Few questions for first dashcam

[NMuntz]

I drive a lot for work and I've had some close calls, so I've decided for my own peace of mind to invest in a dashcam. I'm in BC, Canada, and I drive a 2009 Yaris, not sure if those things matter. After a lot of poking around I feel like the mini 0805 is probably my best choice, but I have some questions before completing the purchase.

1. What is the purpose of GPS? The feature can be turned on or off, and I see many cameras advertising it as an 'extra' but nobody seems to explain why I would want it!

2. To hardwire or not? I can't seem to find anything explaining why one would want hardwired vs. just plugging into the lighter except for possibly(?) overheating? I don't live in a place with extreme temperatures so I don't think that would be a problem - but I do charge other items through the lighter sometimes so if I pick up a socket splitter, will it affect anything? And if I should hardwire, is that something any idiot can do or should I find a mechanic to do it for me? (I say mechanic because I can't find any local electronics dealers that sell dashcams at all, let alone install them, and I'd prefer to avoid Future Shop/BB)

3. I've been looking at a few reviews, I found this review gives the most information as he flips through the options, however he shows that there are different options for resolution, AE Meter Mode, white balance, exposure value and doesn't really go into detail. I don't know much of anything about any of these - is there one that's 'best' for resolution, for example? Should I just cycle through the settings on each option until I find what 'looks best' on my screen? And will I need to adjust all these whenever switching between day and night driving conditions?

4. Cycling - options for 1, 3, or 5 minutes, or it doesn't stop until it runs out of room - I would think it would be best to just let it keep recording till it runs out of room and starts itself again, but just wanted to see if there are other opinions on that?

5. The reviewer above skips over "driver number", just curious as to what that is.

6. The place I'm looking at buying from offers a 16 or 32gb "class 10" micro SD card. I also heard 'class' mentioned in the reviews, but I can't find anything explaining what the 'class' means - just want to figure that out before I compare prices of cards elsewhere.

Thanks to all for any information/advice you can provide, not to mention what has already been provided! Reading the forums and articles on this website cut my list of questions down to about 1/3 and managed to narrow down my camera selection from "... I dunno??" to "(probably) that one"!

 

[Street Guardian USA]

1)
GPS is to log speed and location for play back via
http://datakam.com/download
http://dashcamviewer.com

2)
Hard wire means you don't have to give up the cig port and is neater. If you get a dashcam with actual parking mode, you need it powered 24/7 + a Battery Discharge Prevention hard wire kit. (Panorama supports 5 seconds of pre-buffer motion detection for example)

3)
The mini series seem to be hit or miss based on my experience with several myself and what I've read. The 0805 seems to have less issues than the 0806 at the moment. (latest batch might have improved things)

4)
all dashcam products record in small files 1 right after the other like the chapters of a DVD. When you use the playback software in #1 above it will stitch them all together into one giant timeline with no gaps between. No you don't want continuous as there is a file size limitation. There is also a greater chance of 1 single large file being corrupted.

5)
driver number will be a stamp of what ever you want to be displayed and embedded into the video. (such as your plate number or nick name)

6)
class 10 or above is the best for FULL HD DVR's that have high bitrate. (class 4 and 6 is older cheaper stuff)

 

[Sabe]

Yes, like he says, and some more.
1. Personally i don't need/want gps, i know where i have been and i know how fast i'm driving.
2. As average user you have no need to hardwire, just plug it in and after a while you know do you want hardwire or not.
3. Again, as average user there is no reason to tweak image setup values, it's best to use highest available resolution to get best image quality. One important thing is how you aim camera, horizont should be in the middle or better aim a bit lower showing less sky than ground, reason for this is automatic exposure, if sky is bright then camera use that as a reference point and makes hole image darker and as a result sky look good but road is too dark.
4. You need to cycle video file, 3 or 5 minutes is ok.
5. Driver number is tricky, if you use your name or licence number that might look nice to you, but if you going to publish your video on youtube then that identification can be bad thing and require some video editing to lose it.
6. Class in memory cards means how fast card is, higher number is better/faster, class 10 is fastest and it's good choice and it will work in future too, although cameras will work with class 4 or 6 card depending camera model.
Mini 0805 is good camera to start, i hope you realize that this is first camera in long line of cameras to be, today you buy this and next week you will buy another one and this one goes to rear window and so on

 

[NMuntz]

Wow, fast reply! GPS, I never even thought of speed, was just thinking location which, anywhere I'm driving, would be pretty obvious. I don't believe the 0805 has a parking mode, but I think it does need to be hardwired for GPS, so that's definitely something I'll take into consideration. Also a great point about larger files risking corruption of an entire file rather than just one. Thank you so much!

As far as choice:

I did deliberately choose the 05 model over 06 because the 05 seems to have both fixed some listed issues from older models, and not have some of the issues the early 06s have - which I don't see much confirmation of having been fixed yet. I will say that although I usually tend to deliberately buy at least one generation behind to save money and to avoid early adopter issues, if it hadn't been for the issues listed with the 06 (and the lack of info on whether they've been fixed or not, or will be), price-wise I might be tempted by the 06 simply because it's only about $35 more - and I note that the camera angle is slightly wider on the 06 and the lens angle is slightly wider.

The only other camera in the same price range, available in Canada, and that seemed to have pretty decent reviews was the A118C. The A118C is cheaper, however I happened to stumble on a comparison night driving video between the two here, and the 0805's picture seems a lot clearer. But if you know of any other models in that price range (0805 is $119 before card and hardwiring kit, A118C is $99), I am absolutely open to suggestions!

 

[NMuntz]

Sabe, thanks so much for your reply as well. I guess dashcams are like tattoos, I know all my friends say that once they got one it was alway "well just one more!" I had considered whether to get a rear-window camera but since around here at least, rear-end accidents are pretty much always "the rear-ender's fault" (I actually had an accident about 20 years ago where this bit me in the butt!), I decided it wasn't worth the extra expense. Thanks for the tip on setting up to view more land than sky, that's a good point about auto-exposure! And also thanks for the warning about publishing driver numbers online - I think that's a good point and I think I'll just go ahead and leave it blank for that reason if that's what I ultimately decide to go for.

 

[jokiin]

0805 has better lens and sensor than the A118C so will do better at night