I have a Aspec Advance, my friend has an Aspec RDX. Her camera is significantly more crisp and vibrant than mine (despite being a year older) which is washed out in comparison.
Is that something that may be covered under warranty ? i could provide pictures as proof to them if needed.

 

Are you comparing a RDX with the bird's eye view to a RDX with only a rear facing camera?

If the answer is yes, then I noticed the same thing when comparing the rear camera on my Canadian Platinum Elite model, to other RDX's. I have asked this question in other posts, but it doesn't seem that anyone has had the opportunity to compare the two types of RDXs.

I believe (in other words my guess) the reason is that the "standard" RDX has a high resolution backup camera (guessing 1080p) , but the front and two mirror cameras on the "birdseye" RDX are lower resolution (guessing 720p).

If they tried to stich together the images from different resolution cameras, the images from the rear camera would not be in proportion to the other 3 cameras. So the solution was to degrade the resolution of the rear camera to match the other 3 cameras.

This may be more understandable if you are familiar with a PC's screen resolution settings. A common screen resolution is 1920x1080. If you change that setting to 800x600 you will see all the desktop items more than double in size. In birdseye view you need all the cameras to display an object to the same scale.

The quality of the RDX cameras is honestly the thing that I dislike most about my RDX. When parking on streets where the sidewalk is adjacent to the curb, I cannot distinguish where the pavement meets the curb, or where the curb meets the sidewalk. There just isn't enough contrast to see the 3 individual items. The fact that the birdseye display is also very tiny doesn't help.

 

This is my main reason for sticking with Tech when I bought the 2023, rather than upgrading to an Advance. They screwed up 2 things with the Advance -- the rear camera and the headlights. Fortunately they dropped the adaptive headlights with the mid model refresh and that allowed the Advance to get a TSP+ rating from the IIHS. Otherwise, you had worse headlights with the Advance.

In the case of RDX "less is more".

 

Will they replace it? Who knows, maybe they will look at it and say its normal, the expectation from dealer service is low, especially for any warranty work

 

One thing to do that might be in your favor would be to check the view on one of the showroom models, hopefully something significantly better than your experience. Then you have a point of comparison should you get the all too often “that’s normal.”

 

Good answer. OK so you are correct, I am comparing my Aspec advance camera with I guess what is called the "birds eye" view to a standard Aspec. They are 2022 and 2023.
I do understand PC resolution, but to me it would make much more sense for the smaller screens on the Aspec advanced (because it is is split between the all around camera screen and the rear camera) to be HIGHER resolution to fit more on the screens. No ? and if so, the images should be sharper on my Aspec advanced (hypothetically)

 

The Aspec and Tech have the same rear camera layout in 2023.

 

In Canada only the Platinum Elite Aspec has the "birdseye" (or surround view) feature. I am not familiar with the features on the various trim levels outside of Canada. I assume that the Aspec and Tech trims do not have the birdseye feature, and only the Aspec Advanced had this feature.

I had noticed that my rear camera (with birdseye) wasn't great since the first day I got it, but I assumed that is was normal. That was until I saw the camera on a regular RDX.

Other than the OP @SilverJ and myself, I have not heard of anyone comparing the quality of the rear camera on a regular RDX to that of an RDX equipped with the birdseye feature. Perhaps that's because there isn't any difference, and both of us really do have a defective camera. Or, what I suspect, is that most owners haven't had a chance to compare the cameras from both types of RDX.

I have already posted my reasons why I think Acura is using a lower resolution camera at the rear, but I would welcome comments from other owners who have actually had an opportunity to compare the cameras from both trim levels.

 

Here's another fictitious example to demonstrate my point.

Consider that cell phone #1 takes images that were 400 pixels by 400 pixels (i.e. square), and cell phone #2 takes images that were 1200 pixels by 1200 pixels. Lets also assume that we used these cameras to take a picture of our RDX, which filled the viewfinder completely.

Now if we display these images on a screen that is 400 pixels by 400 pixels. The image from cell phone #1 would fill the entire screen perfectly, while we would only see 1/9 of the image from cell phone #2. It would appear that we have zoomed in on just 1/9 of the total image. We might just see a closeup of one front fender taking up the entire display.

If we make the screen resolution higher, as you suggested, say 1200x1200 then the image from the phone # 1 would only occupy 1/9 of the screen and the image from phone #2 would fill the screen perfectly. That front fender would be too small to see on the 400 pixel camera.

So to relate this back to the RDX, you need all the cameras to have the same resolution, so that when you stitch all 4 images together, the size of objects remains scaled between the different cameras. So the question is, did they make all cameras the same resolution as a regular RDX, or did they reduce the resolution of all cameras.

It would make sense that they are using the same infotainment display resolution across all models of RDX. The camera resolution of a regular RDX would be chosen to match the resolution of the display, in order to fill it. In your Aspec Advanced you would need to reduce the pixels in your rear camera, so that it no longer fills the display, but leaves some space for the other cameras.

If my theory is correct, and they reduced the resolution of the rear camera, then the image would have less detail (i..e fewer pixels of information), which both of us have noticed.

 

We had a 2020 Advance and noticed the same issue with the rear camera. I convinced the dealer to replace the rear camera and it made no difference at all. Our 2024 Advance has the same issue in regard to the rear camera image resolution.

At the time I did some research on the rear camera and found there are two different part numbers for the rear camera on an RDX. One part number (36530-TJB-A01) for vehicles with Surround View and another (39530-TJB-A01) for vehicles without Surround View. Based on the images on the linked pages, the two are not interchangeable. One has the wiring pigtail attached and the other does not.

Ron