K1S Recording issue? - Gaps in Registrator Viewer and INVALID video files

Russellg

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Hi,

A bit of preamble, but please skip to my issue below if you don’t have time/want to read the introduction!
I’m new to the forum but have had lots of experience with discrete cameras portable DVR’s, mainly from a few years ago when I was looking for a good helmet cam solution on my MTB.
I settled on a Mini DV cam with AV input from my bullet camera before moving to my HQS II solution with LANC remote. These days I just use a Go Pro Hero 3, but that’s another story.


EDIT : RECORDING ISSUES FIXED - CAUSED BY SLOW/LOW STANDARD SD CARD

I’ve recently bought the K1S, I purchased it from JooVuu in the UK. For me it was a two horse race between the K1S and the Blackvue DR650GW-2CH. I prefer the discrete nature of the K1S and it looks like exactly what I need however I have encountered a couple of issues.

Currently it’s hooked it up in my car and currently running directly from a 12v accessory socketin the trunk. My car has intelligent battery monitoring (IBS) and the accessory socket is live only when the ignition is on or the car has been ‘woken up’ either by locking/unlocking from the keyfob, alarm trigger or over-the-air access to the vehicle (the vehicle has a comms module complete with cellular access for remotely connected services like locking and unlocking, vehicle search function, auxiliary heating etc).

In the near future the intention is to install something like a Cellink B with a couple of ‘add-a-fuse’ piggy back fuses from +12v Live and +12v ACC circuits. However I am exploring a USB cache battery option with pass through charging like I use on my bicycle powered dynamo phone charger (on a side note this is a great benefit of the K1S being powered by +5v but I still need to consider the positive and negatives of using the USB cache battery).

The unit is installed as follows: -

  1. Front Camera is plugged into Rear camera port
  2. Rear Camera is plugged into front camera port
  3. Clip on Ferrite cores to help minimise DAB reception interference on front/rear Camera and GPS inputs (Online Auction Item #111712740594)
  4. No remote switch is installed.
  5. Software used Registrator Viewer v6.0.0.8.
  6. MPH firmware K1S:R158/20150417 HW_V3 came installed on unit (overlay shows MPH but Registrator Viewer can report speed in KPH).
As it stands currently the K1S is operated as follows –

Unit is powered up when I approach the car and unlock it. At this stage I expect it to start recording.

  1. I drive the car to my destination. Assumed that unit is recording during full journey.
  2. I stop the car, exit the vehicle and lock it. At this stage I expect the unit to continue recording (either continuously or activated by motion sensor) until the intelligent battery sensor powers down the 12v socket.
  3. Once the IBS shuts off the socket I expect the K1S to power down gracefully and close the last recording file.
  4. The K1S will then remain powered off drawing zero amps from vehicle until the 12v socket is powered up.
  5. I have confirmed that there is sufficient airflow around the unit and satisfied that the unit its not overheating. Outside ambient temperature is approx. 12 Dec C at the moment and as mentioned above the unit is currently set up for testing in my trunk.
Initial findings: -
  1. The first test journey resulted in front video gaps in the recording list, (on a separate issue I found it difficult to separate front video from rear – possibly because it took a while to realise there was video missing).
  2. After first journey I tried a different SD card, same issues except some (most) video files were corrupted, (displayed as INVALID on device and with yellow exclamation mark in Registrator Viewer v6.0.0.8.)
  3. I disabled motion record as I have read elsewhere that this can case issues with continuous recording.
  4. I replaced the SD card with the original card and am not longer able to record any forward facing video, its either corrupt files or missing.
Next steps: -
  1. I need to confirm that SD cards I have available are suitable (all of them work flawlessly at high resolutions in my Go Pro HD3, but I will try a 3rd SD card of lower capacity, and report back with findings.
  2. Try another USB +5v PSU, incase the supplied PSU is causing issues.
  3. Check cable management, and remove any unnecessary coiling or bundling of camera , GPS or PSU cables.
  4. Ensure that DVR Unit is mounted horizontally and cables are secured so that there can be no movement at connection to DVR. I will fabricate a specific bracket for this.
Outstanding queries: -

  • Could there be an issue caused by me swapping front and rear camera ports (i.e. the higher bit rate port being hooked up to a camera using via longer than suitable cable?

Any assistance is appreciated, and also if anyone is interested I will report back with finding, pictures or test files etc.

Thanks,

Russell
 
Last edited:
Thanks Gabacho, good to be here!

On another note i've checked the firmware that came loaded on the device is K1S:R158/20150417 HW_V3 which I believe is the latest firware available in MPH format.
 
likely a card related issue for the most part, this model (pretty much all dual channel Ambarella models actually) can be a bit fussy about cards, what cards are you using?
 
Thanks Jokiin,


The first card I used was a Lexar 64gb card, (it was Class 10 but I don’t recall the model - will check this evening though) and a no name unbranded 64Gb. I also briefly tested an older 32Gb San Disk card to see if it was maybe a Fat32 formatting issues but TBH that card is too old and slow not to have caused recording issues due to writing speed of its own.


