Best Dashcam for a Cross Country Trip

DBTripCam

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I'll be driving an Audi S4 across the country from Boston, MA to Sacramento, CA and figured this was a good reason to finally purchase a dash cam. I've done a lot of research and THOUGHT I landed on a good choice, but then realized there was no option for recording while parked. This was the VIOFO A119, due to its low profile, video quality, and night time recording being described as "Good".

Initially I'll be using the dash cam to record my trip, but would then like to use it daily in Northern California. Here are some things that are most important to me.
-Video quality - Looking for only 1080
-Night Vision Video Quality - I'll be doing a lot of night time driving during the trip.
-Recording while parked (motion sensors) - Since I'll be traveling to many places I've not been before, this is important for when I park.
-Good viewing angle, no less than 150 degrees
-Front facing only
-Portability - I have multiple vehicles and want to be able to move the unit around.
-$150 or less price tag.

Also, if there are any tips you could share when operating a dash cam over long distance trips, that would be helpful. Thanks!
 
To me just begun to dabble in Journey logging as opposed to regular dashcam use, then i find the large angle lenses of the dashcamera is a bit too much.
Sure you have a larger FOV with a dashcam and that is a good thing for a dashcam, but i find that the same camera used for a journey somehow frustrate me when watching it

For my latest Journey recordings i have been using my Sjcams Sj6 Legend action camera with the FOV set to narrow, but it are still a bit wide as i still have some dashbord and the bottom of the A pillars in the footage.
My option are to replace the wide lens on the SJ5 camera with another more narrow FOV lens ( replacing lenses on action cameras are quite common as pro or semi pro videographers dont have much use the the wide angle shots )

But few action cameras are suites for dashcam use as they often use high pixel sensors that dont do well in low light.
BUT there are a few like the GIT1 that use the same 1080p Sony sensor also used in many dashcams.

Motion detect can use up a lot of memory card space if there is a lot going on where you park, but if you have a way to offload the footage from the memory card to say a laptop then you will be fine.
Then just formatting the memory card after a stop as the camera can not on its own delete the motion detect recordings as they will be tagged as read only files, and if you leave them on the memory card you just have lesser space for the regular recycling recordings.

The user hanstj are the resident journey expert, but he use a regular camcorder for his fine recordings.
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threa...lorado-up-and-down-the-rocky-mountains.30002/

My latest massive 9 part drive are found in this thread.
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/big-drive-05-07-2017.29701/

My recordings are speed up as you cant really ask anyone to sit on youtube and watch a 9 hour drive at 1:1 speed, so in post processing i have upped the speed so a 1 hour file are cut down to 10 - 12 minutes.
For these recordings i use a 10 minute file size on the camera, on my dashcams i use 3 minutes as i find that's the sweet spot for that kind of recording.

You should for sure get a dashcam, problem is after looking on the footage from it you have to deside if you think that will be fine for your long drive, or you will opt for another camera to log that drive in a more cinematic way.

As for dashcams the best performing cameras seem to have these sensors:

OV 4689 ( OmniVision ) this is a 4 mpix sensor so it can do resolutions a little higher than 1980p, i believe it is what is in the A119 camera you have been looking at.
IMX 233 ( Sony ) It is a fine sensor day and night, but are now being out-staged by another Sony sensor.
IMX 291 ( Sony ) the new kid on the block, its night performance are a 1 up on the "old" IMX 233

Dont go too cheap on the camera, this can often have a negative effect on camera reliability and Image quality over time.
 
I have watched a lot of footage/s from the VIOFO which is very good, for it's price but I find majorly way behind more expensive ones, the one I am comparing it to is my F770, a bit over priced tbh but you are only buying it once, buy it right, ie spend more to get better, not that that always works!!
Don't get me wrong the VIOFO is a ace choice and ace cam, if that's your budget
 
Thanks for all the great info, kamkar1!

I have watched a lot of footage/s from the VIOFO which is very good, for it's price but I find majorly way behind more expensive ones, the one I am comparing it to is my F770, a bit over priced tbh but you are only buying it once, buy it right, ie spend more to get better, not that that always works!!
Don't get me wrong the VIOFO is a ace choice and ace cam, if that's your budget

Does the VIOFO record while parked?
 
