Review: "Smallest HD 720p DVR" or "Video Recorder A8"

[Vronsky]

I have the inferior model, but the unit does not get hot (so far), warm at best.
I wonder if this could have something to do with the type/brand of micro-sd.
I'm using a SanDisk MicroSDHC Mobile Ultra 4GB,
what are you guys using ??

 

[Bluerose]

My camera isn’t A8 but a Black Hero, without H264 codec. I solved this problem buying a SD 16GB class 10. Most likely we have identical camera, or very similar. My camera cycles every 2.5 minutes each file size is about 260 MB and provides more than 2 Hours History, for the size of SD card that I bought at Walmart on line for $11 adapter included.
In the car, my camera doesn’t get hot, for now. Where a live the temperature in my car is bellow 70F. My digital temperature control in my car is set up at 72F winter or summer time, but now the car needs some time to warms up, and till then a arrive to the destination. In one long trip the camera was warming up, let say around 100F. This prompted me to remove it from the car, and to do more testing. At ambient temperature 30 - 50 F camera is doing just fine. At ambient 72F, after one hour in use, the camera was getting hot at around 100 - 110F. This prompted me to think how to cool the system. I opened the camera added many holes in the cover, and now thanks good it is working fine.
If your camera doesn't overheat please live it alone. But if it does, during hot, very hot
Summer sunny days, my advice is to turn it off, and think what to do with it. There's more than one way to skin a cat. Mine was only one.
I'm happy with this $39 camera, so far so good.
If you decide to open vent holes be very careful. As a mentioned the camera cover has 4 PCB supporters, which I'm indicating with the yellow arrows in the picture below. And the most important if you touch a PC board your camera will get the death touch.
P.S sorry I do not have the picture now, but I will post a couple of hours later.

 

[Bluerose]

 

[Palomar]

I've had the A8 running in the car for a few days now. The video quality is satisfactory but the audio is scratchy, like an old vinyl record. The mic seems to be sensitive to vibrations coming from the road. Anyone else notice this problem?

Also in the audio (with headphones on) there is a brief hissing sound repeated every second. This could be internal circuit noise, like the processor is writing a block of data to the chip every second. It's annoying but not really a problem.

 

[whooosh1]

Hi Guys,

I've recently been looking at roadhawk's range of cameras and their new Roadhawk 720p looks surprisingly similar to the A8 (!), only they are charging £139.00+VAT :?

http://www.roadhawk.co.uk/roadhawk-720- ... od_31.html

I was thinking about ordering , but now Ive discovered it's basically an A8 I might as well order from China/Hong Kong. Do you think Roadhawk will have a better firmware version? it seems hard to justify so much extra money. The only plus is that you can order various accessories, and I guess roadhawk will support it properly. They are out of stock at the moment.

I can't see how it can be that much different (even build quality), I didn't realise it was just a rebranded OEM product. I guess it might be hit and miss with the A8, but I'd like something reliable if I'm going to get it hard wired.

Any thoughts?

cheers

whooosh

 

[jokiin]

I suspect you'd be paying a premium for the convenience of dealing locally, not sure there's any other benefit to be had

 

[Palomar]

I've recently been looking at roadhawk's range of cameras and their new Roadhawk 720p looks surprisingly similar to the A8 (!), only they are charging £139.00+VAT :? http://www.roadhawk.co.uk/roadhawk-720- ... od_31.html

I see the Roadhawk version comes with some useful accessories. The slide-in camera mount allows you to remove the unit whereas the regular A8 is permanently stuck to the windshield. You also get an 8GB memory card with USB reader and an extra-long power cord with cigarette lighter plug for £140.00 including VAT, about $210 in US bucks. And who know what the shipping charge might be.

I'd say the accessories are worth maybe $25. You can get the regular A8 from Hong Kong for less than $50 total, which makes the Roadhawk way over priced. A more reasonable figure would be $75 including tax and ship, about £50.

 

[whooosh1]

yeh, and Roadhawk also sell a lot of those accessories (extension power lead, cigarette adapter etc) individually, so you could always order the main unit from China and then buy any of the other accessories that you want from roadhawk (if you need them and can't be bothered to wire a cigarette adapter etc).

Thanks for the help

 

[Palomar]

yeh, and Roadhawk also sell a lot of those accessories (extension power lead, cigarette adapter etc) individually, so you could always order the main unit from China and then buy any of the other accessories that you want from roadhawk (if you need them and can't be bothered to wire a cigarette adapter etc).

I would like to do that but they charge about $45 international shipping for a $10 item.

 

[dashcam.br]

My A8 arrived in the mail yesterday, after a month on its trip from Hong Kong to Brazil.

