Arlo GO HD - Poor Quality even on "Best Quality"

[Matte83]

Hi, I bought a Arlo Go VML4030 for surveillance, but the video are so extremly poor. I mean, my old GoPro 4 that are 10 years old is better video quality. Isn't there anything to do to get better quality settings? I'm using "Best" on quality settings, but I don't pay for any pro subscription.. Maby the quality is better if you pay for a better subscription. Please see print screen of the poor quality a normal sunny day 😕 Any opinions? Am I missing some settings or are there a better camera to buy with 4G functionality?

[jguerdat]

The subscription makes no difference in quality. You image looks normal except that it's got the sun and WAY too much sky in the view. 

[wildwest]

Hello,

I'm having a smilar issue, recently purchased an Arlo Go for offsite monitoring but I don't know if it's worth keeping due to the poor image quality. Its similar quality to th OP's image.

I don't understand how this can be classed as normal by forum guru's and admins given that the camera is advertised and sold as HD 720p. It's 144 at best in my opinion. My phone is on the same network as the camera and in the same location the phone can easily stream 1080 videos from youtube and the likes.

Really like the product and it almost fits my needs but given the cost of it and poor image I may have to look at alternative options.

Any ideas if there is a solid fix for this? Is it my carrier throttling the camera or Netgear? 

[jguerdat]

Download the evideo and ceck it for details embedded in the file. It will tell you what resolution it is. Don't forget that these are wide-angle lens (roughly comparable to a 15mm fisheye on a DSLR) and then compressed to save disk space and bandwidth, not to metion 720p is less than 1 megapixel. If we had access to the raw video, things would be different but then your data plan would get eaten alive.

[wildwest]

Thanks for the reply. 

So I downloaded a few videos to my PC (Windows) from my Arlo Web Portal.

Checking the properties for these video clips, each have a frame width of 416 and a frame height of 240 with a fram rate of 24.01 frames per second. 

Going off of the frame height it seems to be 240p. Would I be correct in this?

Thanks

[jguerdat]

While it can be due to limited bandwidth during uploads, verify that the Best Quality is set in Settings, My Devices, your camera, Video Settings, Power Management, Best Video.

[wildwest]

Hi again, have been busy the last few days so only got a chance to get back on here now.

I've changed the settings to "Best Video" and the only appreciable difference is the size of the original video when viewed on a PC screen, i.e the frame size. The quality is very marginally increased, still nowhere near what I would expect for 720p or even 480p.

I've also noticed that it sometimes goes back to "Best Battery Life" by itself. Am I doing something wrong?

I'm going to test it more over the next few days, in my particular situation it may prove sufficient after all but due to the lack of clarity it requires extra setup in relation to where the camera is placed along with the equipment I am monitoring and this is not ideal.

Do you know if the camera records to the SD card at higher resolution than is uploaded? I tried fitting an SD card and formatted it using the camera app but it doesn't record to the card for some reason. I'll try reformatting on a PC or failing that I'll try a different card.

Thanks,

WW