Best mode for parking?

[QuozL]

What is the general concencus for the best mode to have the camera set to for parking mode? Auto Event Detection, Time Lapse, or Low Bitrate Recording?

I'm finding I'm getting a tonne of captures with auto event detection mode even when the car is parked in a dark garage at home with no movement sound or anything else that should be setting it off. Does anyone have some go to settings to try for parking mode that actually work to capture events, don't mind what mode it is just want it to work. General concencus of what mode is best and what settings please.

Cheers for any info

 

[kamkar]

There was issues with AED as i recall, not sure if they have been solved, my own preferred mode is Low bitrate on a 3 hour timer + G-sensor in HIGH on the side. it record ALL the time so no missing anything.

At home in a garage or other none issue place, when parged / stopped you should long press the power button to turn off the camera CUZ no need to use parking guard there.
Same reason i use 3 hour timer, small battery in small car + at home and elsewhere there is CCTV on my car. so not really any need for parking guard there. The 3 hours on the timer cover my shopping ASO.

 

[Panzer Platform]

what mode is best

AED: #1 cause for tech support inquiry
TL: No audio
LBR: Most reliable / predictable
The “best” mode is different for every application.
Try each one, and confirm & verify your test footage with your own eyeballs.
-Chuck

 

[QuozL]

There was issues with AED as i recall, not sure if they have been solved, my own preferred mode is Low bitrate on a 3 hour timer + G-sensor in HIGH on the side. it record ALL the time so no missing anything.

At home in a garage or other none issue place, when parged / stopped you should long press the power button to turn off the camera CUZ no need to use parking guard there.
Same reason i use 3 hour timer, small battery in small car + at home and elsewhere there is CCTV on my car. so not really any need for parking guard there. The 3 hours on the timer cover my shopping ASO.

AED: #1 cause for tech support inquiry
TL: No audio
LBR: Most reliable / predictable
The “best” mode is different for every application.
Try each one, and confirm & verify your test footage with your own eyeballs.
-Chuck

Do either of you have any video to compare the AED and Low Bitrate recordings or know where I can view some?

 

[kamkar]

I would assume the video quality are about the same, only the function differ.

First time i tested low bitrate parking mode, i was unsure if the low bitrate was enough to resolve a plate on a passing car, but at least in regard to the speeds on Danish streets where you can also park curb side, it is just fine.

I do not have a Viofo product in my car ATM, i was left out in the last round with the release of the new models.
Also i tend to forget to actually test the other parking guard modes,,,,, which is really too bad on my part, so i generally just put low bitrate on and roll with that.

I really loved the way the now gone Street guardian brand handled parking guard, saving 2 files from each camera in case of a event / trigger, so much more relaxing not having to rush to the event button for saving the little things in traffic one might want to share.
So much better than relying on a small internal buffer or just getting 1 segment saved, which would be " problematic " if your trigger are right at the start of a new segment or at the end, CUZ then you have very little from before the event or very little after the event in a locked / secure state.
Of course if you are not driving any more due to a trashed car, well your recordings will still hold everything just fine, either in among the regular footage or in the event folder in a locked state.

#1 for me in relation to using what ever parking guard format is the size of the memory card, which i feel today should not be below 256 GB

Of course you being in Aussie land, well one of your biggest challenges will probably be temperature, CUZ electronics can only hand " so high " temperatures before they have to call quits, CUZ as you know a car get blast furnace hot sitting in the sun, and camera even more so if its also exposed to the suns rays.

 

[QuozL]

Of course you being in Aussie land, well one of your biggest challenges will probably be temperature, CUZ electronics can only hand " so high " temperatures before they have to call quits, CUZ as you know a car get blast furnace hot sitting in the sun, and camera even more so if its also exposed to the suns rays.

Thankfully most of the long term parking done is all undercover. But still not sure what the advantage / disadvantage of lowbit rate mode is over AED

 

[Nigel]

But still not sure what the advantage / disadvantage of lowbit rate mode is over AED

Low bitrate never misses anything, audio or video, while AED can fail to trigger, such as when someone is just scratching your paintwork rather than driving into your car.

Low bitrate records everything, AED can miss the start and/or the end of an incident, it has a fixed record time, incidents do not have fixed timespans! Actually, I think AED will extend its record time if it continues to see action, but even if there is nothing visible moving towards the end of an incident, you may still want to record the voices of the people who have broken into your car.