Unfortunately the video is out of focus and the sound quality is horrible (not as important as the image quality). I'm also not sure if the camera is reliable. I had to format the card in the camera to get it recognized, but Windows sometimes doesn't recognize the card - I have to remove and insert the card again to try to read it. No corrupted files (or the whole filesystem) so far.

I mounted the A8 side by side with my DVR 027 to compare the results. Here is how a 30 s segment was recorded on a sunny day on both cameras:

A8 "smallest" 720p

DVR 027 720p

 

[V8Rocks]

Some folks mentioned about price hike on ebay. There is only one seller globalsucceed01 who sells it for reasonable price $46.35. Others hopezone001 and estore009 raised prices over $90.

At least I know the reason now. They have defective batch with busted internal battery, so it seems they are framing you to buy from globalsucceed01. If you buy it from them - the dash cam will loose date on every power cycle and the worst part - last recorded file will be corrupted. I bought 2, both have battery issue. Funny, seller is suggesting - it is the way it supposed to work.

> $90 is very unreasonable, you can get way better cams in this price range.

 

[BigV]

I bought one in March from seller estore009. At that time is was $46. Now it is $98.

I using a Patriot class 10 32gb card. Have not felt it get hot, but don't really check it much. I have not had any issues with the date resetting, but the recording time will not stay set. I set it for 5 minutes and it keeps reverting back to 1 minute. I don't have any gaps in the video, in fact they overlap a bit.

This model appealed to me because of size. It is mounted on the behind my rear view mirror. The mirror already has wires for the auto dim/temp/compass so the wire for the camera is not noticed. You can only just make out the lens from outside if you look real close. My monitor for the backup camera has dual inputs so I have this camera connected to it.

So far I'm happy with it. The quality is good enough for what I want. Nightt is not real good, but I rarely drive at night. I think it is worth the $46 I paid for it, but I don't think I would have paid $98. There are better units for that money just not as small.

 

[V8Rocks]

I like these cams as well. I was planning to install 5 of them, but due to poor quality I only managed to istall 2 (no issues so far), others had some kind of issues or DOA. I will get one more (DOA replacement) in a few days, hopefully it is good one. Will have to wait until they get rid of bad batch and price come down to finish the rest.

 

[V8Rocks]

Got replacement dash cam from hopezone001 and it is in perfect working condition. The battery was discharged, but it recharged itself after first use, so all settings and time is correct after power cycle.

 

[DLucas]

I have the inferior model, too, and I encountered some issues. I think I can live with some (battery, resetting date, loss of last recorded video), but not the other: The camera does not loop record. It just stops when the memory is full. Is there any way to deal with this issue?

Dirk

 

[V8Rocks]

For those who wants to correct internal battery issue - I found exact match on aliexpress: Size 4mm*10mm*20mm 3.7V 80mah Lithium polymer battery with protection board @ http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Whol...-MP3-MP4-MP5-PSP-Free-Shipping/732167454.html
The only issue - it is sold in lots of 10 (works for me). I figured, it takes more than 500 cycles, so it may last for a year in dash cams without any battery issues. Then is will fail at some point, so I would just replace old battery and I would be good to go for another year or so.
--- Or ---
You may try ebay items, not exact match but very close @ http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-7V-80mAh-Lithium-Polymer-Rechargeable-Battery-Li-Po-For-Mp3-GPS-PSP-381220-/181118267115?pt=US_Rechargeable_Batteries&hash=item2a2b7d6eeb

 

[V8Rocks]

Just received my lot of 10 batteries - all are above 3.7V. No need to charge.

One of my dash cams had potentially weak battery as it was resetting date/time after 2-3 hours after power disconnect. Sure enough, once I opened it - it was at 3.1v right after trip. I also noticed the new battery is a bit wider and longer, possibly twice the capacity, but there is plenty of space in the case and it does not interfere with anything. The reward - no more date/time resets or potential file corruption.

BTW, the seller's mutiny continues - you can not buy this dash cam from anyone except "globalsucceed01" on ebay and they will send you one with defective battery.

Battery seller reduced lot size to 5 for $11.50.

 

[0mfgroflmao]

Is there any good place to buy one of these atm? (ie latest version/working battery) Or should I wait? I'm looking for a small cheap (sub $50) DVR and this seems good for me as I can just hook the video output to my car head unit.

 

[jokiin]

This isn't a sub $50 DVR, suspect you're thinking of a different version

 

[niko]

At the moment the best mini dash cam: quality vs price is this one here


viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1401

1080p / 30fps
15Mbps bit rate
F1.6 (F1.8?) aperture

More info with full youtube 20min long overview and loads of RAW video files samples from that topic.