A Much-Needed DashCam Option

Packetfire

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After looking at a half-dozen different dashcams, I can't find a unit that does not force the user to keep buying microSD cards forever.

What is needed is an internal RAM buffer for roughly 20 minutes of video and audio. As the car moves down the road, this buffer can be overwritten in 5-minute segments, so at any one time, one has the most recent 15 mins of video.

Now, something happens - an accelerometer triggering indent (accident collision) or the driver presses a button, because he just got pulled over by the cops. THIS is when the contents of the RAM should be saved to the microSD card, thus saving the prior 15 mins of video. If the button is held down for a bit, perhaps the unit continues to write to the microSD until it is manually stopped with another button press.

But driving is a lot like parking mode - most of the time, the video is of no interest, and need not even be written to the microSD. If not written, it is not overwritten, and wear on the mircoSD goes way down.

I am looking at buying a $300 to $400 device, and here I am pointing out a basic and costly error made by every maker of these devices. I don't want 18 hours of a boring drive across country, I want the ability to document what led up to an incident of importance to either the car (accelerometer) or to me (button pusher).

Why is every device chewing up microSD cards with video that will never be watched, and might create serious problems for the owner? I'd have to take special care to turn off microphones and/or erase footage simply to keep confidential conversations (on phone or with a passenger) confidential!

Does any unit have enough internal memory to handle this sort of approach? Will any vendor offer this as an option? I'd pay more, as my cost of ownership would be lower, and my reliability would be higher.

Maybe I am missing something basic here, but who wants video saved when nothing of interest happened?
 
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Have you ever actually used a dashcam?

:)
The major thing that makes it a 'dash cam', and not an action cam, or whatever, is that it DOES 'loop' files. (Meaning, save segments, and record over the oldest one on the card as a new segment is created.) If an action cam stops recording when the card is full, either 'loop' is turned off, or the card is faulty.

You can buy a reliable dash cam for well under $100.

I drive a truck, and have two running right now, both with 64gb cards.
One will give me 8 hours of coverage, (before the oldest file is recorded over), the other about 6 hours. Not worried about hours of coverage? Use a smaller card.
 
How many microSD cards do you go through in a year?
 
How many microSD cards do you go through in a year?

@Packetfire, I respectfully submit that you don't have a clue about dash cams. I have microSD cards that have been in daily dash camera service for years and are still going strong. When needed I will simply replace them.

Many times over during the last seven years of dash cam ownership I have found it valuable to be able to refer back to video shot earlier in the day or perhaps the day or even days prior. Other times I just let it loop.

It is amusing to see a new member show up here and for his very first post accuse every manufacturer and I guess every experienced camera user too of "making a costly error."
 
Maybe I am missing something basic here

it would appear that way, the internal memory you want to buffer to and only save when needed is just as volatile as the external memory you don't want to be replacing, it will still wear out, you'd be replacing cameras because the internal memory wore out rather than just putting a new memory card in
 
I usually run 2 dashcams or more at a time in my tractor trailer, and they're on anywhere from 12-24 hours a day, for 3-4 weeks at a time. I probably buy a 4-5 new cards a year, but this is in use that is easily 10x what the average car driver will experience. 120,000-130,000 miles a year, frequent 24 hour use when parked overnight.
If you are a normal driver (Normal amount of driving time/miles per year) a decent card easily should last a year, and we're talking $10-15.
I'm not sure what the 'cop' and commercial vehicle recording systems use, I assume it's some sort of hard drive. (and one of the reasons those cams cost thousands of dollars.)
 
I'm not sure what the 'cop' and commercial vehicle recording systems use, I assume it's some sort of hard drive. (and one of the reasons those cams cost thousands of dollars.)

the Panasonic systems used most often run between four to eight thousand dollars depending on the options used, a lot of memory cards ;)
 
^^^ (Worth more than my old pickup....no thanks) :)
 
> the internal memory you want to buffer to and only save when needed is just as volatile

No, that's not how RAM works. One can expect to beat on it. Your PC or Mac has a RAM card.

> It is amusing to see a new member show up here and for his very first post accuse every manufacturer

It is more amusing to see the knee-jerk reaction. I was told by more than one vendor to expect to replace microSD cards every 2 to 6 months. Perhaps they are exaggerating, if so, my concern is misplaced. But why would they be so pessimistic when they are selling devices?
 
The vendor who told you to expect to replace microSD cards every 2 to 6 months also doesn't have a clue.

The entire argument you seem to be making here is entirely speculative. The so called "knee jerk" reaction you think you are getting is coming from members with long time, hands on experience and a very knowledgeable manufacturer with a reputation for developing some of the better dash cameras on the market, who don't happen to agree with you.
 
