Dashcam Features, Limitations and Advise

simmiv

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Hi everyone..
I'm a keen traveller here in the Australian outback. So, before going on a three month journey last July I bought a GS1000 Dashcam off ebay. The idea was to record my whole journey of around 18,000km drive. Most of the un-expected things occur during driving!!

I soon discovered that the GS1000 (blue menu) isn't the best camera available, but it did a reasonable job. My requirements were to have it switch on, every time the vehicle is switched on and then turn off when the vehicle is turned off. While on I wanted it to record continuously, but segment the files into reasonable sizes. Using overwrite mode, it only records around 525Mb, which is about 7 Minutes of HD footage. For me that wasn't good enough as one can drive for hours in the outback and having to splice lots of small files together can be quite a task. So I used the non-continuous mode, which gives about 3,8GB or 57 minutes of HD footage. I actually used the next mode down 1440x1080.. In that mode it gives about 1,3GB and 1 hour and 41 minutes.. The drawback was that I had to monitor the camera because when it stopped it had to be manually started again. Most of the time it worked fine. I've been working on the footage and uploading to youtube to a new channel so people can share the trip. (https://www.youtube.com/user/TravellingVikings)
However I've now realised some of the limitations of the footage..

  • Having the camera mounted inside the windscreen means it's exposed to a lot of glare, plus all the dust and dead insects.. I did stop and clean the front windshield from time to time, but it's sometimes hard to see blemishes on the windscreen that are magnified by the dashcam.
  • The recording time in continuous mode is limited, so having to rely on manually starting it when it stops can't be relied on.
  • The mounting has to be quite secure as on some harsh roads it would sag! I had to tighten it quite much to reduce the risk of that occurring.

I'm now looking for a replacement camera so I can take even better quality footage and some of the things I'm interested in are:
  • Using two dashcams so they can cover a wider angle to both sides of the vehicle..
  • Mounting them outside to reduce windshield issues and maximise picture quality. I'm thinking of having them in a diy water resistant box with good quality perpex for the lens to see through.
  • Also thinking about if I can rustle up some method of having air continuously flowing across the lens opening to keep away dust..
  • I would like to have it cable into the cabin, so I can see the footage on a reasonable size monitor so I can detect if something has occurred..
  • Remote control would be nice, but as long as it can record in overwrite mode for longer than just a few minutes it would be fine..
  • I also would like to have the date/time plus GPS for the speed as it conveys more meaningful information in the videos.

I'm looking for some advise on what kind of camera might come close to what I'm looking for. Any comments welcome..
Simmi
 
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Most of us are looking for two or more USB or PoE cameras served by a remote DVR, but at this point it's something you have to make yourself with a nanocomputer, dedicated encoders, and lipstick cameras.

The dust and bugs (wow) are a problem. The only way to protect it would be to blow a strong stream of clean filtered dry air past the enclosure.

You could control with a tablet running vnc (or x2go if it ever comes to Android), and record with Zoneminder.

Sure, GPS, etc would be nice, but that would have to be added to Zoneminder maybe with the gpsd daemon.
 
I agree that at the moment a small computer and USB/ethernet webcams is quite a clunky solution. I know it sounds great to people like us who love messing around with technology, but it's not very practical. I ripped out my custom dash cam solution that featured separate cameras and a DVR because it just was not as reliable and simple as the cheap Chinese dash cam I'm now using that gives better video quality too! There is nothing worse than having to get into your car and mess around with electronic things before you can set off and getting a custom solution to reliably automated could prove tricky. The likes of Zoneminder requires a fair bit of wrangling with config files to get it to do what you want. It's a good CCTV system when set-up, but I'm not convinced it's a good choice for in car use. Something like Motion under Linux (ie on a 'Pi) is likely a better option for dash cam use if configured right.

For good reliability using a small computer and USB cameras, I think it'll need someone to come up with a software solution that just does what's needed of a dash cam with minimal effort and is also reliable. It'll need to deal with the non-camera hardware stuff such as how to react to loss of ignition power (to stop recording etc) and also loss of permanent power such as in the event of a crash. It's certainly not an impossible task, and in my head I can think of some solutions, but with what's available right now I think it may be more hassle than it's worth especially for the average dash cam user! Of course, I look forward to seeing great dash cam Raspberry Pi solutions in the future :D.

If I had the time I'd take on the challenge myself, but for now I'll leave it to someone else!
 
