Choosing a First Dash Cam

Well, what's your thoughts on it at least?

Price difference with G1W is 18usd. For this you get nearly the same video quality as with Dod LS300W and better mount / bracket holder.
I nearly finished "glueing" together all files. Now need to synchronize and upload. I think 1-2 days will be ready. But it's only a night video tests. I did not had time to deal with day time. But night is more important. Thats where all differences comes, because at day time even good 50usd dash cam can perform almost same as 150usd dash cam.
 
But night is more important. Thats where all differences comes, because at day time even good 50usd dash cam can perform almost same as 150usd dash cam.

yea, thats how i understood it. that's why imo k6000 is more than enough for most people. if the vf300w is very simliar to gt than that would be a very interesting result.
 
So what's up with the review niko? lf300w vs gt300w!

I'm just begging to waste my money!
 
Very strange, I click on the link but it takes me to DRG-400 Blackvue.
 
Okay I'm going to go with vf300w because while niko is awesome, he seems completely uncapable of giving a straight answer ;)

Givoe sold gt300w, so it's a neutral vf300w.
$70 AC shipped
I'll get a 32gb SD card gskill class 10 from newegg $19.99. I'd rather go with a small card but all the 16s are like $15+ so it's a no brainer.

Just going to get a confirmation before I purchase.

I'll buy an add-a-fuse from a local advance auto parts store, and do my magic with a soldering iron and heatshrink. I'll probably attach the dash cam using some 4040 double sided tape onto my rearview mirror instead of the mount.

I'll keep looking into a discharge limiter for parking protection at night though. I'm not really sure what to take from all the stuff you guys said earlier, i get it, battery is lower quality and such, not sure what I am supposed to do with that.
 
Okay I'm going to go with vf300w because while niko is awesome, he seems completely uncapable of giving a straight answer ;)

Hehee, "thanks" for that.
I gave as much straight answers as I feel comfortable.

http://dashcamtalk.com/forum/index....od-neutral-vf300w-vs-ls300w-ls650w-dl-5.2719/

read this and try to be more polite and respect my comfort zone.

http://dashcamtalk.com/forum/index....-vs-ls300w-ls650w-dl-5.2719/page-2#post-30122

or buy all 4 dash cams for your OWN money, spend dozens of hours on testing, editing and reviewing them for FREE and then tell us about your 100% "capabilities".
 
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Based on the niko's test I chose LS650W, for its wider image and for design. Ordered from Foxoffer, already shipped.
 
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Niko recommended against the ls650w for the wider image (due to loss of depth).

You have my trust niko. They're all the same, as far as I can tell I don't see any noticdeable difference between the gt300w and vf300w so why not get the cheaper one. Seems like a similar argument for why would you ever get the dod ls300w these days with the tiotechs and clones available for less than half it's price. But there's things we can't tell from the posted videos, and that's what your take is on the cams.
 
Loss of depth? What do you mean?

I believe that its tested unit wasn't fine tuned at lens, so that the images were subtle blurred. I had this sensation looking at all the raw files.
 
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Niko Sez said:
More angle is not always a better. Yes, you get wider angle of view, but objects in front of you are slightly further than with normal angle lens.
 
Indeed, but according this logic, a 90 degrees field camera is better than a 120 degrees field one. And that's not true. :) Ideal dashcam is a camera with variable OPTICAL zoom: wide, for large scenes and tele, for plate numbers. ;)

Anyway, I love those videos:
First, for its artistic look, second for its technical look.

If I'll receive an unit like these who took these videos, I'll be fully satisfied.
 
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I can't answer the question on the G1W etc. cameras, but on connecting to the car battery I've given that some thought whether I want to or not. See the article http://dashcamtalk.com/battery-discharge-prevention/ for a good discussion on how to do it and to use a battery discharge limiter to protect your battery from discharging too low.

Yes you can hard wire direct too the fuse box. I learned about these neat add-a-circuit accessories reading about dashcams. You pull out a fuse to non-critical always-on circuit, plug in the add-a-circuit and pop in the fuse you took out into the add-a-circuit. So far you're back to the way it was. But you now have a place for a second fuse which gives you power off the wire lead. So there is your 12 volts.