Both the 64Gb cards work well in my Go Pro, but I appreciate the total bitrate is probably much less on that device when compared to the K1S.


With the K1S being dual-channel and having a combined front and rear data-rate of circa 23bps being simultaneously to be written to the card at any one time, (plus sensor data etc) I'll need to source a reliable high speed card before I can consider it being an actual hardware or firmware issue.


Currently I am testing a 64Gb San Disk Extreme Pro card in the unit, installed this morning for my journey to work. I've seen some reports across the forums suggesting to avoid the San Disk cards so I will report back with my findings on that particular card soon.


So in any case I have only ‘borrowed’ that card from another device so I’m on look out too for the best card to use for the K1S, does anyone have any recommendations for a high spec card that is easy to come by in the UK?


And if I have to buy a card anyway has anyone determined if a 128Gb card can reliably be used in the K1S?
 

Good news!

Looks like the recording issues I detailed above were caused by a low speed card.

I popped in a faster card (with a 45 MB/s write speed according to specs) and that has cured all but the smallest gaps in the recordings. I suspect a card with a faster write speed will improve on that.

I think also the initial issue I observed was masked slightly by the way that Registrator Viewer handles the front and rear camera files and also partly because I am not 100% familiar with how Registrator Viewer operates yet.

I will capture that is a separate post but in summary Registrator Viewer does not seem to cleanly separate the Front and Rear files from the K1S, despite the K1S recording the files with a CAM1/CAM2 suffix respectively. Initial thoughts are that Registrator Viewer appears to bundle the files together into individual ‘trips’ based on time/date stamp, meaning you get both front a rear video files listed under each trip, with the viewer jumping between the front a rear video ac you scroll through the ‘Graphics Window’.

In any case I'll source a dedicated card for my K1S and report back with my findings. I’m considering the SanDisk Extreme PRO 64GB p/n SDSDQXP-064G-G46A

Thanks everyone for your support in helping me sort out my gapped video recording issue. Once I have ironed out all my little issue I’ll be posting a review to the forum on the K1S from a ‘new-to-car-dashcams’ (but not new to consumer electronics) viewpoint.

Russell
 
Running into similar issues with a Transcend Class 10 card (20 MB/s write speed). I'm very glad to see evidence that it's likely not a defective unit.
Did you ever settle on a card? It would be great to be able to get some confirmation before I purchase a replacement.
 
Did you ever settle on a card?

Hi Dan,

Yes, I purchased a
SanDisk SDSDQXP-064G-G46A Extreme PRO Micro SDXC Memory Card from Amazon.

So far it's been working well with no issues to report.

I know for some reason that SanDisk cards get a bad write up but I have many SanDisk cards and USB drives and I've had no issues.

I can fish out a link to the card from Amazin.co.uk if you need.

Hope this helps,

Regards,

Russell
 
SanDisk products are great except when used in DashCam products unfortunately. SanDisk uses a proprietary controller that can sometimes cause long term stability issues once loop/recycle occurs. DashCam Engineers and Developers all recommend to avoid SanDisk for DashCam use. (Especially the Red/Grey ones)
 
DashCam Engineers and Developers all recommend to avoid SanDisk for DashCam use. (Especially the Red/Grey ones)

Good to know, I have a Red/Grey in my GoPro that I was planning to use. Now I'll avoid it and the headache. Thanks.
 
Thanks so much for the feedback.

I'll do a little more research and post back with whatever I end up using. It's good to know that at least the write speed of the Sandisk card works.
 
Just a quick update: I ended up purchasing a Transcend card rated at 85 MB/s based on some of the feedback here about Sandisk. The card itself markets itself as being a good fit for dashcams, so I trusted it to be reliable, but I've got no real data to back that up. I went with a 64 gig version, mostly to slow down the rate at which the dashcam is overwriting the bytes.

Disappointingly, I still was getting freezes with it (possibly the card is slower than advertised but I haven't checked), then I noticed that all of my recording settings were set to max quality. I moved my recording quality from Super Fine to Fine, and set both the front and back camera to record in 1024x768 instead of 1920x1080 (still a high enough resolution to tell what's going on in a video). That ended up fixing the issue entirely. Since then (a little less than a month ago) I've only had two freezes, both while I was blindly fiddling with the power cables while the car was running. I've also checked some of the videos and haven't seen any gaps - so all evidence seems to point to a faster card solving the problem.

Link to what I'm using (is it OK to post links here?): https://www.amazon.com/gp/B00VHW7OKOAnd I guess after another month or so I'll write a full review of the dashcam once I feel like I've spent enough time with it to know if there are any other things to worry about.
 
I have the same issues with my K1S. I have ordered a SanDisk Extreme 64gb card so hopefully that will solve the issue.
I will also reduce my video settings as mentioned by danShumway which I think will also help.
Thanks for taking the time to add this info guys, its helped me out a lot.
 
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