Dashcam Viewer for Mac and Windows

traveler

traveler

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Dash Cam
Viofo A119V2, SG9665GC, SG9663DCPro + many more
Hi everyone. We just released version 1.2 of Dashcam Viewer. This version supports the 3-axis shock sensors in the Mini 0801. Data from these sensors are displayed in the Graph window. Current DCV users can download the new version using the "Check for new version" feature under the Help menu. Or anyone can download it from:

http://dashcamviewer.com

We are also pleased to announce the release of Dashcam Viewer for Windows. The Windows version offers the same capabilities as the Mac version, plus some additional controls for the brightness and contrast of the video. Although the Mac version has been field tested for a few weeks I'm calling the Windows version a "public beta" since this is its first release.

Changes in v1.2 include:
  • Added movie playback and GPS data support for Powerucc Panorama II dashcam. Dashcam Viewer now supports the Mini 0801, BlackVue DR400, DR500, and Powerucc Panorama II dashcams.
  • Added graphical displays of shock-sensor data for Panorama II, Mini 0801, and Blackvue DR400/500 cameras.
  • Preferences: Added “auto-fix” option for correcting biases between camera timezone setting and computer timezone setting. Try this is you see the movie but the graph cursor is not moving.
  • Preferences: Timezone offset setting is no in hrs/min/sec instead of decimal hours.
  • Added Bring All To Front option under Windows menu
  • Increased digits displayed on cursor in Graph views for HDOP and Distance.
  • Updated URL to website
  • Updated User Manual
Screenshot of new G-Forces graph:
gforces.png

PM me if you run into any showstoppers.

Regards,
John
 
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Nice!

Any plans for adding more program features? Things that would be nice.... still photo grab/save from video, licence plate number identifier/image enhancement of selection window/magnifier glass, cut and paste video fragments into custom length movie.
 
Love your work, definitely gonna try the Windows version.
 
Thanks @Tobi@s! And @borland, those are excellent suggestions! License plate identification would be cool, but extremely difficult to implement effectively (in near-real-time with minimal false positives). At least for me. The other features are more in the realm of possibility.

BTW, I've accumulated quite a laundry list of good suggestions from folks on this forum and I keep them all in a file so I don't forget. But because free time is a limited resource I have to cherry pick the next features to go in. So if you don't see your suggestion implemented it's not because it's not worthy, it's just that I haven't had the time to put it in.

John
 
Keep up the good work John, this software is becoming a very good viewer for our DVR's (not just for the 0801 as first intended), as I think I showed on my screen recording, having the option of capturing a JPG / PNG file or a PDF file with one click (whilst able to zoom in to the image) would be a very hand/convenient feature to have at a later date
 
Hi everyone. Just wanted to let you know we released an update to Dashcam Viewer for the Mac yesterday. v1.3.0 has a number of new features, most of which are applicable to Mini 0801 users.

The new features include:
  • You can now translate and zoom the movie within the movie frame using the the mouse scroll wheel
  • Added Recenter Movie toolbar button. This will center the video in the in the player window. This is useful if you have zoomed and/or translated the movie in its frame and want to restore it.
  • Added "Export to PNG" toolbar button. This will take a screenshot of the viewer window and save it to a file in your Dashcam Viewer folder. Thanks for the suggestion @mollydog and @borland!
  • Added option to change aspect ratio to fill screen or preserve original aspect ratio.
  • Added new Preference controls to independently set the speed, altitude, and temperature units.
  • Master slider now jumps through the individual movies when scrubbing
  • Added support for BlackVue DR550GW dual-camera dashcam. DCV will display both front and rear camera views in the main window. The rear view display can be dragged anywhere on top of the front view window and can be resized using the mouse scroll wheel.
  • Updated User Manual
Current DCV users can download the new version using the "Check for new version" feature under the Help menu. Or anyone can download it from (v1.3 for Windows is in the works):

http://earthshinesw.com/dashcam-viewer/

Special thanks to @B20RRL for supplying me with BlackVue DR550GW test movies and data.

