Can A119 save the seconds leading up to an incident as well?

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g35

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I am coming from Blueskysea B1W dashcam and considering A119.

With B1W, it starts a new file every 60 seconds. So if you press the video save button, then go back to review later, it's possible that you miss it entirely because the incident happened at the end of the last 60-second clip, but you pressed the button right at the start of a new 60-second clip, which was all it saved.

For example, if the incident happened at 59/60 seconds into the previous clip, but you press the save button at 2/60 seconds into the new clip, you miss the incident, even though you pressed the button just 3 seconds after it happened.

If that makes sense to you, could you please let me know if the A119 works the same way, or will it be possible to save the incident no matter what?
 
What I do with my A119 V3 is to just make sure and get the saved file off the card ASAP and double check that the incident was saved. If not, I just go to the other videos recorded on the card (that I didn't press the save button for) with the previous number in the file name and save that one which was the actual incident.

If you're looking to save everything no matter what than the only way to do that is to get a card big enough to cover your daily drives and set the dashcam to NOT loop record, in effect saving everything. Then at the end of every day, download all incident videos. Of course, if you run out of card space, you might miss an incident.
 
If you insert a large enough card then there's no real need to try and intercept the video files sequence.

I use a 128Gb card that's good for well over 9 or 10 hours before it overwrites the oldest file.

Then, using a program like Dashcam Viewer by Traveler, it plays each file, in order.
 
As has already been said, a 128Gb card will record around the 9 hour mark before it fills or starts to overwrite (depending on your settings)

I'm not a Road Warrior, so a 128Gb card (9 hours) will generally last me a week. If I have a lot of driving to do then I put in a fresh (empty) SD card earlier.

Every time you start the A119, it tells you how much record time you have left and I keep an eye on that time.

I save all of my front A119 footage to an external hard drive and try to do it before the SD card starts to overwrite the oldest files. If there's an incident that the back A119 has recorded, then I will keep only the relevant footage from the back A119.

Every time I copy the card to an external hard drive, I do a full format on it and then reformat it to FAT 32 (I use a MacBook Pro so FAT 32 isn't the default format) and the A119 needs the card to be FAT 32.

In addition, I carry a few spare SD Cards in the car so if I'm involved in an incident then I can swap in new cards and keep the precious files on the old SD cards.
 
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g35 said:
I am coming from Blueskysea B1W dashcam and considering A119.

With B1W, it starts a new file every 60 seconds. So if you press the video save button, then go back to review later, it's possible that you miss it entirely because the incident happened at the end of the last 60-second clip, but you pressed the button right at the start of a new 60-second clip, which was all it saved.

For example, if the incident happened at 59/60 seconds into the previous clip, but you press the save button at 2/60 seconds into the new clip, you miss the incident, even though you pressed the button just 3 seconds after it happened.

If that makes sense to you, could you please let me know if the A119 works the same way, or will it be possible to save the incident no matter what?
Click to expand...
Some cameras will save the preceding or subsequent files to the Read-Only folder, in addition to the current file, depending on when you press the event button.

For example, if you press the button within the first 30s of a file, it will save the preceding file to the RO folder. If you press the button within 30s of the end of a file, it will save the next file to the RO folder.

I can't remember exactly what the A119V3 does. @Dashmellow might know.
 
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Thanks everyone good to know. My B1W isn’t so good at saving all the files so I’m glad it shouldn’t be an issue with the A119
 
If the A119 use a buffer, then you need to be pretty fast on the event button as the buffer are only 10 seconds in most cases.

I prefer the way my SG camera do these things, it save the current file, and if you are more than half way thru it it also lock the following file, on the other hand if you are only 25 % into the current file, it will still lock that one too but in that case then the previous one too.
So with the SG camera i get 2 X 3 minutes in the event,,,,,, from both cameras so in real time 12 minutes,,,,,, and you would think so,,,,, at least i did, that a setup like that would be murder on the RO folder, but this have not been the case, of course i do use 256 GB memory cards.

