HDD/SSD + GPS Dash cam

[S3pid]

Greetings,
I am doing a project where I want to record series of images at about 15 fps together with geo tagging (gps location). I want to be able to do that for extended periods of unmaintained time thus I need a large storage capacity.
So far I have only found this: Professional dash cam thingy (I hope it is allowed to post such links here, if not please forgive me)
This pretty much has what I need but I am afraid it's some dodgy chinese device / knockoff since I can't find any additional info. It would be much nicer if there was a cleaner implementation of this.
So please if you have any ideas or have heard of similar devices being released soon - let me know. Cheers.

 

[kamkar]

I once had a camera like this, though it was just analog cameras.
Mine died pretty fast, was only in service for 1-2 years.
The main problem with these systems as far as i know are image quality / hardware quality.
Many regular dashcams support the 400 GB memory cards, and so hold a lot of information.
What are your plans since you need such large storage capacity, and what do you plan to do with the GPS information, there are differences in how cameras handle GPS information and store it, and so also how and what you can extract from those information's.

 

[SawMaster]

Welcome to DCT @S3pid
I think the biggest issue might be recording time. How long do you need to record? Is it possible to use something like motion detection to start the recording when it's needed or is constant recording the only method that can do what you need?

Phil

 

[S3pid]

Thank you!
To be more specific I want to do a kind of google street view knock off. It does not have to be 360. So series of pictures with GPS data for each one is needed. And since it's just a side project I don't have the time to actually collect the pictures myself but I can mount it inside some vehicles (which also include trains). So because it is mounted without my supervision for lets say two days or maybe more, I would like it to be able to keep recording on it's own.

So from this description I can give you key points:

1. I don't need to record if it's not moving - I need a picture per singular location (60cm apart is optimum which at average train speed would be 15fps).
2. Good gps signal sensitivity.
3. Main bottleneck right now - storage capacity.

@kamkar1 I somehow didn't notice there were 400GB capable cams! That's quite some recording time, especially if I can adjust fps. Could you link some that you'd recommend? Thank you.

 

[kamkar]

Well i don't think most of the makers of those speak about it, i think the largest official supported mentioned are 256 GB
Street Guardian i think test support for the really big cards in all of their models, and also sell bundled with such a card. Other also support it as far as i recall but then it is more unofficial.

Lower than 30/25 FPS, arnt really a option on any dashcam, unless you force some models to run in parking mode while driving, i think the SG cameras with parking mode support time lapse with either 1-2-5-10 FPS ( unsure if more FPS are supported as i have not yet gotten around to test their hard wire kit and parking mode )
the user Jokiin in here the the boss of street guardian he will be able to advise further if you find one of their products tempting.

Also i am not sure if the cameras that support time lapse in parking mode, if in that mode the GPS info are still logged,,,,,, i have a feeling it are not, so if you decide to "cheat with a dashcam in parking mode, then you will probably have to get the GPS log in another way ( phone or something )

Rule of thumb with regular 1080/30 recording is you get around 4 hours of recording stored for every 32GB of space, i always recommend users to get 64GB for each channel they wish to run.

you could just use regular footage and then just use every 15 frame, i thing some freeware editing software would allow for some kind of scripting, to pull that off.

 

[jokiin]

we support 400GB cards, but I don't think our cameras are right for what he wants to do with them

 

[S3pid]

Wow, thanks again,

@kamkar1 I have considered offloading the GPS part to another device, if I can have sufficiently synced timestamps on each device it would be easy post processing to have the data I need.
32gb/4hr would mean 400gb/50hr. That is almost workable! If only I could do 15fps + motion detection. That would get me 100hr just from reducing fps + extra 20% or so for motion detection.

@jokiin if you have an SDK available maybe it would be possible to make it suitable for what I want to do?

So far it seems like I might have to go with the setup I mentioned in the OP and just hope that it is good enough. I am quite surprised to be honest. I thought there would be a market for hdd enabled dashcams since they have more write cycles higher capacity and in a car it's not that hard to hide it away. But I suppose the main use case is to retrieve evidence for accidents which only requires that much of memory.

