extraoneya
Active Member
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2014
- Messages
- 375
- Reaction score
- 152
- Location
- Calif, USA, near the ocean
- Country
- United States
- Dash Cam
- 2 Finevu Pros for front & rear
I’ve posted here in the General forum, since my experience deals as much w/ the mounting & installation as w/ the Finevu’s performance. I’ve tried to mention things for folks who r interested in generic mounting & installation, as well as those looking at Finevu products specifically.
After reading postings, articles & watching videos I decided to buy an initial pair of DCs & transfer them between 4 cars.
My logic……..Although experienced w/ still photography, I’m unfamiliar w/ video & DCs, & didn’t want to spend the $$ to equip all the cars at once only to be disappointed in my choices later on. DCs will be coming out that r better, smaller & cheaper then what's available now. As I gain experience, I’ll purchase new cams & assign the older ones to certain cars. I have the time to transfer them between vehicles, since I’m retired & don’t have to jump in the car because I’m late for work.
I purchased 2 identical cams since what happens behind u is as important as what occurs in front. The available 2 chl. sets have an inferior cam facing rearward. Doing it my way increases the installation difficulty exponentially.
I also wanted the cams to be discreet & most mounts that come w/ DCs r anything but.
I decided on 2 Finevu Pros because of their shape, size, & image quality. Feedback indicated they were mostly reliable, & the dealer advertised a English manual & firmware. They were in the price range I was willing to spend. I purchased them from blackboxmycar, who has been a pleasure to work with.
What increased the installation difficultly was that the 4 cars r quite different from each other. The Motor Pool consists of; #1- a 2014 Minivan, #2- 1965 station wagon, #3- 1965 “El Camino” type of coupe/pickup & #4- 1966 sports/muscle car. The older cars have little room behind the mirror, use small fuse boxes w/ old style fuses & their cig lighters intrude more into the passenger compartment then current cars. (folks smoked more in the 60s).
Here’s what I started with;
I’m making this a work-in-progress thread & will add a post as new info becomes available. It will be updated as each car gets up & running w/ the cams. In the sample videos, I’ve included day, night, urban & rural scenes. Please keep coming back if u’r interested. Or as the cop on the beat used to say, “Move along folks, there’s nothing to see here”.
My initial impressions of the Finevu Pros are as follows. Keep in mind that these r the only cams I have experience with, so I can only compare them to others that I’ve read about. Refer to the images to see my settings.
Pros of the Pros;
Rear Cam>
Onto the cars>> #1- 2014 Honda Odyssey (base model).
The dual cig lighter outlet wasn’t needed for the van & was too intrusive for the older cars. The Honda has an outlet in the front & rear. Plugging into these outlets forgoes the Finevu’s Parking Mode protection since the plugs aren’t hot. After finishing the other cars, I’ll hardwire the DCs here also.
I’m impressed w/ Niko’s magnetic mounts (not taking anything away from the other posters here, all of u have provided fantastic info & inspiration). I had several rolls of magnetic tape (w/ adhesive on the back side). Although these have the strongest magnetic pull available in tape form, it wasn’t enough to grip the cam when driving on rough roads. This resulted in the loss of several days labor & necessitated the consumption of numerous beers in order to ease the pain of failure.
I thought Niko’s use of the ridges on plastic containers particularly clever. As I practiced on a piece, I was struck w/ resemblance to plastic trim I had used for other projects. This led me to McMaster-Carr. The plastic trim pieces had to be purchased in 25 ft. lengths, but their rubber trim could be purchased by the foot. I ordered 2 feet each of 4 different styles & widths.
reached limit on photos, cont. next post.
After reading postings, articles & watching videos I decided to buy an initial pair of DCs & transfer them between 4 cars.
My logic……..Although experienced w/ still photography, I’m unfamiliar w/ video & DCs, & didn’t want to spend the $$ to equip all the cars at once only to be disappointed in my choices later on. DCs will be coming out that r better, smaller & cheaper then what's available now. As I gain experience, I’ll purchase new cams & assign the older ones to certain cars. I have the time to transfer them between vehicles, since I’m retired & don’t have to jump in the car because I’m late for work.
I purchased 2 identical cams since what happens behind u is as important as what occurs in front. The available 2 chl. sets have an inferior cam facing rearward. Doing it my way increases the installation difficulty exponentially.