Here is a video of Dashcam Viewer v1.3 (with DR550GW):


Thanks,
John
 
traveler said:
Hi everyone. We just released version 1.2 of Dashcam Viewer. This version supports the 3-axis shock sensors in the Mini 0801. Data from these sensors are displayed in the Graph window. Current DCV users can download the new version using the "Check for new version" feature under the Help menu. Or anyone can download it from:

http://earthshinesw.com/dashcam-viewer/

We are also pleased to announce the release of Dashcam Viewer for Windows. The Windows version offers the same capabilities as the Mac version,n
Click to expand...


Thanks for the update to the Mac OS X version.
Crap... windows version! iTunes all over again! :)
 
DashCamDave said:
Great news, so nice to see new features added.

John, would it be possible to designate a folder or file type(s) as a rear cam to combine the feed from two separate cams in the same fashion?

Also, is there any chance to make the Data window resizable?
Click to expand...

@DashCamDave-- I actually started out with the intention of creating PiP using separate front/rear camera recordings and synchronizing the videos using the timestamps or GPS data (basically doing exactly what you are suggesting). Although this seems simple in theory, in practice if you want to make this foolproof it opens up a can of worms. For example, what if the user's front camera has a different timezone setting than the back camera? Controls would have to be added to compensate for this. I'm not saying it isn't doable (especially now since I have the PiP infrastructure now), but it would take substantial time and effort which would take me off of other enhancements I'm planning that are more general. Of course, if someone is willing to pony-up for this feature... ;-)

Regarding the resizable Data window. Good suggestion. Should be easy enough to try out. Let me experiment and see how it looks.

Thanks,
John
 
traveler said:
@DashCamDave-- I actually started out with the intention of creating PiP using separate front/rear camera recordings and synchronizing the videos using the timestamps or GPS data (basically doing exactly what you are suggesting). Although this seems simple in theory, in practice if you want to make this foolproof it opens up a can of worms. For example, what if the user's front camera has a different timezone setting than the back camera? Controls would have to be added to compensate for this. I'm not saying it isn't doable (especially now since I have the PiP infrastructure now), but it would take substantial time and effort which would take me off of other enhancements I'm planning that are more general. Of course, if someone is willing to pony-up for this feature... ;-)

Regarding the resizable Data window. Good suggestion. Should be easy enough to try out. Let me experiment and see how it looks.

Thanks,
John
Click to expand...

This will set you apart from everyone else of you can do it. It's quite the challenge as you said so more of a long term goal as more and more people buy a dual channel DVR or just buy two separate ones.
 
Just published Dashcam Viewer version 1.3.2 for Mac. Among the changes, this update includes @DashCamDave 's request to resize the Data window ;):

New Features:
  • Added support for connecting to the internet via a proxy server
  • Added option to "Auto-Fix" timezone every time a movie is played. This auto- corrects for biases due to timezone or DST differences between movie modification date and GPS data.
  • Data View window is now resizeable.
  • Updated User Manual
Bug Fixes:
  • Fixed bug that could hide the hundred's digit in the longitude displayed in the Data view.

The Windows version is lagging a bit due to some technical issues with PiP. I may have to forgo PiP for the time being or risk it falling too far behind the Mac version.

Regards,
John
 
Hi Traveler,

I must be doing something wrong. I open the viewer and navigate to the folder where the .mov files are at, but the player just says, "No items match your search". Can I not select one or two sequential files in the folder to play? (the reason I ask that is because the time zone isn't correct on the first files saved, so GPS isn't right until the timezone was corrected for the last four files on the card)

I did double click the folder with the .mov files and it started playing the first file, but that's when problem #2 came up. It would play smoothly for about 10-15 seconds, then fps would dump to about one frame per second. I skipped to the next file, and see the same symptom; smooth play for a few seconds, then maybe 1 fps. Audio throughout is fine, no drops or skips.