For parking guard to work you will have to either hardwire the camera, or if the camera are a 5 volt USB powered one ( most is ) you can do as some people do and use a large USB power bank for power while parked.
A single dashcam only use like 500 MAH at the most, so you can run it off a powerbank for a long time.

Hardwire mean tapping onto a couple of the fuses in your fuse box, one fuse that's only on with the key of your car, and another fuse that's always on ( that will power camera while parked )

I am not sure what level of parking guard the vifo cameras have, the most optimal are pre-buffered as this will give you 10 seconds from before the triggering event.
But in general all dashcams have parking guard ( G-sensor activated by hitting your car and or motion detect ) some just dont have the optimal pre -buffered event recording and will only start to record with the actual triggering event.
 
For parking guard to work you will have to either hardwire the camera, or if the camera are a 5 volt USB powered one ( most is ) you can do as some people do and use a large USB power bank for power while parked.
A single dashcam only use like 500 MAH at the most, so you can run it off a powerbank for a long time.

Hardwire mean tapping onto a couple of the fuses in your fuse box, one fuse that's only on with the key of your car, and another fuse that's always on ( that will power camera while parked )

I am not sure what level of parking guard the vifo cameras have, the most optimal are pre-buffered as this will give you 10 seconds from before the triggering event.
But in general all dashcams have parking guard ( G-sensor activated by hitting your car and or motion detect ) some just dont have the optimal pre -buffered event recording and will only start to record with the actual triggering event.

OK, thanks for clarifying. I do have a 30,000 mAh pack.
 
All 5V cameras come with a 12 V to 5 V converter for the cigarette plug in the car, but you can just use a USB wire and then get a USB charger for the ciggy slot with more ports so you can power camera - charge power bank and keep your other devises going too.
Most dashcams use the mini USB plug in the camera and the other end the regular USB plug that go into most things.

I have turned my glove box into a power station so down there i have 6 X 2.4 A USB outlets - 1 X 2.0 A USB - 3 X 1 A USB, and then 3 12 Volt cigarette plugs as i also need to be able to test the PSUs for the cameras i am given to test.
You can get a good 4 port charger with 2.4 A on each slot, that will plug into the cigarette plug on your console or where ever that plug are in your car.
That will charge and power just about anything you can think off.
 
I will show you 2 clip from my road trip in Louisiana. I drive in a rental car and my Camera is a Viofo a119s. I use 3M dual lock tape, so its easy to take it in and out.
I use a large memory card 128mb, for longer driving and I took a my laptop and external harddrive to transfer the clip to.

Youtube have mess up the quality of the video, but it will give a good feeling how it will look.

I have speed up this video.
 
Thanks for sharing the videos, looks like great quality.
 
the A119 is going to work for you. 1440P and 20 Mbps bitrate creates pretty clean files. I have a CPL filter on mine and the night videos are still very, very useable. there is currently a parking mode on the beta version of the firmware for the A119 which allows you to record lower frame-rate videos (time-lapse) while parked. and if the G-sensor is triggered, it will revert back to normal video recording (30 or 60 FPS). you'll need a hard wire kit for this and i'll recommend that you just purchase a battery discharge prevention kit instead so that you don't come back to a dead battery. the angle of view on the A119 is 160* diagonal so it's plenty wide. if you purchase the A119 with GPS, you'll get a GPS mount + a non-GPS mount.

A119 with GPS is on sale for $71.20 on Newegg with code: NEWEGGAUTO23 right this second. (just got an alert on my mobile about it)
 
The A119V2 should be a good choice- maybe the best at this price level. It should excel daytime and be good at night but if nighttime is really important the A119SV2 may be a better choice at the cost of daytime IQ ;) Here's something on using the A119 for parking: https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/viofo-parking-mode-new-beta-feature.29382 Another option might be the Goluk T-3 which has good day/night performance and a useful parking mode https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/goluk-t3-review.26165/

Dashcams aren't really meant for cinematography but will be good enough for others to see the outstanding parts and understand their appeal. I'd recommend having an extra tested good SD card on hand in case something goes awry, those can be pricey or hard to find on the road. Same for an extra piece of the 3M mounting tape. If you have an extra PS handy that may be worth taking along but you can find those about anywhere these days. When you've only got one chance to make memories you don't want to lose it to a dead cam :( If you have the extras with you, then nothing will go wrong :whistle:

Phil
 
the A119 is going to work for you. 1440P and 20 Mbps bitrate creates pretty clean files. I have a CPL filter on mine and the night videos are still very, very useable. there is currently a parking mode on the beta version of the firmware for the A119 which allows you to record lower frame-rate videos (time-lapse) while parked. and if the G-sensor is triggered, it will revert back to normal video recording (30 or 60 FPS). you'll need a hard wire kit for this and i'll recommend that you just purchase a battery discharge prevention kit instead so that you don't come back to a dead battery. the angle of view on the A119 is 160* diagonal so it's plenty wide. if you purchase the A119 with GPS, you'll get a GPS mount + a non-GPS mount.

A119 with GPS is on sale for $71.20 on Newegg with code: NEWEGGAUTO23 right this second. (just got an alert on my mobile about it)

Thanks, abarth!

The A119V2 should be a good choice- maybe the best at this price level. It should excel daytime and be good at night but if nighttime is really important the A119SV2 may be a better choice at the cost of daytime IQ ;) Here's something on using the A119 for parking: https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/viofo-parking-mode-new-beta-feature.29382 Another option might be the Goluk T-3 which has good day/night performance and a useful parking mode https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/goluk-t3-review.26165/

Dashcams aren't really meant for cinematography but will be good enough for others to see the outstanding parts and understand their appeal. I'd recommend having an extra tested good SD card on hand in case something goes awry, those can be pricey or hard to find on the road. Same for an extra piece of the 3M mounting tape. If you have an extra PS handy that may be worth taking along but you can find those about anywhere these days. When you've only got one chance to make memories you don't want to lose it to a dead cam :( If you have the extras with you, then nothing will go wrong :whistle:

Phil

Yes! I plan to purchase the largest SD card, any idea what the largest is? I see 512 GB but will that work with the mini SD?

So it turns out my wife was spying on my searches and knew I was looking for a camera, she surprised me with a brand new Garmin 45 for less than $100. The Garmin 45 has everything I was looking for, except for the 150 degree viewing angle. The hard wire install was easy enough, so I purchased Garmin's Parking Mode cable ($25 US) and it works great! The parking mode cable comes with low voltage protection to protect against returning to a dead vehicle battery, as mentioned by abarth above. One thing I want to mention regarding the installation of the Garmin Parking Mode cable, is that due to its low voltage protection feature, you have to make sure your power source is registering at least 11.7V. When I first got it all wired the cable was not powering the Garmin, but after raising the RPM's of the car, it would then supply power to the Garmin. Initially I thought it was a bad Parking Mode Cable from Garmin, but then realized my vehicle battery was registering less than 11.7V because I had the A/C on full blast and two cell phones plugged into a single 12V outlet, which pulled down the vehicle battery voltage when the car was off but had Accessory power. Hopefully this helps someone in the future, as this post on DashCamTalk back in June (https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/dash-cam-55-buffered-parking-mode.29378/) helped me realize what the issue was.

The other benefit to this unit is that it has a forward collision warning if you get too close to another car, on low sensitivity it actually works pretty well and will be an added benefit when driving long distances, especially with my wife driving, who has a tendency to get too close! Now Garmin can be the backseat driver instead of me!
 
Glad you found a cam you like :D Garmin is kind of new to the game but I am highly impressed with what I've seen so far and I expect they will become the prominent US dashcam supplier in brick-and-mortar retail sales. Please add to the knowledge-base for these cams here on DCT with your experiences in use as there are not yet many Garmin users here and we can use the added info to help others learn more about these cams (including me :))

Phil
 
Glad you found a cam you like :D Garmin is kind of new to the game but I am highly impressed with what I've seen so far and I expect they will become the prominent US dashcam supplier in brick-and-mortar retail sales. Please add to the knowledge-base for these cams here on DCT with your experiences in use as there are not yet many Garmin users here and we can use the added info to help others learn more about these cams (including me :))

Phil

Thanks, Phil! So far so good. I may start a Garmin 45 thread and carry over some of the information I've posted here. Then periodically update as a use it. Just got some decent night time video going through construction zones with multiple lighting changes.
 
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