 

[Nigel]

32gb/4hr would mean 400gb/50hr. That is almost workable!

A lot of dashcams either work at around 12 Mb/s rather than 16 Mb/s or have a lower bitrate option around 12 Mb/s which would give about 77 hours on a 400GB card. Image quality at high speed under trees suffers, but I'm guessing that wont worry you much, in normal use in the city the image quality is still fine.

I don't know which of those will work with a 400GB card, but I guess some of the newer ones do, and maybe jokiin's cameras have a lower bitrate option?

 

[SawMaster]

You beat me to it Nigel. I was thinking about the T2- the radar MD would be reliable, does do timelapse, has good IQ, but can't find anyone who has used more than a 256GB card.13,1mbps

Phil

 

[S3pid]

A lot of dashcams either work at around 12 Mb/s rather than 16 Mb/s or have a lower bitrate option around 12 Mb/s which would give about 77 hours on a 400GB card. Image quality at high speed under trees suffers, but I'm guessing that wont worry you much, in normal use in the city the image quality is still fine.

I don't know which of those will work with a 400GB card, but I guess some of the newer ones do, and maybe jokiin's cameras have a lower bitrate option?

By your profile pic I can see that you can relate with the idea of mounting a dash cam in the train
Image quality as in resolution is not that important to me. But blur due to speed could be an issue. The application will be for machine learning algorithm doing object detection.

@SawMaster T2 from Vantrue if I understand correctly?

 

[jokiin]

A lot of dashcams either work at around 12 Mb/s rather than 16 Mb/s or have a lower bitrate option around 12 Mb/s which would give about 77 hours on a 400GB card. Image quality at high speed under trees suffers, but I'm guessing that wont worry you much, in normal use in the city the image quality is still fine.

I don't know which of those will work with a 400GB card, but I guess some of the newer ones do, and maybe jokiin's cameras have a lower bitrate option?

just checked one now and running at 12mb/sec which is the lowest option in the menu the 400GB card gives 64 hours of recording, we just ordered some 512GB cards for testing, haven't had them to test as yet so not sure if we can support those on the current firmware or not

 

[jokiin]

Image quality as in resolution is not that important to me. But blur due to speed could be an issue. The application will be for machine learning algorithm doing object detection.

I don't know that any of these are going to work for what you want, camera going sideways is going to blur pretty much everything that isn't moving in the same direction

 

[Nigel]

just checked one now and running at 12mb/sec which is the lowest option in the menu the 400GB card gives 64 hours of recording, we just ordered some 512GB cards for testing, haven't had them to test as yet so not sure if we can support those on the current firmware or not

I knew the 77 hours wouldn't be right since I calculated it based on a 400GB card having 400 usable GB, but I wasn't expecting to loose 13 hours!

I don't know that any of these are going to work for what you want, camera going sideways is going to blur pretty much everything that isn't moving in the same direction

Not sure he meant that the camera was side looking? Actually, on a sunny day our cameras will easily freeze a side view of a train to give a sharp view, presumably it works the other way around too, unless it is a Japanese bullet train.

You beat me to it Nigel. I was thinking about the T2- the radar MD would be reliable, does do timelapse, has good IQ, but can't find anyone who has used more than a 256GB card.13,1mbps

Phil

I would guess the T2 is limited to 256GB, it dates from the first half of last year, I suspect uses a cheaper Novatek chipset, and Vantrue don't seem very good at firmware updates. Nice camera, but a bit expensive for it's specs. I'm not going to buy a 512GB card to test mine!

 

[S3pid]

It will be rear facing actually. I will not be operating the camera. That basically is the reason why I need such long unmaintained operation time for it.

I think I might buy one dashcam just to try and see how it fits my needs. I am ashamed to admit it on this forum but I don't have one in the car . So if it doesn't work out for what I need I'll just mount it in the car.

Can somebody recommend something specific that I could try?
Priorities from most important to least:
1. Longest possible recording time in terms of available storage. (if it only records when moving - it's a big plus also)
1.1 Custom firmware would be great

1. Good gps reception, if it has external gps module it's perfect.
2. Starts recording when connected to power and can be directly disconnected from power. (essentially 0 user input)
3. Durable
4. The rest, like image quality, price/quality etc. Since I need it for specific task I don't really care for those traits.

