One of the talking points around the Tesla community lately has been the introduction of Hardware 4.0 (HW4), and the significantly improved the video quality with the new 5 megapixel cameras. While the quality has definitely improved, owners of HW3 vehicles with their 1.2 megapixel cameras got a nice quality upgrade with the latest Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta software update.
The changes came with software update 2023.7.30, which included FSD Beta 11.4.7, that was first released over the weekend. Some of the first testers to get the update noticed improved quality in the video feeds from the side repeater and rear view cameras. The changes were enough to even make them noticeable on the in-car display.
As you can see in the examples below, the enhancements make the videos much clearer and sharper, with improved colour temperature and balance that makes them appear more accurately, like red which actually looks like red now, whereas before it would appear as more of an orange colour.
Turn signal camera comparison on May 2019 build Model 3 from FSD Beta 11.4.6 to 11.4.7 – amazing improvement from the @Tesla software team here @elonmusk! pic.twitter.com/wtV4CGUq02
— Mike – CyberOwners.com (@TeslaTruckClub) August 25, 2023
Camera quality and image temperature color correction applied in latest FSD version 11.4.7.
Left image: Nov 2021
Right image: Aug 2023@elonmusk pic.twitter.com/hOrvd77r3l— Tesla Raj (@tesla_raj) August 28, 2023
So how did Tesla improve the video quality so substantially through a software update? The cameras are of course still 1.2 megapixels, meaning the resolution is still the same at 1280×960, but Tesla’s engineers have been able to increase the bit rate by nearly 50%. If you’re unfamiliar with bit rate, it is essentially the amount of data included in each frame, so the more data there is in each frame, the higher the quality.
While the quality has definitely improved, it is still no match for the quality from the 5 megapixel HW4 cameras. Tesla owner @DirtyTesla did a comparison between his HW3 and HW4 equipped vehicles, and there is still a “night and day” difference between the two.
Alright last one for tonight I’d like to actually finish this full video but I don’t think it’s going to happen lol.
Here’s HW3 new vs HW4 and these videos are taken within seconds of each other (2 drivers) https://t.co/HTsSmNoUST pic.twitter.com/n663Ja0Cul
— Dirty Tesla (@DirtyTesLa) August 30, 2023
Have you received this update? Did you notice the change in quality? Let us know in the comments below.