If you are travelling so much try to buy a korean camera because your recordings can be unique in many ways so use more money than you used on your GS. If you are driving during night you have some korean options, look at the dashcam comparison. One of them can be the Itronics ITB-100HD but if you can make your decision fast, hurry up before Itronics will ban these sellers like did with the others.
Use 32GB cards which can store about 10 hours of 720p recordings.
It is not very necessary to record at 1080p.
Wide angle is enough. But some cameras have a better work on image distortion. You can check some of their samples.
If you want more interesting things you can put a camera for rear view. I don't know if dual cameras are good regarding image quality, so if I was you I should put my old cam in the back (720p recording on a 32GB card) and the new one on the front.
In my mind Australia is hot (like Nicole, sry for offtopic) so be sure your camera is not getting too hot by default like some Blackvue did.
Camera outside is a bad idea. Too much work, too much care, vibrations. Just put it down of the wipe windshield area so your wiper-blades will always clean the windshield. Use (quality) wipe blades many times during your travelling, with some special liquid if needed, but I think you can also prepare it with some dish soap so being cheap, you can use a lot.



enjoy,
Mtz
 

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Hi simmiv,

If you are looking for a camera that can mount outside the vehicle, look at Go-Pro. Tons of mounts for that. However depending on the model, it may not have autostart or loop recording.

Unfortunately, all of the decent dash cams record small files with cycle/loop recording on. This is to minimize the gaps between files (card is full and it needs to delete a large file and record a new file). I think your best bet is to "live" with the small file sizes. Get a simple freeware program like www.freevideojoiner.com to easily join all the files together (other programs can do this as well).

If you are looking for better video quality than your GS1000, you probably want to consider a Korean camera. The ITB-100HD like Mtz mentioned or the FineVu CR-500HD would be good options. The BlackVue DR500GW-HD has WiFi so you can see the video on an Android or Apple phone. Not sure how reliable it would be though. All these cameras are mounted with adhesive and are quite stable compared to the suction mounts.
 
As to glare, there are anti-reflective coatings. Normally these are applied in a lab, but maybe by now they have them you can wipe on. If so, just do the whole inside. And let us know.
 
Or maybe some polarized film? We must keep the view as bright as possible because of low light situations.

enjoy,
Mtz
 
Polarized film would go too dark at a windshield angle. Polarized is simply thousands of horizontal microscpic lines, which block light noise in the horizontal plane. Light noise from the Sun comes at all angles, but polarized blocks at least half of it. Can't have horiz -and- vertical polarized, or it would block -all- light!

And at an angle the lines become too coincident, so light is blocked.
 
I don't get it?

The windshield will get dirty from dust and bugs, but u have at least wipers to clean the windshield.

How would putting camera in some type of DYi box be any different outside the cabin? That box will have some type of screen on it and it would get just as dirty from dust and bugs...

Not to mention, how would you secure it? I wouldn't trust suction or adhesive mounts. It may work 355 days, but it only takes one bad day, and u camera if you can find it on the highway, would most likely get ran over!

I think mtz gave a good suggestion. Make sure you camera is within the wipers cleaning area.
 
Thanks everyone, good input into my decision making process. I think a Korean dashcam is probably the best option, with a GPS.. Just trying to work through what key features would be useful for me. I like the new GoPro black, however it hasn't got any GPS date/time plus no auto start/stop either. I'm not worried about fixing it on the outside. I can easily fix it to my roof rack so it has a good view forward. It would be in a case of some sorts, possibly with jet of compressed air keeping the lens clean. I've seen people create water proof boxes using containers that are airtight. Just needs some good transparent plexiglass for the lens. I'm working through what my key features would be, once I've done that I'll see what fits the bill..
Simmi
 
There are all kinds of transparent cases over on Stuntcams.
 
simmiv said:
Just needs some good transparent plexiglass for the lens.
Again, who will clean your plexiglass?
How will you see the plexiglass is dirty? Stopping the car? And than cleaning? How many times a day you will make this? Or you will spend some more money on some monitor connected with the outside camera to see when the plexiglass is dirty? And when is dirty you will stop the car to clean it, no? And instead of looking to the road to look at the monitor? Not dangerous?

Using the wipe blades is the best solution possible to clean anything in front of your camera.

Also I think on your roads in Australia you can't drive with that speed which will splash the bugs on the windshield so them cannot be removed by the wipe blades. And the windshield is more resistant than any plexiglass for removing the crushed bugs. Can you show me a link from your Youtube videos with crushed bugs in front of camera? Needed also the minute because your videos are very long (and nice). In my mind is the idea that these cameras are focusing at a much bigger distance than the distance between the camera and windshield. Only some autofocus camera can focus on the bug from the front and blur the needed objects from the front of the car. And I don't think dashcams have autofocus.

But if you still want to put it outside think to the Formula 1 helmets when driver are removing some films. You can buy a lot of films and remove them when driving from time to time.

enjoy,
Mtz
 
Again, he said he's looking at a jet of compressed air.
 
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