So i go to my RO folder once every month, pick the new footage not used before ( CUZ old footage will still be in there too ) to make a new YT upload.

The A139 and T130 only seem to save the current file,,,,,, this is problematic if you have a event or press the button right at the start of a segment or at the end of it, in that case you have to go searching in among the regular files for the rest of your event,,,,,,, which is also fine if you have a reasonable sized memory card,,,,, and no one should go under 128 GB
 
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I don't recall which camera I tested this on, but the Viofo I tested will save the previous file if you press the ! button within the first 15 seconds of the current file. For some reason however, it did not save the next file if the ! button was pressed within the last 15 seconds of the current file. This was awhile ago, so things may have changed with the firmware/SDK. I assume all the current models should do this, but I'll have to test at some point to confirm. Maybe @VIOFO-Support can confirm.
 
My Nextbase used to record the end of one file onto the start of the next so if you wished to edit and keep a trip you had to chop little bits out. The VIOFO doesn't but records every frame so you don't miss anything. I use a 256 Gb SD card so it lasts forever! When I transfer files onto my hard drive (I use 10-minute files) I just format the card in the camera. Once I put an SD card in a camera (any camera) I never take it back out.
 
CaptureYourAction said:
I don't recall which camera I tested this on, but the Viofo I tested will save the previous file if you press the ! button within the first 15 seconds of the current file. For some reason however, it did not save the next file if the ! button was pressed within the last 15 seconds of the current file. This was awhile ago, so things may have changed with the firmware/SDK. I assume all the current models should do this, but I'll have to test at some point to confirm. Maybe @VIOFO-Support can confirm.
Click to expand...

I did a bit of quick testing before I answered Tony's question and if I pressed the emergency button within the first 15 seconds or close to the end of the files I was only able to save the current files to the RO folder, not the previous or subsequent files.
So indeed it may be firmware/SDK related or model related.

I happen to be experimenting with one of the firmware mods if that makes any difference but I don't believe any of the camera's basic functionality like that has has been altered.
 
Like @kamkar said, some of the SG cameras save the previous or subsequent files. And the M4K that I'm testing.

I don't recall seeing this happen on any of the Viofo cameras I've tried.
 
So I tested the A119V3 and the regular A129. With firmware V2.0, the A119V3 does not save the before or after files, just the current file. The A129 with firmware V2.1, if you press the ! button within the first 15 seconds, it will save the previous file and the current file. If you press the ! button within 15 seconds of the end of the file, it does not save the next file, only the current file. I will test the A129 Pro and Plus models later.
 
The above posts, to me, seem to backup my thinking I'm best just letting the sequence run.

That way I have a timed sequence and no matter where in the file the incident occurs I will have 3 consecutive timed files to play with.
 
So I tested the A129 Pro and A129 Plus. On the Pro, with V2.4, the camera will only save the current file. On the A129 Plus, with V1.4, if you press the ! button within the first 15 seconds, it will save the current file and the previous file. If you press the ! button within the last 15 seconds of the current clip, it will save the current clip and the next clip.
 
So, there seems to be no rhyme or reason, or consistency. Perhaps different engineers have been working on these different camera models at different times?

After what we have learned here, maybe @viofo might consider enabling previous and subsequent RO emergency (!) file capture across the whole product line?
 
Can someone test the A139 with the latest firmware and see what it does?
Yes, I know this topic/forum is about the A119, but I don't want to create an entire new thread just to ask such a simple question.
Maybe this is something @VIOFO-Support or @viofo can answer?

*EDIT*
Just read @kamkar post above and he mentioned that his A139 does not have this feature. It only saves the current file which confirms @Dashmellow theory that different engineers are working on different models at different times enabling different features.
It is my hope that the A139 will get this feature since this is a current flagship.

Similar to how Google or Facebook has different engineers working on 5-9 different messenger apps at once with only slightly different features (Hangouts, Google Messenger, Google Duo, Google Meet, Google Chat, Hangouts Chat, Allo, Gmail, Spaces, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc...)
 
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