> the internal memory you want to buffer to and only save when needed is just as volatile

No, that's not how RAM works. One can expect to beat on it. Your PC or Mac has a RAM card.

that's how your PC works, not how a camera works, these are SOC devices not a computer

It is more amusing to see the knee-jerk reaction. I was told by more than one vendor to expect to replace microSD cards every 2 to 6 months. Perhaps they are exaggerating, if so, my concern is misplaced. But why would they be so pessimistic when they are selling devices?

I'd question their advice, if you were doing very heavy usage you might think about replacing cards at 6 month intervals, for the average use scenario 12 months is still playing things very safe
 
Get a High Endurance or U3 card, they should last a long time. Paying 1000's for a system that uses another storage method just because you heard flash memory isn't safe doesn't make sense. Flash memory is getting better and better each year as well. (along with cheaper/bigger)
 
I'll say it again. I have a couple of microSD cards that are in fairly heavy daily use that frankly I expected would have given up the ghost eons ago but they just keep chugging along. One of them, a Kingston card in a Mobius (side facing) has been going for about two years. The other day, for the first time I found one unexpected corrupted file, so that could be an early warning sign but I reformatted it and put it back in the camera just to see what might happen. In any event, I have very rarely had ANY sort of memory card issues in seven years of multiple daily cam use. And these are all standard U1 Class 10 cards. I keep spares in my vehicle in the event I should ever need one or want to preserve footage while out and about.

A $300-$400 camera that eliminates the need for modestly priced replaceable memory is a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.
 
My second oldest SD card is over 2 years old, with at least one years worth of recording 24/7 on it and the rest is normal usage. Last tested it a couple months ago and still 100%, checked the vids last week and all looks fine. 2 other cards (same kind) are about a year old. Yeah, good cards ain't cheap but they're worth it ;) Uncommon to have a good SD card in a good cam fail without warning and most cams have a way of indication that failure. Got an extra card formatted and ready-to-go in the van in case that happens :D I run 4 cams and there are things I don't see while I'm driving on them that I might find useful a day later so I wouldn't want those to be lost in a buffered system. Maybe there is a better way but SD cards aren't a bad way to go for dashcams :cool:

Phil
 
Speaking of reviewing older footage, one of my dash cams saved the day just this week. There are some big changes happening where I live in regard to how they will be doing recycling in my area. There was a sign that said, "Questions?" call such and such a number. Well, I jotted down the phone number and promptly lost the little piece of paper I wrote it on but I was able to review the dash cam footage from when I drove into the recycling station and the cam showed the sign with the phone number on it.
 
To each his own, I suppose. But why not have a driving mode that runs in a manner similar to "parking mode"? Why NOT give the user the option of not filling up the microSD with video that will merely be overwritten and never reviewed? What's the harm in it? I'm sorry if I touched a nerve, but there clearly is some basis to expect to replace microSD cards more than once a year, so I stand by my critique. And if you can't add some RAM to an SOC design, you are a prisoner of the chip vendor.
 
...but there clearly is some basis to expect to replace microSD cards more than once a year, so I stand by my critique.....
True if that basis is mis-information. I've been running multiple cameras in multiple vehicles for going on 3 years now and have not yet had need to replace a card.
 
To each his own, I suppose. But why not have a driving mode that runs in a manner similar to "parking mode"? Why NOT give the user the option of not filling up the microSD with video that will merely be overwritten and never reviewed? What's the harm in it? I'm sorry if I touched a nerve, but there clearly is some basis to expect to replace microSD cards more than once a year, so I stand by my critique. And if you can't add some RAM to an SOC design, you are a prisoner of the chip vendor.

Dash cameras do have RAM actually but not the way you are talking about.

Anyway, I think you should base your "critique" on experience rather than speculation. You might consider buying a dash cam and getting some real world experience with one.
 
To each his own, I suppose. But why not have a driving mode that runs in a manner similar to "parking mode"? Why NOT give the user the option of not filling up the microSD with video that will merely be overwritten and never reviewed? What's the harm in it? I'm sorry if I touched a nerve, but there clearly is some basis to expect to replace microSD cards more than once a year, so I stand by my critique. And if you can't add some RAM to an SOC design, you are a prisoner of the chip vendor.

I don't think a dashcam product designed that way would sell very well. Plus I don't think the chipset SDK supports that scenario with existing technology.
 
To each his own, I suppose. But why not have a driving mode that runs in a manner similar to "parking mode"? Why NOT give the user the option of not filling up the microSD with video that will merely be overwritten and never reviewed? .

so use an 8gb memory card, you'll only ever have less than an hours footage on most devices, you could even go to 4gb but that's getting to the point of why bother as they're practically the same price anyway
 
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