Next you can get a cigarette lighter socket (or whatever they're called these days) from a car parts place, wire the socket to the new circuit and plug in your power to your camera. Now full-time power. Now to prevent your battery from draining completely, you can add a discharge limiter mentioned above that cuts power to the camera when the battery drops below X volts. On some the X is settable, on other devices it's a fixed voltage. Read about minimum voltages for car batteries, you want to stay above that, some cut out at too low a voltage by which time you've stressed the car battery and shortened its life.

With the above setup and if you get a camera that automatically switches to parking/motion detection mode, you are all set. Install and forget about it. As long as you have voltage > the discharge device cut off limit, you'll be recording driving or parking lot events. As for the battery in the camera, seems the issues are with hot weather, I'm not entirely sure. If you are in a hot area check out the discussions about batteries exploding in hot weather. I think you just leave the battery in the camera, some come out, some are soldered in. I haven't read about people pulling the battery out of the camera. If it's related to the G1W, I haven't read about that camera.

[Added] I just re-read your question, I'm not entirely sure but are you thinking when you run hard-wired you need to remove the battery? Whether running off the supplied power that comes with the camera or hardwired to the car, it's the same, the supplied charger is in the circuit, whether it's plugged into the cigarette lighter socket or the socket you add off the fuse box. The cameras won't run more than 10-20 minutes off the built-in battery so isn't a practical way to go. [end of added]

For videoing outside the car, my existing starter dash cam power comes by 5v mini usb plugged into the camera. I can unplug the camera (it'll turn off), remove the camera from the car, remember to turn it back on to record, and step out to video that plane crash, car crash, accident on road, on whatever awesome natural phenomenon is happening. Personally, I think it would be easier to just use my cellphone camera for videoing outside of the car. I would trade off video quality for ease of use of the cellphone over the dash cam. Remember also your dashcam will be behind your mirror and not so easy to access. Maybe your still running dashcam will provide another recording on what is going on outside.

At this point, I've read enough and learned enough from the starter camera and have started a conversation with an eBay seller to buy a Mini 0801. The trade-off is it doesn't have practical parking mode (it takes 8 button presses to get there in the menu). Also I'm not interested in wiring in a discharge limiter so parking mode is out. If I really need it, I'll use a $100 20,000 mAh lithium iPod charger with USB ports.
Thanks for the tip on the add a circuit accessory. I have been surfing Amazon for something like that, but could not find it. But, just type "add a circuit" into the query box and "wala" tons of choices.
 
Indeed, but according this logic, a 90 degrees field camera is better than a 120 degrees field one. And that's not true. :) Ideal dashcam is a camera with variable OPTICAL zoom: wide, for large scenes and tele, for plate numbers. ;)

Anyway, I love those videos:
First, for its artistic look, second for its technical look.

If I'll receive an unit like these who took these videos, I'll be fully satisfied.
Are there any DashCams out with a variable optical zoom? BTW I like your avatar, are you a Jack N fan, or do you like the Shining?
 
All mass-produced mid-price range consumer dash cams has fixed zoom lens. Only some police cars dash cams has option of manual adjustment ( mostly panasonic brand products ).
 
I was curious as well. How would the camera know when it needs wide angle and when it needs telephoto? Same question even if it's manual user adjustment. When would the user make the adjustment, just before the crash? The realistic solution may be dual forward cameras with different view angles or a dedicated bumper cam.

KuoH

can you explain what your thinking is with this?
 
I was curious as well. How would the camera know when it needs wide angle and when it needs telephoto? Same question even if it's manual user adjustment. When would the user make the adjustment, just before the crash? The realistic solution may be dual forward cameras with different view angles or a dedicated bumper cam.

KuoH

it can't really work effectively but I was wondering what the perceived benefit was that he was looking for, I'm always interested in how end users interpret the functionality of the product and whether things need to be explained differently perhaps so that they are understood correctly
 
Are there any DashCams out with a variable optical zoom? BTW I like your avatar, are you a Jack N fan, or do you like the Shining?
No, I'm not the fan of anyone. I just like Jake and more I like S. Kubrik.
I like also all the sacred monsters of the cinema.
 
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