I also wanted the cams to be discreet & most mounts that come w/ DCs r anything but.
I decided on 2 Finevu Pros because of their shape, size, & image quality. Feedback indicated they were mostly reliable, & the dealer advertised a English manual & firmware. They were in the price range I was willing to spend. I purchased them from blackboxmycar, who has been a pleasure to work with.
What increased the installation difficultly was that the 4 cars r quite different from each other. The Motor Pool consists of; #1- a 2014 Minivan, #2- 1965 station wagon, #3- 1965 “El Camino” type of coupe/pickup & #4- 1966 sports/muscle car. The older cars have little room behind the mirror, use small fuse boxes w/ old style fuses & their cig lighters intrude more into the passenger compartment then current cars. (folks smoked more in the 60s).
Here’s what I started with;
I’m making this a work-in-progress thread & will add a post as new info becomes available. It will be updated as each car gets up & running w/ the cams. In the sample videos, I’ve included day, night, urban & rural scenes. Please keep coming back if u’r interested. Or as the cop on the beat used to say, “Move along folks, there’s nothing to see here”.
My initial impressions of the Finevu Pros are as follows. Keep in mind that these r the only cams I have experience with, so I can only compare them to others that I’ve read about. Refer to the images to see my settings.
Pros of the Pros;
- Excellent video quality.
- Good viewing area. Seems a good comprise between the angle & minimizing the fisheye effect.
- It’s shape is more compact then many others. The box-type construction allows it to be easily aimed & hidden. It doesn’t seem to stick out as much as a tube-type cam would.
- Excellent manual.
- Nice interface & easy to change settings.
- Easy to remove the cam from it’s mount.
- The Polaroid filter is Poo-Poo. It’s held on by a very weak magnetic field. This allows it to be rotated & removed. But it falls off at the slightest touch or jarring. If u look at it wrong, it’ll fall off. The filter dropped into the window defroster vent of car #4. It took 3 hours of labor & the purchase of an additional tool before I retrieved it. If it had moved 2 inches during my retrieval attempts, the dashboard would have had to be dismantled! Did anyone from Finevu actually try this thing before offering it for sale? Total incompetence on Finevu’s part. (Yes, I’m still angry).
- Too aggressive sharpening. See my post > http://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/dont-let-this-fool-u-in-judging-video-quality.4059/
- Misleading settings. “Nighttime Brightness”? in the future, I’m sure DCs will be able to differentiate day from night while dealing w/ headlights, etc. But for now, let’s call this what it is, “Brightness”. It increases brightness under all conditions. It seems to reveal details at night, but washes it out during daytime. I compromised by setting it 1 notch brighter only on the rear cam.
- Shock sensitivity while driving is too sensitive even at it’s lowest setting. I had to turn it off as it would activate pulling out a driveway or hitting a pothole.
- Painfully slow transfer rates moving the vids to a computer. Around 2.50 – 3.10 MBps, tested on 2 desktops & a laptop, either brand new or 2 yrs. old.
- Large & bright LEDs. At least there’s only 2 facing towards the rear. Primarily a problem at night. I’m still playing around w/ the best way to handle this annoyance.
Rear Cam>
Onto the cars>> #1- 2014 Honda Odyssey (base model).
The dual cig lighter outlet wasn’t needed for the van & was too intrusive for the older cars. The Honda has an outlet in the front & rear. Plugging into these outlets forgoes the Finevu’s Parking Mode protection since the plugs aren’t hot. After finishing the other cars, I’ll hardwire the DCs here also.
I’m impressed w/ Niko’s magnetic mounts (not taking anything away from the other posters here, all of u have provided fantastic info & inspiration). I had several rolls of magnetic tape (w/ adhesive on the back side). Although these have the strongest magnetic pull available in tape form, it wasn’t enough to grip the cam when driving on rough roads. This resulted in the loss of several days labor & necessitated the consumption of numerous beers in order to ease the pain of failure.
I thought Niko’s use of the ridges on plastic containers particularly clever. As I practiced on a piece, I was struck w/ resemblance to plastic trim I had used for other projects. This led me to McMaster-Carr. The plastic trim pieces had to be purchased in 25 ft. lengths, but their rubber trim could be purchased by the foot. I ordered 2 feet each of 4 different styles & widths.
reached limit on photos, cont. next post.
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