Discussing "length of recording" option- any case for one over the other?

[Triggerfish]

Just curious what the proper setting is for "length of video" that is best for the memory card, downloading, and overall the "go to". I am tossed up on this because one thing effects the other- longer video length gives bigger downloads when needed, but solves my problem that I've had too many incidents happen at the end or beginning of a file. I've also been told, right or wrong, that the life of a card will be greater if you write less files, IE, set it to 3 minutes instead of 1. Or perhaps a good compromise is 2 minutes.. not sure.

thoughts on this?

I'm using VIOFO A329's and Blackvue Elite 9 (and other cameras for side coverage, etc.).

Thanks!

 

[bpsmicro]

If you've been around a while, you'll notice a trend where people will say that their dashcam works great, except it lost an entire file right around the moment of some impact. So they'll have some time period before, and some time period after, but not the sweet spot in the middle. And the length of that missing piece will be whatever you set the recording length to. That's why the average appears to be in the 1-minute range.

I don't think the lifespan of the SD will be based all that much on the number of recordings, but more on the actual data flow. So I wouldn't expect there to be a measurable difference between more shorter files or less larger files. Maybe theoretically, but I don't think there's really any evidence in this use case to make a case one way or the other.

 

[DAP]

The FAT32 disk format that most dash cams use has a 4GB file size limit. This is the primary reason dashcams split the video into separate time limited files. I set the file time limit to as large as I can get without coming close to that 4GB limit. Some cameras at high data rates and long file time limits can come close to that limit, and since the file size is variable due to compression, I want to make sure I never loose video due to running into that limit.

 

[lufa6977]

Just curious what the proper setting is for "length of video" that is best for the memory card, downloading, and overall the "go to". I am tossed up on this because one thing effects the other- longer video length gives bigger downloads when needed, but solves my problem that I've had too many incidents happen at the end or beginning of a file. I've also been told, right or wrong, that the life of a card will be greater if you write less files, IE, set it to 3 minutes instead of 1. Or perhaps a good compromise is 2 minutes.. not sure.

thoughts on this?

I'm using VIOFO A329's and Blackvue Elite 9 (and other cameras for side coverage, etc.).

Thanks!

The answer is: What works best for you?

I like 2-minute file lengths as I found that most events I wanted to record spanned two one-minute video files. Two-minute file lengths are not large enough to be bothesome on a WiFi download, and easy enough to process in a video editor.

Your dashcam should never lose its recording during an accident. If it does, then it does not matter what the file length is.