Arlo Pro 2 vs Ultra quality

[dt1785]

Does anyone have pictures or videos they're willing to post from the Pro 2 and Ultra so I can see the difference in quality? The Pro 2 is on sale at a couple different places and I'm trying to determine if the extra price is worth it for the Ultra. Thanks!

[Amoss97]

I’ve got the Arlo pro 2 and I have to be honest it’s got great quality. Easy to use app and it looks great on my echo show

[MLBinVA]

To be honest the video quality wasn't what I expected with the Ultra, it's good but not 4K IMO, I based my purchase decision on the reviews and examples of video from the Pro2's because reviews weren't out on the Ultras at the time and figured the Ultra must be better but if I was to do it again would definitely save the money and go with the Pro2's.  I'm hoping that there will be firmware etc updates that will improve the Ultra's but we'll see.

[jguerdat]

You do realize that the 4k resolution is mitigated by the wider FOV, right? A wider FOV needs more pixels just to maintain the same overall quality. 4k is greater than that difference but...

[MLBinVA]

Not sure I get your point, when I bought the camera I bought what I thought was a 4K camera and expected the video output to be 4K.  Now if you want to argue that well it's 4K but because of the wide FOV you don't actually get 4K I'm not sure how that arguement works, it's either a 4K picture or it isn't.  If you want to say 4K with 90 degree FOV and 1080 with 120 degree etc then fine that's setting expectations, bottom line it was advertised as a 180 FOV and 4K which it doens't actually seem to be.  I also didn't realize that apparently if you use the auto track and zoom feature it dropped resolution to 1080, where other than here on these forums is that stated?  SO in order to try and get better resolution I've disabled one of the features I thought was cool with the system, we'll see how it goes.  BTW none of my cameras are set to use 180 FOV, only 1 of the 4 are even set to wide.

Don't get me wrong I like the system and don't regret the purchase but if someone expects 4K resolution they're probably going to be disapointed.

[jguerdat]

It's 4k (as long as you're using 4k live view and/or signed up for PVR. Download a video and check the metadata - it should be 4k.

My point was simply that a wider FOV means each pixel covers a smaller area compared to, say, a Pro camera (180 degrees vs. 130). The sheer number of pixels in 4k generally allows each pixel to cover a smaller area but you have to combine the FOV with the number of pixels to determine how much greater the overall resolution is. It would be simpler to compare the same FOV on both cameras but that isn't happening.

I do think the Ultras have a better picture but not as great as I had hoped, due to the wider FOV. A Pro 3 with 130 degrees (or less) FOV and 4k would be wonderful.