DR900S-2CH Initial Impressions

The mod can be done on any dash or action camera, my X cam have also started to stop recording just to start recording again a second later, and then go on for hours,,,,, still time for a replacement i think.

I am helping testing cameras for a few brands so my car are quite spammed ( 8 cameras ) 4 would of course be fine, actually i often say a single camera will be okay for most things, its just i like to put things on youtube and then you cant really have too many cameras as its 360 degrees of stupid here at times.
In its essence i feel dashcams are not to capture the guy plowing into you, that you should be able to prove without a doubt even if you dont have it on film, so a single camera on the windscreen that at least perfect document what you do with your driving, then what ever some one else do, that gotta be their fault even if you dont have it on record.

My main cameras are the new SG9663DC ( front and rear ) - Right side i have the discontinued innovv C3 and to cover my left the good old Mobius ( mine are a B lens )

But ATM i also have.
Windscreen :

SGGCX2 - GT65EX ( Guard Track ) - Joovuu X cam ( long range 12 mm lens ) and on my mirror stalk filming the cabin of the car i have the B1W

ATM street guardian keep me busy and my windscreen fairly occupied, though i could fit in 2 more cameras, but i am still hoping i will see something new and cool from some of the other brands.
I can always expand my testing to my south facing living room window, i have a timer ready to simulate stop / go and a handful of surplus memory cards.

My money are being targeted at building a new computer, then i can forward this computer to my friend as this though its a old computer it a speed demon compared to the low range dualcore office machine he is on, so win - win though it will cost me a small fortune, but at least then i should not have to worry about computing power for the next 5 years.

As i said in my post above i would not like to go without my long range camera now, and i have even contemplated putting one on the rear window, just in a little more relaxed 6 - 8 mm as i think the 12 mm might be too much " in your face" of the person in the car behind me.

Having 3 cameras like i have next to each other on the windscreen are not stealthy even though i am blessed with plenty of room and a large dotted area that hide most of the cameras.
But i am still glad i dont go parking much out on the town, cuz i do worry that either my cameras will be stolen, and or my car vandalized cuz many here seem to have a very negative perspective on dashcams ( judging by the YT comments i get )
 
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many here seem to have a very negative perspective on dashcams ( judging by the YT comments i get )
Thanks for the time you took to post that inventory. As for "negative perspective", I wonder if that's because they think you're covertly surveilling people, or maybe they think that you're obsessed, or being ostentatious. I think you're heroic!
 
I tell people that if you expect the police to solely uphold the law in your country, then you are heading for anarchy or a police state the like the world have never seen.
As a citizen its your job to put your foot down and say O hell no when some one go to far, actually saying NO to many things are pretty important to do.

But so far i have just turned one into the law, and i had to get media in on the deal before the police could bother to do something.
But that idiot broke so many mark giving laws in 30 seconds they could just go and collect his license. ( we just have 3 marks here )

Also here in Denmark you can film as much as you like, the problem arise when you publish your recordings, but i will keep that up until a judge tell me not to, and then after that i will just report people to the police giving them a lot of work,,,,, and most likely trouble in the Media.
 
i had to get media in on the deal before the police could bother to do something.
In the USA there's an aphorism: "It's the squeaky wheel which gets the grease."
...here in Denmark you can film as much as you like, the problem arise when you publish your recordings, but i will keep that up until a judge tell me not to...
Or, you could just emulate the example set by Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and "subversive" political activists throughout the world: use TOR to disseminate something anonymously and so widely that it can't be suppressed.
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that, in the USA, any recording which is legal to create, is also legal to publish. In the UK -- the origin of the Magna Carta and so many other things which were the basis for the American model of civil liberties -- the situation is now outright sad and shameful, with the combination of massive state-imposed surveillance, state powers to suppress publication, and RIPA (which allows imprisonment for refusal to reveal your passwords or crypto-keys).
 
Has anyone done a comparison between the recording quality? How does Extreme compare to the other quality settings? Is it worth the loss of record time?
 
What surprises me most is actually how well the VIOFO captures readable plates. In all of the comparison images the VIOFO produces very legible license plates. Any plates that are readable by the DR900 are also equally readable by the lower-resolution VIOFO A119 PRO! I was not expecting the battle to end up being DR900 vs VIOFO. The DR900 is brighter and has a wider viewing angle, in addition to being more user friendly and having videos accessible by phone. I have two VIOFO A119S from 2017 in my car and am planning to upgrade to something with parking mode (or adding an external battery). I was considering the 4K-goodness of the DR900 but might just save the money and go with the VIOFO A119 PRO after I do a little more research into reports of overheating on the DR900. Thanks OP for the very informative videos and comparisons. (y)
 
