Dashcam died: Now what?

tymzee

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It looks like out WheelWitness Dash Cam HD PRO Plus camera has died. Repeatedly turns itself off/on/off/on/off... etc. Also keeps prompting to insert a media card, even though there's a card in place. Sent msg. to company but not optimistic.

So in the event that I'll be shopping for a new camera, here's the universal question: What should I buy as a placement camera? Yeah, I know.. me and a few thousand other folks with the same question... :)

Basically GPS functionality is a must. We use it during trips with our motorhome and like to record routes so friends & family members can follow our travels. The Wheel Witness also had an app where you could control the camera from your smartphone. That was useful as well. And of course the obvious advantages of a dash camera with respect to being able to record different types of "incidents" is important as well. Already had a couple of chances to do that.

Budget is not unlimited but at the same time willing to spend $$$ for quality & useful features.
 
"Boot looping" or "boot cycling" can sometimes be caused by an inadequate power supply. Does that cam use a USB cable for power? If so try powering the cam with a house-current phone charger. Could also be a failed or failing SD card.

Phil
 
Dont focus on features, focus on image quality and support, the gadget cameras just have more features you can get burned with.
Most dashcams today have GPS as default its been some years since it was a add on getting a camera.
Many cameras today also have wifi, which you can use to make settings changes and maybe DL a file or two now and then to your phone, for downloading say several hours of driving in XX files, you will find the wifi speeds horrible slow.
But the apps done have fancy share features, so you cant just select your driving for the day and say share to some social media or something, if you want to do something like that you need to load your whole day of driving into a dashcam player, and then take a picture of the route on a map.
Something like people can interactive follow your route and go " o they was in so and so town at noon" thats not smarts you will find in dashcams, and to be honest i hope it never get there cuz it cropute the purpose of the dashcam which is accident recording.

You can log your journey too of course and assemble all the files into one big video lasting hours, but dashcams are not super good at this, the people that do serious journey videos use higher quality ( video ) camcorders.
And these camcorders most often have a more narrow field of view so you dont have dashboard or hood of the car in the frame,,,,,, but of course thats probably not a issue in a motorhome.

Dashcams have a fairly modest bitrate ( image quality ) and they have to have that as the files would otherwse go really big and that will take a toll on the memory card.
Most dashcams today are around 20 mbit in bitrate, and higher end action cameras are around 100 mbit, so while the dashcam with 20 mbit generate 100 - 120 MB of video every minute a similar dashcam having 100 mbit will probably generate 1000 MB every minute.
 
"Boot looping" or "boot cycling" can sometimes be caused by an inadequate power supply. Does that cam use a USB cable for power? If so try powering the cam with a house-current phone charger. Could also be a failed or failing SD card.

Phil

Thanks Phil. Yeah I did try connecting the camera's USB to house current but the symptoms persisted. Had not thought about the possibility of a failed SD card. I *think* I have tried multiple cards but can't be sure. I will definitely test that as a possbility of the problems I'm having.
 
Dont focus on features, focus on image quality and support, the gadget cameras just have more features you can get burned with.
Most dashcams today have GPS as default its been some years since it was a add on getting a camera.
Many cameras today also have wifi, which you can use to make settings changes and maybe DL a file or two now and then to your phone, for downloading say several hours of driving in XX files, you will find the wifi speeds horrible slow.
But the apps done have fancy share features, so you cant just select your driving for the day and say share to some social media or something, if you want to do something like that you need to load your whole day of driving into a dashcam player, and then take a picture of the route on a map.
Something like people can interactive follow your route and go " o they was in so and so town at noon" thats not smarts you will find in dashcams, and to be honest i hope it never get there cuz it cropute the purpose of the dashcam which is accident recording.

You can log your journey too of course and assemble all the files into one big video lasting hours, but dashcams are not super good at this, the people that do serious journey videos use higher quality ( video ) camcorders.
And these camcorders most often have a more narrow field of view so you dont have dashboard or hood of the car in the frame,,,,,, but of course thats probably not a issue in a motorhome.

Dashcams have a fairly modest bitrate ( image quality ) and they have to have that as the files would otherwse go really big and that will take a toll on the memory card.
Most dashcams today are around 20 mbit in bitrate, and higher end action cameras are around 100 mbit, so while the dashcam with 20 mbit generate 100 - 120 MB of video every minute a similar dashcam having 100 mbit will probably generate 1000 MB every minute.

Great info-- thanks much.

Not one to use social media much or to stream "live", rather what I do during a prolonged trip of 3-4 months is download the dashcam video at the end of the day then update the blog with a Google Map showing our travels that day and a few, short edited clips from the video. On a 5-6 hour drive there's apt to be only a few segments of the video that would of interest to anyone viewing. Perhaps some interesting or unusual scenery-- things like that. Otherwise, just mile, after mile, after mile or pretty boring stuff. :)
 
I speed up drive videos ( the few i have made ) so 1 hour of driving is 10 minutes or so of viewing, but people will have to supply their own elevator music.

And i have used a action camera instead of my dashcams.

A former DCT member made nice road movies, but seem like he found other stuff to do with his time the past 3 years.
 
A former DCT member made nice road movies, but seem like he found other stuff to do with his time the past 3 years.
I can only dream of having my car go that fast...
 
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