I’m a huge Varia user - I never ride without it. And I’m definitely not a Garmin hater - I actually have really enjoyed the several products I own. The software can be clunky and not the cleanest to use, but they get the job done. Here’s to hoping the major issues get improved.
I wonder if this is something they can adjust - ie are they running the max bitrate already, or have they tuned it so the small (and possibly slow) card they supply is less ridiculous.
Semi-off topic:
I noticed the DC Rainmaker reviews showed the ability to control the light mode for the RCT715 if you use a Garmin headunit. This isn’t anything new, but I noticed you can select the ability to go into “peloton” light mode.
I don’t have that option with my RTL515 paired to a Garmin 830 (on latest firmware). I just see solid, flash, off, and cancel override.
I’m wondering if the ability to select “peloton” mode is specific to the RCT715? I can definitely go into this mode manually by using the button on the Varia to cycle through the modes.
I’ve got the 515 and from my 530 via the Light Network have these settings:
- low
- peloton
- day flash
- night flash
- off
Are you sure you have the RTL515 not the older but almost identical RTL510?
I have the 510 and really wish they would add peloton mode 
This Garmin article suggests it’s on the RTL510:
Is the firmware up to date?
That article seems to refer to a different peloton mode - not the peloton light mode - very confusing.
Me too.
D’oh you’re right. I have the RTL510. I was confused what the peloton light mode actually is.
I have the 510 radar. I am disappointed garmin did not add ant+ to their new app that works with phones. However after watching the reviews and the “dumpster fire” that this new camera radar is I am more than happy to just deal with the issues of the 510!!!
If the app was well-built, it could hide that design detail. I can see they want to save often to limit the amount of memory needed and reduce the risks of losing the entire ride with a write error; but a smart app would show the ride as a single object, and pull from the correct time splits as needed.
$149 is the normal Varia sale price. I took a quick look at DCR and he said the same, so I personally doubt you’ll see a sale below that. Don’t get mad at me if it happens though!!
I’ve been watching the 515 since probably last fall. This is the lowest it has been in that time frame. I wouldn’t expect it to go any lower. Garmin would have zero problem selling stock of 515’s at this price if they released a newer model. I bought 2 at $149.
I should wait until I look at the in depth reviews but I have never waited to be fully educated before I started spouting off. So, why start now?
It is my guess the foundation of the Varia RCT175 ( video, app, map overlay and radar ) is built on backend platforms that were previously built and supported other products. The radar light with a video is new but nothing it is doing is net new to Garmin. Thus, it has a bunch of kludgy/hacks.