Cheap china 1080p dashcam (dashscam) L501

[johno63]

Hi all im new here and this is my first post so here goes...

I bought the cheapest dashcam on ebay that looked similar to my old GS8000L as the battery in it has failed but it is 7 years old so ok.... I was going to throw out the GS8000L but glad i didnt as ordered new battery for it pretty cheap but read on as this new "assuming" Chinese thing pails in comparison, i am calling the new dashcam the L501 dashscam for lack of anything else to go by, has anybody here encountered this device yet and any further info on it? Imnot sure if this unit is faulty or actually as it is supposed to be but i am planning on returning it as unfit for purpose/mis sold. Windows ten gives a usb microscope driver for it with best resolution of vga lol it really is crap, and linux is no better but it has no working function of dashcam at present as is.

The item in question is this dashcam for £10.79

Car Dash Camera Front Cam HD 1080P Security DVR Recorder Night Vision UK
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/355628356170
The following are my notes on it after inspecting it a little inside and out:

Why this unit is not a proper dashcam but a dashscam:

1. Cannot stop recording with SD card installed, only way to access menu is power off & remove sd card. Tried this with motion detection on and off. ( for the record i tried many sd card types)
2. Cannot reset device, reset button reboots camera and defaults some settings but not date info. Red protect button function unknown
3. Cannot view live camera on the cam screen at all, just the earth image screen saver/startup image is there with icons overlaid.
4. cannot playback recorded footage on the cam screen it says no file.
5. footage files are saved on the SD card but only audio plays with black screen and only on a pc once files copied.
6. able to use as crappy webcam when connected by usb with usb cam setting set but on computer screen only 640x480 max.
7. leds are not infra red
8. screen light leaks onto front leds making them look like they are on a bit so not very stealthy
9. manual claims features like license plate, infra red, av port for 2nd cam etc, all nonsense.

FW as per the cameras own screen = "L501 25B-68130"

Hardware:

PCB No: L501-3295B-V01

The pcb has two chips as follows:

1. 8Mb flash PUYA P25D80SH SOP-8 NOR FLASH ROHS
2. system chip: printed with 2404J <------ wtf is it?

unable at present to read chip with cha341a and flashrom, could by my error (most likely) as suspect this eeprom is not compatible at present with flashrom??


Driver testing (and trying to find out what it actually can do)

linux drivers info:
buildwin media-player 1.00
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 1908:3282 GEMBIRD GENERAL - AUDIO

vlc errors when attempt to playback saved avi files:

[00007fce30001190] avi demux error: no key frame set for track 0
[00007fce30c08880] main decoder error: buffer deadlock prevented
[00007fce30c08880] main decoder error: buffer deadlock prevented

Codec: Motion JPEG Video (MJPG)


FFMPEG

(test file exporting to log)
ffmpeg -v error -i file.avi -f null - 2>error.log

from log

Cannot determine format of input stream 0:0 after EOF
Error marking filters as finished

webcam function works lol:

#cvlc v4l2:///dev/video0

VLC media player 3.0.16 Vetinari (revision 3.0.13-8-g41878ff4f2)
[0000564d95b44140] dummy interface: using the dummy interface module...
[00007f5700005ba0] gles2 gl: Initialized libplacebo v4.192.1 (API v192)
libva info: VA-API version 1.14.0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/r600_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_14
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
[00007f5700005ba0] gles2 gl: Initialized libplacebo v4.192.1 (API v192)


#v4l2-ctl --list-devices
GENERAL - AUDIO: Digital Micros (usb-0000:00:12.2-1):
/dev/video0
/dev/video1
/dev/media0


#ffplay /dev/video0
ffplay version 4.4.2-0ubuntu0.22.04.1 Copyright (c) 2003-2021 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 11 (Ubuntu 11.2.0-19ubuntu1)

libavutil 56. 70.100 / 56. 70.100
libavcodec 58.134.100 / 58.134.100
libavformat 58. 76.100 / 58. 76.100
libavdevice 58. 13.100 / 58. 13.100
libavfilter 7.110.100 / 7.110.100
libswscale 5. 9.100 / 5. 9.100
libswresample 3. 9.100 / 3. 9.100
libpostproc 55. 9.100 / 55. 9.100
Input #0, video4linux2,v4l2, from '/dev/video0':B sq= 0B f=0/0
Duration: N/A, start: 11016.642632, bitrate: N/A
Stream #0:0: Video: mjpeg (Baseline), yuvj420p(pc, bt470bg/unknown/unknown), 640x480 [SAR 72:72 DAR 4:3], 30 fps, 30 tbr, 1000k tbn, 1000k tbc
[swscaler @ 0x7faa4407ecc0] deprecated pixel format used, make sure you did set range correctly
Last message repeated 3 times
11090.97 M-V: 0.000 fd= 0 aq= 0KB vq= 0KB sq= 0B f=0/0


windows 10

shows up as digital microscope in device manager, microsoft driver 10.0.19041.1741 21/6/2006

using splitcam app able to change stream but nothing else.

320x240
420x640

Any footage saved to SD card will not playback on camera or on any machine its tried on. I suspect its some wierd tweaked codec in use or maybe it just cant do it being a usb microscope chip lol. The audio is mono anyway lol.

 

[Nigel]

Codec: Motion JPEG Video (MJPG)

That is enough info to know not to buy one!

Introduced in 1991? It's not an international standard, so I'm not sure about the date...

 

[johno63]

Sorry resolution is 640x480 indicating 1M camera?

 

[johno63]

That is enough info to know not to buy one!

Introduced in 1991? It's not an international standard, so I'm not sure about the daHaha

Yes its properly mis sold this thing really glad i hung onto the GS8000L lol i might even buy the second rear camera for it now haha.

 

[johno63]

for the record the listing claims among other things this:

image Sensor: AR0330
Video Resolution: 1920*1080; 1280*720; 848*480; 640*480
Recording Video Format: H.264

 

[Nigel]

AR0330

That is a good 2K Sensor, a bit outdated, but still good.

Presumably that is not what is inside?

 

[Dashmellow]

AR0330 Data Sheet

The AR0330 was originally manufactured by Aptina but is now under the OnSemi name. Some versions are listed as obsolete but several variants are still offered.

https://www.onsemi.com/products/sensors/image-sensors/ar0330

 

[johno63]

I am not an expert at this so was unable to id the camera sensor but i did pull it off the case completely as that was the only way to get the ribbon back into the main board easily and take a look but no markings on it i could see . I highly doubt this device has any decent hw in it other than a 8Mb spi flash i couldn't read with flashrom (and that could be my error) it does seem to be a lot of rom for it.

Here's a photo of the back of the inner but i didnt photo the sensor removed. Please note the high quality speaker and tiny battery just taped on the back of the sensor.

 

[johno63]

You might as well have a look at the other side of the pcb as well now lol.

 

[johno63]

So this is what it does with a sd card installed and formatted. There is no way to stop recording to enter menu or do playback. Never had any footage from the camera live or playback shown on the screen of it. To enter menu the only way is power down and remove SD card. I out the SD card in hot to see what would happen and after formatting it when i pressed the ok button it started recording just like this photo shows and again no way to stop it or enter the menu unless power down and remove card. If thats how its supposed to be it really doesnt do much.

 

[johno63]

If you set the date the reset button function and factory default function in the menu do not reset it the only way is to desolder battery which is what i did to reset it.