Dashcam Viewer for Mac and Windows

[Finnegan]

You can edit the file in the Viofo app select the start and finish time do a test play then save it to your phone.
I did a test on a 1min video on my iPhone 8 and it took about 5 mins from start to finish.

Thank you for this, and the video below it!
After saving the (1 minute) edit does the original remain intact?

 

[LateralNW]

Thank you for this, and the video below it!
After saving the (1 minute) edit does the original remain intact?

Happy to share, thanks for saying that!

The original file is not affected.
It saves a new file of the edit.

 

[traveler]

I've learned that Dashcam Viewer really does not play nice with Viofo A129 Plus Duo. I posted a prior question here about Dashcam Viewer not correlating the front and rear cameras. Today's issue is the result of my camera capturing an accident in a Walmart lot where a driver backing the the wrong way down a parking lot row backed into another car. I showed the cop the clip from the dashcam, I wanted to send the relevent section from the file. Smaller and not a bunch of time lading up to the incident. The file plays fine, but when I try to export, and enter the start and stop time DV says "Movie Duration: -1 seconds". I purchased a license to do some of the cool stuff this is supposed to do. Have yet to do anything useful with DV.
BTW, a backup for those running into issues like these is OBS. At least I can get a section of the files without fighting bugs.
View attachment 85078

Hi BobW: Hard to diagnose the issue with just a single image, but one possibility is that you have a non-ascii character in the path to your videos. The reason is DCV relies on a helper program called ffmpeg.exe, which needs ascii-only characters in video file paths. I can see that ffmpeg is having trouble finding your video because normally the video resolution would be reported in the bottom left, instead of "0x0". The duration of -1 seconds is also a giveaway (I cover this in the FAQ). Try moving the video to a directory whose path doesn’t include any unicode characters. Usually, drag/dropping the videos directly from the SD card onto Dashcam Viewer works.

 

[BobW]

Hi BobW: Hard to diagnose the issue with just a single image, but one possibility is that you have a non-ascii character in the path to your videos. The reason is DCV relies on a helper program called ffmpeg.exe, which needs ascii-only characters in video file paths. I can see that ffmpeg is having trouble finding your video because normally the video resolution would be reported in the bottom left, instead of "0x0". The duration of -1 seconds is also a giveaway (I cover this in the FAQ). Try moving the video to a directory whose path doesn’t include any unicode characters. Usually, drag/dropping the videos directly from the SD card onto Dashcam Viewer works.

This problem occurred using the card directly from the dashcam. Unless it's writing unicode characters to the card - which was formatted in the camera - I don't see that being the issue. The full path for the video when I copied it to my PC after it gave the -1 seconds directly from the card is C:\Users\Bob\Videos The file name is 20250914171951_000183F.MP4 I dropped another copy in the normal windows 10 created downloads folder, and it does the same.

So, some more playing. I changed the name of the file. I deleted the "0" after the underscore. Opened it with DCV. Clicked mov export. then it shows a length. Ok. Figured maybe the camera wrote some invisible un-liked character and editing the name cleared it. Nope. edited the name again and added the "0" back. Once again, -1 length. It's as if DCV doesn't like that file name or length. This was done in Desktop\DCV Test. This might also be the cause of the prior issue that I had which was never resolved where DCV didn't correlate front and back videos. If you've got some way of me getting you the file - I can send a OneDrive link - you can try it directly.

 

[Michael23]

Hello BobW,
John can be contacted via the following link... > https://dashcamviewer.com/resources/frequently-asked-questions/
His info is in the 1st section... > Will Dashcam Viewer work with my Dashcam?
Such as his email address.

 

[lufa6977]

This problem occurred using the card directly from the dashcam. Unless it's writing unicode characters to the card - which was formatted in the camera - I don't see that being the issue. The full path for the video when I copied it to my PC after it gave the -1 seconds directly from the card is C:\Users\Bob\Videos The file name is 20250914171951_000183F.MP4 I dropped another copy in the normal windows 10 created downloads folder, and it does the same.

So, some more playing. I changed the name of the file. I deleted the "0" after the underscore. Opened it with DCV. Clicked mov export. then it shows a length. Ok. Figured maybe the camera wrote some invisible un-liked character and editing the name cleared it. Nope. edited the name again and added the "0" back. Once again, -1 length. It's as if DCV doesn't like that file name or length. This was done in Desktop\DCV Test. This might also be the cause of the prior issue that I had which was never resolved where DCV didn't correlate front and back videos. If you've got some way of me getting you the file - I can send a OneDrive link - you can try it directly.

View attachment 86006View attachment 86008

I have DCV Pro. If you would like to post the video to a Google Drive, you can DM me the link, and I will test the import on my Mac Studio. Apparently, you are using Windows, but it will be interesting to see if the MAC will have an issue with the file.

 

[lufa6977]

I have an A129 Pro Duo. I just ran three videos through DCV and had zero issues.

 

[traveler]

This problem occurred using the card directly from the dashcam. Unless it's writing unicode characters to the card - which was formatted in the camera - I don't see that being the issue. The full path for the video when I copied it to my PC after it gave the -1 seconds directly from the card is C:\Users\Bob\Videos The file name is 20250914171951_000183F.MP4 I dropped another copy in the normal windows 10 created downloads folder, and it does the same.

So, some more playing. I changed the name of the file. I deleted the "0" after the underscore. Opened it with DCV. Clicked mov export. then it shows a length. Ok. Figured maybe the camera wrote some invisible un-liked character and editing the name cleared it. Nope. edited the name again and added the "0" back. Once again, -1 length. It's as if DCV doesn't like that file name or length. This was done in Desktop\DCV Test. This might also be the cause of the prior issue that I had which was never resolved where DCV didn't correlate front and back videos. If you've got some way of me getting you the file - I can send a OneDrive link - you can try it directly.

View attachment 86006View attachment 86008

BobW, the filename dependency is an interesting finding and valuable clue. Yes, please send me a OneDrive link to a sample raw video from your dashcam (or use https://wetransfer.com). If you don't have my email address, DM me. I'll see if I can repeat the problem on Windows and Mac versions of DCV.

As an aside, I quickly learned that there is no standard in the dashcam industry for embedding meta data (like GPS or G-Force) in a file, nor is there a standard method of video file-naming. In fact, even within a single dashcam model of a single manufacturer, there can be multiple formats of file-naming (caused by f/w updates). Lol, makes my head spin. 🫨

 

[markus]

BobW, the filename dependency is an interesting finding and valuable clue. Yes, please send me a OneDrive link to a sample raw video from your dashcam (or use https://wetransfer.com). If you don't have my email address, DM me. I'll see if I can repeat the problem on Windows and Mac versions of DCV.

As an aside, I quickly learned that there is no standard in the dashcam industry for embedding meta data (like GPS or G-Force) in a file, nor is there a standard method of video file-naming. In fact, even within a single dashcam model of a single manufacturer, there can be multiple formats of file-naming (caused by f/w updates). Lol, makes my head spin. 🫨

It'll be software developers having a bit of fun when it comes to file naming 😀