DashCamTalk 5 year anniversary!

[Dashmellow]

Some of us have been farting around with dash cams for quite a long time. In my case, it's been seven years since I bought my first one, a Chinese generic I bought from a Chinese vendor in blind faith without knowing what would show up. (an AT-20, it was called) I recall trying to find something stealthy and many were not stealthy at all. That was my one criteria as there was no way to know much of anything else about the cameras such as what sensor or processor was in the camera or really anything at all, technically. Luckily, I was really pleased with what I got and I've been a dash cam user ever since. I recall being amazed by the daytime performance of the cam. It was true 1080p which was a plus and not always something you could count on back then. By today's standards it wasn't that great but still quite impressive. At night, the camera was virtually useless. I could record very grainy footage a few feet in front of my vehicle with the bright headlights on and that was about it. Remember, this was 2010.

Back in the day, seven years ago you could not buy a dash cam from a North American vendor. There was no such animal. There was also virtually no information available about dash cams but you'd see them offered for sale online from Chinese vendors. AliExpress was one of the best places to look but you couldn't be sure who you were dealing with. The best you could do was buy from a vendor who had a lot of sales.

I remember constantly searching online for information about dash cams but not much turned up, either about the product category itself or about individual cameras.

Then one day, in July 2012 a little web site popped up called DashCamTalk. I was there not long after it went live as the forum had only one member at first and then there would only be one, two, maybe three people visiting the site at any given time and one of them was always @DashCamMan! I almost became one of the first members. Instead, I just kept my eye on the site, lurking constantly and as it started to come together I eventually signed up. The site helped answer many of my questions and raised a lot of new ones I didn't know I had.

So congratulations to DashCamTalk on its 5 year anniversary! Where would we all be without it?!

 

[Dashmellow]

 

[DT MI]

 

[Street Guardian USA]

Happy Anniversary DCT

DVR-027 was my first hobby level dashcam in the early days before eventually getting into the dashcam business all together in search of something greater. Time flies when you're having fun!

 

[jokiin]

the oldest forum snapshot is here, a few familiar names that are still regulars were online at the time

https://web.archive.org/web/20131022234053/http://dashcamtalk.com:80/forum/

 

[SawMaster]

Happy 5th DCT

And many thanks to @DashCamMan for giving us such a wonderful place and keeping it going

Phil

 

[Deleted member 46308]

And now there are 37k + members. Congrats!

 

[Dashmellow]

the oldest forum snapshot is here, a few familiar names that are still regulars were online at the time

https://web.archive.org/web/20131022234053/http://dashcamtalk.com:80/forum/

Your link seems to point to October 2013, hardly the oldest. By then the forum was on XenForo. Originally it was running on phpBB.
First real snapshot for DCT on archive.web.org appears to be December 13, 2012.....161 members!
Things have sure come a long way.

 

[Tobi@s]

Without dashcamtalk i would never have started with embedded systems and embedded reverse engineering, so thanks for that.
Had met many great people here

 

[jokiin]

Your link seems to point to October 2013, hardly the oldest. By then the forum was on XenForo. Originally it running on phpBB.
First real snapshot for DCT on archive.web.org appears to be December 13, 2012.....161 members!
Things have sure come a long way.

View attachment 32012

it was the oldest one it offered up when I checked, from a bit before you had joined up, I thought the phpbb version was around for longer though, I remember people complaining about the new software when it was first migrated to XenForo

 

[Dashmellow]

it was the oldest one it offered up when I checked, from a bit before you had joined up, I thought the phpbb version was around for longer though, I remember people complaining about the new software when it was first migrated to XenForo

I wasn't so sure about XenForo at first but I've come around to really enjoying it. Many of the forums I've been on over the years have run on vBulletin, so that's what I was mostly familiar with. Both have their strengths and weaknesses I think. By the time I got around to finally signing up as a member here on DCT there were about 3,000 members as I recall.

 

[jokiin]

I wasn't so sure about XenForo at first but I've come around to really enjoying it.

yeah a few little quirks but overall I'd say it's probably one of the better solutions these days

By the time I got around to finally signing up as a member here on DCT there were about 3,000 members as I recall.

3106, hover over a users name and you'll see what signup number they are in the URL for that member

I was visiting a bit before signing up also, there were 2000 posts when I first got around to signing up so a bit after that screenshot you posted above

 

[Dashmellow]

yeah a few little quirks but overall I'd say it's probably one of the better solutions these days



3106, hover over a users name and you'll see what signup number they are in the URL for that member

I was visiting a bit before signing up also, there were 2000 posts when I first got around to signing up so a bit after that screenshot you posted above

Yeah, I'm familiar with hovering trick but it's a little more cumbersome with some of the security and script blocking software on my PC which makes that slightly trickier to see so I just approximated.

 

[jokiin]

Yeah, I'm familiar with hovering trick but it's a little more cumbersome with some of the security and script blocking software on my PC which makes that slightly trickier to see so I just approximated.

you can see them by going to the members profile as it will be in your address bar then

 

[Dashmellow]

you can see them by going to the members profile as it will be in your address bar then

I know.

 

[kamkar]

Seem like joining in 2013 was popular

 

[Street Guardian USA]

yeah a few little quirks but overall I'd say it's probably one of the better solutions these days
3106, hover over a users name and you'll see what signup number they are in the URL for that member
I was visiting a bit before signing up also, there were 2000 posts when I first got around to signing up so a bit after that screenshot you posted above

Interesting I'm member # 1595

@jokiin is 469

 

[DashCamMan]

Wow...didn't realize it was 5 years already! Time has flown buy. Really impressed with the community and glad so many people contribute even though I had to scale back due to work and family commitments!

Thanks everyone for a great 5 years!

 

[jokiin]

Seem like joining in 2013 was popular

I was visiting in 2012 but there was very little info, I did an Ambarella cam back then which was similar to the GS1000, (same housing, different PCB) and this was about the only place that had any info on the generic versions that we had people thinking we were associated with, there was a lot of misinformation on those early models as well which is the main reason I joined up at the time to try and correct the info before it got out of hand

 

[Dashmellow]

I was visiting a bit before signing up also, there were 2000 posts when I first got around to signing up so a bit after that screenshot you posted above

Another early member who is no longer around and I used to speculate privately about how many members it would take until this forum got all bleeped up like other forums we'd been members of. Fortunately, all in all, the place has retained a nice friendly atmosphere where, for example newbies are welcomed and not sneered at like other places on the net. Still, when DCT had about 5,000 members and less it was like a chummy private club, mainly because nobody I ever talked to knew what dash cams were. Since then many people seem to at least know what they are. I think the reason 2013 was the year people started becoming aware of dash cams and joining DCT was because of the February 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor event.