X5 rear camera very distorned and unclear, is this normal?
 

long story short, my 2007 X5 rear camera looks terrible at night, the image is very pixilated and noisy(interms of rough image), here is what it looks like at nigth time:

(that's my Mini S on the left)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...4/87ecf357.jpg

night or dim lighting is horrile on this camera, and motion is not as smooth. In daytime it's much better, but the freame rate is a bit on the flow frame rate side. My question is, is this normal on the new X5? or do i have a faulty camera?

i used to own the Audi Q7 before getting the X5, while the Q7 was a dull ride, the rear camera image in day or night was crystal clear with silk smooth motion. Tht's why i was wondering how come BMW rear came is so bad!

check the image i posted above see how bad it is when im backing out of my garage.

i'd appreciate it if someone could shed some light on this topic that's been bothering me quiet a bit!

thanks!

EDIT: here is another picture with a little street light lighting up the area, again it's night time, but du to more lights, there is less noise and distortion...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...4/0a5c7029.jpg

Normal I'm afraid. BMW should be ashamed of themselves for shipping this to customers. Come on BMW, either refund the sum paid by customers or recall the vehicles and fit a better quality camera!!!

shame on them! ....this needs a fix urgently! this is not what have come to expect from a BMW. Is there an option of going aftermarket to install a better quality camera?

:iagree:

Unfortunately, that's the normal rear camera quality :(

You'll get used to it though..:cool:

It's a shame that it is normal. I used it for less than a day then turned it off. It was nearly useless and looked horrible. If anyone has used the Infiniti Around View Monitor you will realize how horrible this system is!

My wife's 2007 Acura MDX has a way better camera...

We should all start individual threads on this.. here and everywhere else... maybe BMW will finally do something about this. What a crying shame.

my 1.3MP camera phone looks like that...and so does the X5.

It's normal...

And yes, one thing better on the Q7 than the X5 is the backup camera... My demo Q7 had it and i was loving it... But my demo X5 didn't have it nor any at the dealer so I ordered it without seeing or trying it.

It is very bad in bad light but at day it is fit for its purpose: a parking AID... Also to backup into a trailer it is perfect.

and here it is on a full blast daylight at 1pm... :(

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...4/caf25591.jpg

^Almost as good as a computer webcam, and that's saying a lot!

Hope BMW will improve the camera quality. :confused:

lol, so true! a webcam from 1985 :rofl:

Compare this to the Around View Monitor:
http://image.trucktrend.com/f/miscel...-dasd-view.jpg

When I look at the technology package pricing, it is an awful lot of money for second rate components. If I was to order a car today knowing what I know, I would probably skip the tech package, order PDC, and just get a higher end Garmin.

I took the tech pkg anyway hoping to fit a new camera in at some point... thought it would be near impossible to do it from having nothing to begin with.

http://reviews.cnet.com/sc/32431953-2-300-DT1.gif

http://z.about.com/d/cars/1/0/S/j/ag...ckupcamera.jpg

comparing to lexus !

and this one what our x5's cameras should look like hahaha from bmw Photos !

http://blogs.cars.com/photos/uncategorized/x5camera.jpg

holy crap. what car was this from? it does make the E70 camera look like an old web cam.

I'm also thinking about skipping on the tech package on my next X5 lease if BWW does not make any improvement. Come to think of it, I paid so much money for something that I rarely use. Back up camera is useless and I can't rely on the PDC anyway.

The backup camera is not as good as it should be but I would not say it's useless. It serves its purpose when it needs to. I would definitely purchase it again.

why doesnt you launch a lawsuit?

showing those pictures from bmw, and saying its false advertizing or something?

Any whooo, i have to admit that is really bad! i thought for sure he had a faulty camera! :)

Around-view monitor:
http://www.infiniti.com/fx/key_features/technology.html

Thank you. That was nice. It would have been nicer to have one like that on an E70 but that's too much to ask. You can't have them all, I guess.

I don't think that's too much to ask. With the amount of money we're paying for E70, at least we can expect a decent camera. If Infinity can put it, why not BMW..??

Before I decided to get the X5, I was very much looking at the 2009 Infiniti FX. It is quite a nice car, and generally, the electronics inside such as the Nav, backup camera, etc, are all way superior to the less than loved iDrive. :rolleyes: If you get a chance to actually use the Around View Monitor, I think you will be quite impressed. Combined with usable voice controls, touch screen and a iDrive like controller (but much better), there is really no comparison. It just turns out that the X5 of course drives like a BMW, and the lease price delta between a V8 powered X5 and 51K V6 powered FX was not that large. From a person that has lived with the Mercedes COMAND system on two cars, I don't expect much from German audio/nav systems.

However, since we all have the same problem, it is hoped that BMW will fix it in the future, since that picture on their web site does look a lot better. It must have been taken with optimal conditions.

Please.... Stop complaining about the amount of money your paying for an E70... :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

If you don't want to pay it by yourself a Lada Niva or something (google it)...

Not shitting you, I payed my E70 3.0d 75.000 eur (price for an equally equipped 3.0i is the same) and the same one costs you Americas only 45.000 eur... :stickpoke

I'm happy with my camera :popcorn:

cant wait for inifiniti to launch in the UK :)
will finally force the germans to build better cars (hopefully)

Sounds like wishful thinking to me. I think there is ZERO chance that Infiniti launching in UK will make BMW build better cars.

Dude, why didn't you get Lada Niva then... you won't even need a camera, you can bounce that thing off of walls :rofl: or maybe you wanted to pay Eur 75000 for this shitty camera. I get it.. ;)

just saw something similar from BMW as OEM accessories:

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...07&hg=66&fg=95

^finally, progress...

not from BMW, but something.

I just picked up my X5 4.8 and wow.. its a great car.. but what a shitty camera, coming from Lexus lx470.. wow what a dissapointment for a BMW

as sad as it sounds this is normal.. bmw should be ashamed of this camera, i came from a lexus product and it was crystal clear.

I just got my 08 X5 4.8i.. and wow, this is one awesome car.. but BMW really cheaped out on the camera.. the PDC is nice but camera is useless.. looks worse than the VGA cell phone camera...

The camera is so messed up, at night you see nothing because its so blurry.
When it rains you cant see anything. After a good wash and some polish the camera runs good (Don't know why).

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/i...5/IMG_0251.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/i...5/IMG_0250.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/i...5/IMG_0249.jpg

the camera lens needs cleaning as recommended by the manual but so does every other vehicle and they turn out just fine regardless, don't they? So frustrating...

who needs backup cam when you can twist and stretch your abs looking back with your eyes lol

Good for you if you could stretch your head out the back window to see what's behind the car, and lower than the tailgate.
I'll stick to my camera.

hehe, yeah i admit the infiniti electronics are better but man, the interior designs looks horrendous IMO.

i thought EPS (extra sensory perception), comes standard with every bmw driver... :D

how to get cam on the main screen and pdc in right, I don't have that option at all on aids settings, software or what?

that split screen was a firmware update... should have the capability if you ask your dealer for the latest.

Yah, my car came with it like this. But what I want to know is how to get the PDC on the big screen and the camera on the small. The camera sucks so bad, that I use PDC, but I would like the camera to be on still.