Hardware specs, for what it's worth: video is through a ATI Radeon HD 5870 (1G DDR5), on a Windows 7 64-bit laptop (Intel Core i7 Processor & 6G RAM)
 
knoxco said:
Hi Traveler,

I must be doing something wrong. I open the viewer and navigate to the folder where the .mov files are at, but the player just says, "No items match your search". Can I not select one or two sequential files in the folder to play? (the reason I ask that is because the time zone isn't correct on the first files saved, so GPS isn't right until the timezone was corrected for the last four files on the card)
Click to expand...

Hi knoxco, Dashcam Viewer sequences all the movies in a folder, not individual files in a folder. This was intended to makes things simpler for the user since they only have to select one folder and not a series of movie files to get the ball rolling. Since you can only have one timeline I would suggest that you create a separate folder (at the same level as the "100MEDIA" folder) for the movies that are in the other timezone.

knoxco said:
I did double click the folder with the .mov files and it started playing the first file, but that's when problem #2 came up. It would play smoothly for about 10-15 seconds, then fps would dump to about one frame per second. I skipped to the next file, and see the same symptom; smooth play for a few seconds, then maybe 1 fps. Audio throughout is fine, no drops or skips. Hardware specs, for what it's worth: video is through a ATI Radeon HD 5870 (1G DDR5), on a Windows 7 64-bit laptop (Intel Core i7 Processor & 6G RAM)
Click to expand...

I have seen the same stuttering video issue on my $400 laptop PC. I apologize for that. I am not a Windows expert but I suspect it has to do with the video card not performing hardware accelerated decoding of the movie. Perhaps there is a codec that needs to be installed? On a friend's desktop PC running Windows 7 the movies play fine. I guess there is more variability in graphics cards and codecs on the PC.
 
I'll check for ATI driver updates. The timeline makes sense too, I'll find a workaround to that (like registering it) if I can get past the codec issue. Thank you.
 
knoxco said:
I'll check for ATI driver updates. The timeline makes sense too, I'll find a workaround to that (like registering it) if I can get past the codec issue. Thank you.
Click to expand...
Try it in DatakamPlayer (Mac version), may be it will works here?
 
Hi everyone. We just released version 1.3.3 last night for Mac and Windows. This version has some improvements in the video zooming. Details below:

Version 1.3.3:

New Features:
  • Improved the experience of zooming into or out of a movie. Now the zoom center point is whatever is in the middle of the movie window frame, which makes zeroing in on such things as license plates more intuitive. Previously the zoom center was the center of the movie (not the frame) which was not as intuitive.
  • Added keyboard shortcuts for zooming and translation of the movie in the movie frame.
  • Updated user manual
  • NEW! Facebook page for Dashcam Viewer
Version 1.3.2:

New Features:
  • Added support for connecting to the internet via a proxy server
  • Added option to "Auto-Fix" timezone every time a movie is played. This auto- corrects for biases due to timezone or DST differences between movie modification date and GPS data.
  • Data View window is now resizeable.
  • Updated User Manual
Bug Fixes:
  • Fixed bug that could hide the hundred's digit in the longitude displayed in the Data view.
Thanks,
John
http://earthshinesw.com/dashcam-viewer
 
Hi everyone. Just published version 1.3.5 for Mac and Windows. This version adds some usability features for Mini 0801 and other uses. Details below:

  • Right and left arrow keys provide frame-by-frame movie scrubbing
  • Up Arrow key skips to next movie, Down Arrow key plays previous movie
  • Page Up goes forward 10 movies, Page Down goes back 10 movies
  • Double-clicking in Player window resets movie zoom/translation
  • Export to PNG now saves PNG file to Desktop instead of Dashcam Viewer folder
  • Added support for Vicovation Marcus1 and Marcus3 dashcam
  • Fixed display issue in which the graph cursor would disappear when the user switched between graphs when the animation was paused.
Thanks,
John
http://earthshinesw.com/dashcam-viewer
 
Hi John,

Fantastic software. Better than the standard Vico Viewer. One problem though, your program works fine with files from my Marcus 3 when recorded 1920x1080@60fps but it won't play any files recorded at 2304x1296@30fps. The mov file plays fine on the standard quicktime viewer though so I don't think it's an issue with my PC. I will certainly purchase the full version if you are able to address this.

Thanks!
Lex
 
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