Sounds like you are a dealer or at least pushing the VIOFO A119 PRO line. Folk that go for the Blackvue line like the form factor as much.. if not more.. than the features. Dash cams that have little screens need to be mounted where you can get at them.. thus are not easily placed out of sight. But to each their own.. :)
 
Sounds like you are a dealer or at least pushing the VIOFO A119 PRO line. Folk that go for the Blackvue line like the form factor as much.. if not more.. than the features. Dash cams that have little screens need to be mounted where you can get at them.. thus are not easily placed out of sight. But to each their own.. :)

Lol, that's funny, Ralph2 and I take no offense. I am really not a dealer. Excuse my enthusiasm for the VIOFO, I just wasn't expecting it to perform so similarly to the DR900 in the OP's comparison video, with regard to license plate identification. I was shocked and was expecting the DR900 to blow all others away, but the VIOFO held its own, certainly better than the Thinkware I was also considering.

The VIOFO A119S was my first dashcam and I chose it last year based on quality and value. It was cheaper to get two A119S at full 1080/60fps last year than get a 2-ch setup with possibly lower rear resolution. Having the dashcam has definitely saved me a few times already in the past year. Except I dont have parking mode (and no external power to support it). Last week someone swiped my car in a parking lot and I dont have any video of it because the car was off. So now I'm in the market for one with parking mode. Although the DR900 is very nice and has very convenient features (I especially like the phone access and app), I dont really mind popping out the memory card on my VIOFO. I am not saying the VIOFO is better than the DR900 by any stretch. I wholeheartedly agree with Vortex's own recommendations -- A119 Pro for best budget dashcam and DR900 for creme-de-la-creme.
The DR900 would still be cheaper than my insurance deductible, so that's how I would justify the cost to myself. At the same time, hard for me to ignore the value of the A119 Pro and how clearly all the license plates showed in the demo. Maybe if I started with a DR650 or 750 then I would appreciate the features more, but for now it is a case of "not knowing better" so I dont miss features I never had, and the older A119S has done its job well for me thus far. Yes, the A119 screen is small but I only look at the screen during initial setup and it still stays pretty well hidden. Here's my setup (the VIOFO is to the left of the auto high-beam sensor):

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I've had the DR900S-2CH for about a month now. Completely hardwired it in with the PowerMagic box in a convenient location (I use it often to toggle parking mode). It looks great and functions well, but ease of use is awful. If they are going to put a WIFI transceiver in the thing, make it so I can access it from the PC just like if the SD card were in the computer. Instead force me to register my cam on a public cloud service. So instead every night I have to remove the SD card to review the videos. Night capture is useless unless there is a constant light source. With the 1.22 software, it would auto-brighten the video just enough to make it useful if you zoomed-in one level, but that version was buggy and crashed every time I paused the video. Now with the 2.01 version, it doesn't crash but lost the auto-brightening, so parking my car outside at night is left unprotected from useless video. I'm not too thrilled with this product for what it cost, but I'll live with it if it can accurately capture an idiotic or criminal event.
 
Lol, that's funny, Ralph2 and I take no offense. I am really not a dealer. Excuse my enthusiasm for the VIOFO, I just wasn't expecting it to perform so similarly to the DR900 in the OP's comparison video, with regard to license plate identification. I was shocked and was expecting the DR900 to blow all others away, but the VIOFO held its own, certainly better than the Thinkware I was also considering.

The VIOFO A119S was my first dashcam and I chose it last year based on quality and value. It was cheaper to get two A119S at full 1080/60fps last year than get a 2-ch setup with possibly lower rear resolution. Having the dashcam has definitely saved me a few times already in the past year. Except I dont have parking mode (and no external power to support it). Last week someone swiped my car in a parking lot and I dont have any video of it because the car was off. So now I'm in the market for one with parking mode. Although the DR900 is very nice and has very convenient features (I especially like the phone access and app), I dont really mind popping out the memory card on my VIOFO. I am not saying the VIOFO is better than the DR900 by any stretch. I wholeheartedly agree with Vortex's own recommendations -- A119 Pro for best budget dashcam and DR900 for creme-de-la-creme.
The DR900 would still be cheaper than my insurance deductible, so that's how I would justify the cost to myself. At the same time, hard for me to ignore the value of the A119 Pro and how clearly all the license plates showed in the demo. Maybe if I started with a DR650 or 750 then I would appreciate the features more, but for now it is a case of "not knowing better" so I dont miss features I never had, and the older A119S has done its job well for me thus far. Yes, the A119 screen is small but I only look at the screen during initial setup and it still stays pretty well hidden. Here's my setup (the VIOFO is to the left of the auto high-beam sensor):

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Beware of that reflective foil. The way you mounted it right behind the cameras, it acts like an oven during summer sunny days and can cause them to fail. You can just put the foil on the dashboard. You'll still protect the dashboard and also the cameras.
 
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