Is BlackVue the 'gold standard' of dash cam brands?

Most dash cams are not good below -10c which is about +14f

The issue is almost certainly the power source. There's no reason why most electronics won't work in low temperatures. Hence why your car starts! The issue is usually connected to the fact that certain components such as batteries have very low power levels when cold and these decrease the colder they get - if you ever want to keep your spare household batteries in good condition for a long time, put them in a plastic bag and freeze them! (Defrost them at room temp before using them though). Similarly, some capacitors don't work well in the extreme cold, because some rely on liquids or liquid films to operate.

Although I rarely agree with Dashmallow on many things, :), I have to say I also agree that your camera won't be working at an atmospheric temperature of -40. At start up your cab will be as cold as the ambient temperature minus any retained heat / insulation from the outside. That's probably already above the outside temperature. However, once the car is warmed up and ready to move, the heater is on, you're in there breathing etc, the temperature rises rapidly and with the heater on should certainly be well above freezing within a matter of minutes meaning that even a dashcam not suited (component wise) to low temperatures should work (as it will no longer be at low temperatures!).

:oops::oops:
I probably phrased this badly. :oops:

I am debating between mps per second of video produced. I was not referring to the time such as 1 minute or 3 for each individual file. I was looking at the data density used to write to the card. The full size seems to be 19mbs or the option for less detail by using a gentler less SD card intensive 10mbs or whatever the numbers actually are. To explain better...

I have available options of 4032 x 3024 or 3648 x 2448 or 2592 x 1944 and lower quality options that probably are to low to want to use.

I am debating about using the highest quality verses using the lower quality options that are one or 2 levels lower to extend the life of the sd card.

Personally I wouldn't worry too much about it. 1/2 the data rate and you 1/2 the number of times the card is over written as you double the time taken to reach capacity. However, you also will probably see a significant drop in quality. Is it really worth saving 1/2 the cost of the card (compared to replacing it a little earlier), and risking losing the usefulness of the footage because you can't retrieve the detail? Half the cost of the card might be $15. The cost of unproven vehicle damage could be $Thousands in a hit and run or many times the card saving in the event of a claim and rise in premiums.

I just had a mini discussion above about sensor size in MP vs plate readability (identifiability of faces in CCTV terms). The simple fact is the more pixels you have, the more likely the pixel density in the area you need to read, will be high enough to produce a readable plate. Therefore consider that by reducing the data rate through reducing the size of the image, you're also compromising the readability. In the video above, a plate readable @4K on CCTV wasn't readable at 1080P. QED.

Cheapest way to make a card last longer, is buy a larger capacity one. Double the capacity and it has the exact same effect as halving the data rate WITHOUT compromising the resolution of the footage. Further more, the $15 you'd save by reducing the data rate on a smaller card, is probably enough if spent up front to buy you the next sized card up, making a larger card the same price and lifespan but at the higher resolution. No brainer provided you don't exceed the max card you're device will take.

One final piece of advice, choose your card carefully - there's a reason why some cards are labelled high endurance (they use a different type of memory structure that can take more over writes than the cheaper non endurance memory)
 
i think it all depends on the features you are looking for. there are some brands that make great simple cams that just record high quality day and night video while you are driving. blackvue video quality suffers compared to some brands, but they focus on a lot of fancy features like auto parking mode and the cloud. if you want the best video quality possible, blackvue is not the gold standard what-so-ever. but i still like blackvue cams for what they try to achieve with their cams.
 
Absolutely, not. My DR750s is being continually disconnected from the Blackvue cloud server. How can a camera be gold standard when it does not work. Work means fully functional at least 99% of the time at minimum. Blackvue does produce at least a cloud cam that works.
 
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