license plates

[LandJS]

since the subject of license plates has come up a number of times and I had time to play with I went out and tried a number of angles on my car that was about 12 feet away and though I could make them out just barely when zooming in, they sure didn't look as advertised.  So next I went from super wide to wide and what a difference, zoomed in on crystal clear numbers.  Problem is, 180 is why I chose Arlo.  Curious if anyone else has tried this and their thoughts, does super wide degrade the pic that much ?

[StephenB]

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@LandJS wrote:

 Curious if anyone else has tried this and their thoughts, does super wide degrade the pic that much ?

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It doesn't degrade the picture. 

But the pixels per degree does down

• 3840/120 => 32 pixels per degree;
• 3840/155 => 25
• 3840/180 => 21 

For a given car position, that means fewer pixels per foot.  So the license plate is represented by fewer pixels.

A simpler way of saying this - increasing the field of view makes everything smaller.

[LandJS]

Thank you StephenB that would explain it, even on a printer it's all about pixels.  Marketing wise though, when you see 4K and a pic of crystal clear plates you don't think, unless I use superwide mode.  lol  But most do it, you don't see a TV in the store that's not hooked up to a 4K source even though most at home sources aren't.