Low bitrate will probably use more memory card space, although if you are getting a lot of AED triggers then it might actually use less at times. With a decent size memory card, this is unlikely to be an issue.

Low bitrate uses a little more power, but it is not very significant.

Low bitrate can have worse image quality if there is a lot of movement in the image, although in practice this is very hard to see, and AED wont record at maximum bitrate anyway; it has more bitrate than Low Bitrate, but it is still Lowish Bitrate.

Low bitrate produces a lot of video, so it can be hard to find things, even when you know they are there. In normal use you very rarely look at it though, so it is not much of a problem.

Overall, I would much prefer my entire supermarket car park visit be recorded than just some random bits when the camera detected some movement.

 

[QuozL]

Low bitrate never misses anything, audio or video, while AED can fail to trigger, such as when someone is just scratching your paintwork rather than driving into your car.

Low bitrate records everything, AED can miss the start and/or the end of an incident, it has a fixed record time, incidents do not have fixed timespans! Actually, I think AED will extend its record time if it continues to see action, but even if there is nothing visible moving towards the end of an incident, you may still want to record the voices of the people who have broken into your car.

Low bitrate will probably use more memory card space, although if you are getting a lot of AED triggers then it might actually use less at times. With a decent size memory card, this is unlikely to be an issue.

Low bitrate uses a little more power, but it is not very significant.

Low bitrate can have worse image quality if there is a lot of movement in the image, although in practice this is very hard to see, and AED wont record at maximum bitrate anyway; it has more bitrate than Low Bitrate, but it is still Lowish Bitrate.

Low bitrate produces a lot of video, so it can be hard to find things, even when you know they are there. In normal use you very rarely look at it though, so it is not much of a problem.

Overall, I would much prefer my entire supermarket car park visit be recorded than just some random bits when the camera detected some movement.

Thank you for this info it is very useful. Do you have any sort of timer set for when using low bit rate mode or do you just let it run with no timer? I've been using AED up until now with no battery issues but just changed tonight to low bit rate so can't imagine I'll have any using it either. When the car is parked securly at home in the garage I just turn off the camera anyway.

 

[Nigel]

Thank you for this info it is very useful. Do you have any sort of timer set for when using low bit rate mode or do you just let it run with no timer? I've been using AED up until now with no battery issues but just changed tonight to low bit rate so can't imagine I'll have any using it either. When the car is parked securly at home in the garage I just turn off the camera anyway.

I set the parking duration timer to 3 hours, so no battery issues. That covers all my supermarket trips, and most other things, while avoiding needing to remember to turn it off in the garage. You won't have battery issues if it is off overnight and at weekends that it doesn't get used.
Battery issues are an issue for 24/7 parking mode, when I think you really want radar detection, but that is still not as good as low bitrate for supermarket visits, and currently Viofo doesn't have a radar mode anyway.

 

[kamkar]

Yeah the low bitrate record all the time, and generate pretty small files VS what the camera would do in regular mode.
A downside is the low bitrate files are treated just like regular footage, and is also in among the regular footage often, but very easy to spot on the small file size.
So these are not protected in any way, but you can have G-sensor on at the same time, and it will then kick in and lock what happen, and at the very least act like a "flag" so you know where to look for more footage / info.

I personally use a timer if it is there, set to 3 hours, otherwise i would use a very high cut off value of 12.4 volts to preserve the little 55Ah battery in my little car.
At home i have CCTV on the car parked in the back yard ( camera on my 2 floor balcony door + it have optical zoom i use to have as little of the surroundings in the footage )
The parking spot are very dark just a little LED light at night, that would just backlight anyone approaching my parked car, so really there at night parking guard in a dashcam are of little use, my CCTV camera on the other hand see everything and it have AI motion detect so i only get a notification on my phone and tablet when a human or vehicle shape are near my car, which is rare not least as i am Zoomed in so much too, to be able to get a identifying shot of anyone near my car.

Perspective from my car. ( you can see CCTV camera on my 2 floor balcony door )

My car as seen from CCTV camera ( on my computer )
Here a little more zoomed out than i would usually do.

This is a PTZ camera ( Pan Tilt Zoom ) so i can swing it around from phone/ tablet/ computer and look elsewhere too if i wanted to.

 

[Panzer Platform]

Do either of you have any video to compare the AED and Low Bitrate recordings or know where I can view some?

still not sure what the advantage / disadvantage of lowbit rate mode is over AED

Try each one, and confirm & verify your test footage with your own eyeballs.