BlackVue Sync - A new portable, hands-off, automatic recording downloader for NAS or Docker

acolomba

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Joined
Dec 2, 2018
Messages
29
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United States
Dash Cam
Blackvue DR750S-2CH
Hello All,

I made a new BlackVue recording LAN downloader. I've been using it for several months now, and it's ready for public consumption.

GitHub: https://github.com/acolomba/blackvuesync
Docker Hub: https://hub.docker.com/r/acolomba/blackvuesync

Features:
  • Portable runtimes:
  • Smart: Only downloads recordings that haven't been downloaded yet.
  • Resilient: If a download interrupts for whatever reason, at the next run the script resumes where it left off. This is especially useful for possibly unreliable Wi-Fi connections from a garage.
  • Hands-off: Optionally retains recordings for a limited amount of time. Outdated recordings are automatically removed.
  • Cron-friendly: Only one process is allowed to run at any given time for a specific download destination.
  • Safe: Stops executing if the disk is almost full.
  • Friendly error reporting: Clearly communicates a range of known error conditions with sensible verbosity.
TL;DR: Set it up once, forget about it.

Should you find any bugs or wish to suggest new features, please submit an issue on GitHub (https://github.com/acolomba/blackvuesync/issues).

Edit: If you don't have GitHub account, feel free to respond here instead.

Enjoy!
___
Alessandro
 
Last edited:
I'm thinking of buying a dash 750S or 900S and this is very nice indeed. Thanks for the work.

Would you know if it's possible to keep both dash's hotspot and client Wi-Fi at the same time?
Or perhaps the dashcam has the HTTP API available in both interfaces?

Regards!
 
Thanks, I hope you'll find it useful.

Both the camera's LAN connection and hotspot remain functional at the same time. It's even possible to download videos through the LAN via the HTTP API, and with a phone connected to the hotspot via the BlackVue phone app at the same time.

The HTTP API does not seem to be available via the hotspot connection. I don't know what the BlackVue phone app does.

Oh and the camera will accept only one hotspot client.

Best,
___
Alessandro


I'm thinking of buying a dash 750S or 900S and this is very nice indeed. Thanks for the work.

Would you know if it's possible to keep both dash's hotspot and client Wi-Fi at the same time?
Or perhaps the dashcam has the HTTP API available in both interfaces?

Regards!
 
Works great! (y) I’m finding with the DR900S-2CH there’s not enough time to download a day’s worth of footage if you have motion set to max and PMP set to 6h (looks like the 5GHz radio on the DR900S tops out at 6-9MB/s).

Can you add an option to download all the Manual and Event recordings first, in addition to a seperate retention policy?
I find downloading both E and M footage alternating from Front to Rear (noticed you have it setup to download all front then rear) in order of Oldest to Newest then downloading N, P in the same way has the best chance of getting footage that might be useful.
 
Good to hear, thank you.

Prioritizing downloads is a great idea. I should be able to do that in the coming days.

As to separate retention periods, I had been toying with the concept, but wasn't sure that anybody would want that vs. the an additional set of command-line options. Shouldn't be a problem.


Works great! (y) I’m finding with the DR900S-2CH there’s not enough time to download a day’s worth of footage if you have motion set to max and PMP set to 6h (looks like the 5GHz radio on the DR900S tops out at 6-9MB/s).

Can you add an option to download all the Manual and Event recordings first, in addition to a seperate retention policy?
I find downloading both E and M footage alternating from Front to Rear (noticed you have it setup to download all front then rear) in order of Oldest to Newest then downloading N, P in the same way has the best chance of getting footage that might be useful.
 
I'll look forward to the update (y).
Also noticed it doesn't download the .thm, .3gf and .gps files; would be useful having the .3gf and .gps for accelerometer and gps data.

Come to think the 750 and 900 supports quick play, blackvue refers to it as "sub-stream" but using ffprobe on the file only shows a single video and audio stream.
Hoped this would be a solution for downloading all the videos in lower quality first but it's as though the camera encodes it in real-time.
 
Yep, made a new release last night that picks up all the .3gf and .gps files. Picking up the .thm file will be an easy addition.

I hear you about the lower quality videos. The only HTTP API functions I know of just allow listing and downloading files anyway.
 
Once I get the files on my NAS can I point the BlackVue Windows Viewer to that directory and run them straight from the NAS?
 
Ran this docker straight away so far so good, nice work. And yes the windows BlackVue viewer works over the network.
 
I have a few questions, it seems as though the initial transfers were all for the Front Camera, no rear camera videos were downloaded, and the camera restarted many times during the night. Will the rear camera files eventually be downloaded? Also what happens with partial downloads? Do they resume?
 
Had similar problems using bash scripts based on wget and curl.
The camera seems to drop the connection and reconnect shortly later, but it's extremely intermittent and unpredictable.

I have a suspicion it's either struggling to sustain a ~60Mbps upload while still writing at 35Mbps or there's some hard coded request limits within the dash cam's server.

Are you running an Asus AIMesh router by any chance?

I have a few questions, it seems as though the initial transfers were all for the Front Camera, no rear camera videos were downloaded, and the camera restarted many times during the night. Will the rear camera files eventually be downloaded? Also what happens with partial downloads? Do they resume?
 
Had similar problems using bash scripts based on wget and curl.
The camera seems to drop the connection and reconnect shortly later, but it's extremely intermittent and unpredictable.

I have a suspicion it's either struggling to sustain a ~60Mbps upload while still writing at 35Mbps or there's some hard coded request limits within the dash cam's server.

Are you running an Asus AIMesh router by any chance?

As a matter of fact I am RT-AC86U, my cam is the 750S-2CH connected to a B-124 battery with a Samsung Endurance 128gb card. And I just re-read previous posts and noticed that the docker prioritizes Front Cam footage first. I'm finding vids are getting overwritten before they can downloaded, at least the rear cam files.
 
I just committed a version that actively orders downloads.

Downloads will now alternate between front and rear. I also added a new --priority switch that allows downloading by date or by type (menp, in that order -- thanks for the idea @locrepins.)

This is not released as a Docker image yet, pending a bit more testing, but you can find the new source version here:


Should be a day or so before it becomes a real release, but I'll appreciate any early feedback.
 
New release, 1.5:
  • downloads .thm (thumbnail) files for all recordings
  • new --priority switch allows downloading by either a) date or b) type (manual, event, normal, parking in that order)
  • now dowloads front and rear recordings together
 
Haven't had a chance to test this but when the priority is set to "type" will it also download in order or oldest to newest?

New release, 1.5:
  • downloads .thm (thumbnail) files for all recordings
  • new --priority switch allows downloading by either a) date or b) type (manual, event, normal, parking in that order)
  • now dowloads front and rear recordings together
 
Yes, for a given type, it will still download oldest to newest.

Haven't had a chance to test this but when the priority is set to "type" will it also download in order or oldest to newest?
 
That’s -e PRIORITY=TYPE right?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
My DR900s still keeps disconnecting intermittently after videos start downloading.
At times it stays stable for an hour, other times it's not up for more than a few minutes.
I've played around with curl and wget and it exhibits the same issue; have a feeling it's something to do with asus routers.

Has anyone else had similar issues? What router setup are you running?
 
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