 

[Nigel]

A lot of the currently popular dashcams are limited to 256GB and their spec sheets may only say 64 because that's what they were tested with, so if you want 512GB compatibility then you need confirmation. Based on that, one of jokiin's StreetGuardian cameras seems sensible since he has given you confirmation, I don't know if they can do 15fps though, we normally use 30fps?

Since some trains can go quite fast, I suggest you only choose a camera with a Starvis sensor, eg IMX291, especially if it is the track that interests you rather than the distant view, this will minimize the motion blur.

Also note that most cameras only update the GPS at 1Hz, you will need to interpolate the position between updates, shouldn't be a problem with a train though, they don't change direction or speed very fast.

 

[SawMaster]

Forget the T2 I was thinking about (mainly for it's motion detect performance). Two more very relevant questions:

Will the mounting position be water resistant to the degree that the cam never gets wet? And will you have available a 120VAC, 12VDC, or 5VDC USB power source which will last the duration without interruption?

Some possibly suitable cams gave been found to function with 400GB and 512GB(I think) cards, but there's no list of these so I'd have to dig around to find these.

I'm not certain there's a dashcam which exactly meets your needs, especially recording duration. but it might be possible to get close if that would be acceptable. I'd have to do some digging into things to see what is possible but that may take me a day or two. The main advantage for you would be cost: professional recording systems begin at about 5X+ the cost of a better-grade dashcam

Back to my morning coffee
Phil

 

[BCHobbyist]

It will be rear facing actually. I will not be operating the camera. That basically is the reason why I need such long unmaintained operation time for it.

I think I might buy one dashcam just to try and see how it fits my needs. I am ashamed to admit it on this forum but I don't have one in the car . So if it doesn't work out for what I need I'll just mount it in the car.

Can somebody recommend something specific that I could try?
Priorities from most important to least:
1. Longest possible recording time in terms of available storage. (if it only records when moving - it's a big plus also)
1.1 Custom firmware would be great

1. Good gps reception, if it has external gps module it's perfect.
2. Starts recording when connected to power and can be directly disconnected from power. (essentially 0 user input)
3. Durable
4. The rest, like image quality, price/quality etc. Since I need it for specific task I don't really care for those traits.

Interesting Dashcam application, I have a few ideas for you.
If you want excellent resolution with widest possible field of view at very low cost suggest Viofo A119 2560x1440 (2K) Resolution 160 FOV Camera.
I can modify the normal 1440P@30fps down to 1-5-10-15-20-25 Mb/s Bitrate to create smaller MP4 video files. Reducing the frame rate is also possible 5-10-15-20-25fps depending on desired effect/quality.

A119 Review

Trying to decide which Dash Camera to buy is confusing. Our helpful advice explains resolution, features and accessories for the best value.

viofo-dash-cam-selection-advice.blogspot.com

good luck with your project.

 

[Nigel]

Interesting Dashcam application, I have a few ideas for you.
If you want excellent resolution with widest possible field of view at very low cost suggest Viofo A119 2560x1440 (2K) Resolution 160 FOV Camera.
I can modify the normal 1440P@30fps down to 1-5-10-15-20-25 Mb/s Bitrate to create smaller MP4 video files. Reducing the frame rate is also possible 5-10-15-20-25fps depending on desired effect/quality.

A119 Review

Trying to decide which Dash Camera to buy is confusing. Our helpful advice explains resolution, features and accessories for the best value.

viofo-dash-cam-selection-advice.blogspot.com

good luck with your project.

Can it use 512GB memory cards these days? I suspect not...

 

[jokiin]

Can it use 512GB memory cards these days? I suspect not...

current SDK supports up to 256GB

 

[SawMaster]

I may be mistaken but I seem to recall someone using a 400GB card in one of these"A" series cams. I did a good bit of searching for that but couldn't find it. I did find something where a 400GB card was set to 256GB file standards which 'tricked' a cam into supporting the larger card but I don't know if that will work here.

Many thanks to BC Hobbyist for offering to work this out with the firmware

Phil