Linus tech tips on dashcams.

[Dashmellow]

By exterior, I mean one facing the front...and not one facing the interior.
I did not mean to say a camera outside my car if that is what you're getting at.

Sorry, I misunderstood. Usually, when someone on DCT uses the term "exterior" or "external" dash cam or lens, it refers to a waterproof cabled camera module mounted on the front or rear of a vehicle.

I think most use the terms "front facing", "rear facing" and "interior" camera, or at least I do.

Then an exterior camera with 2K fixed 8mm telephoto lens should work?

Apparently, @TonyM misunderstood what you were referring to as well which is likely why he mentioned the Street Guardian waterproof external camera which is usually mounted on the rear license plate or tailgate of a truck.

I believe SG have an optional external waterproof camera for their latest 2CH offering.

 

[TonyM]

External or exterior facing, doesn't really matter. I was sitting on the fence on that point. Just trying to say that modular multi channel systems potentially allow manufacturers to offer a range of remote cameras for the buyer to choose what suits them, along with short, medium and long cables.

 

[Dashmellow]

External or exterior facing, doesn't really matter. I was sitting on the fence on that point. Just trying to say that modular multi channel systems potentially allow manufacturers to offer a range of remote cameras for the buyer to choose what suits them, along with short, medium and long cables.

To me, "external" means a camera mounted outside the cabin of your vehicle.

"Interior" means a camera recording the inside of your vehicle.

"Rear" means recording what goes on behind your vehicle,

"Front facing" means recording what is going on in front of your vehicle.

"Side" or "Lateral" is basically self explanatory".

 

[Vortex Radar]

Alrighty so I just finished my third (and hopefully final, lol) video in response to Linus' original video. It's testing out the Cansonic UltraDash Z3 Standard Edition which has a second front facing telephoto specifically designed to help capture license plates.

This was a really interesting one to try out. It's an integrated solution as opposed to the separate Mobius option, and I think it still needs some further refinement, but after running a telephoto for the past month, I can definitely appreciate its benefits that much more.

Also a shoutout to @TonyM and @Dashmellow for sharing your thoughts and experiences with your Mobius setups.

 

[Deleted member 64174]

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[Deleted member 64174]

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[TonyM]

The auto industry is racing towards a future full of micro-transactions...

Mercedes-Benz to introduce acceleration subscription fee

"Mercedes-Benz is to offer an online subscription service in the US to make its electric cars speed up quicker.

For an annual cost of $1,200 (£991) excluding tax, the company will enable some of its vehicles to accelerate from 0-60mph a second faster."

 

[Dashmellow]

Wow! A whole second for 1200 bucks! I guess that's why they call them luxury vehicles!

Turn it up to eleven!!

 

[Google]

Linus Sebastian...the nerd king of gimmicks to lure people to his website or YouTube. I can't wait for him to join Parler....maybe he already has.

 

[Dashmellow]

Linus Sebastian...the nerd king of gimmicks to lure people to his website or YouTube. I can't wait for him to join Parler....maybe he already has.

There used to be a local rock band around here. They were just awful musicians but somehow they always got a good crowd to show up at their gigs. The name of the band was Free Beer and Chicken!
They actually stole the name from John Lee Hooker who had an album with that title back in the seventies.

 

[mentadent]

Linus Sebastian...the nerd king of gimmicks to lure people to his website or YouTube. I can't wait for him to join Parler....maybe he already has.

I can't stand him

 

[BlackboxMyCar]

We don't have any ill feelings towards him, but we did appreciate that it jumpstarted a lot of conversations surrounding dash cams and we're thankful for having the opportunity to talk about it with more people! (Though we do wish viewers would look deeper into dash cams beyond just the video quality and dismissing every other opinion that's not video quality immediately).

 

[Deleted member 64174]

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[Lothar]

We don't have any ill feelings towards him, but we did appreciate that it jumpstarted a lot of conversations surrounding dash cams and we're thankful for having the opportunity to talk about it with more people! (Though we do wish viewers would look deeper into dash cams beyond just the video quality and dismissing every other opinion that's not video quality immediately).

Image quality (high bitrates with a high quality sensor) and reliability are the most important features for me.
If I have a dashcam that has those along with low bitrate parking mode with low voltage cutoff and G Sensor, I'm good to go.

Things like cloud, voice acting, etc...are minor extras that are much lower on the pecking order.
I certainly would not compromise on image quality and reliability for them.
Maybe if I lived in Europe where I don't have to worry about tiny license plates or cars with only 1 license plate, my opinion may change.

What features do you think viewers should look at besides video quality and reliability?

 

[Lothar]

Mercedes-Benz to introduce acceleration subscription fee

"Mercedes-Benz is to offer an online subscription service in the US to make its electric cars speed up quicker.

For an annual cost of $1,200 (£991) excluding tax, the company will enable some of its vehicles to accelerate from 0-60mph a second faster."

Craziness.
I'm not sure what is more crazy, the company having the balls to do this, or the people that subscribe to these things...

 

[DAP]

What features do you think viewers should look at besides video quality and reliability?

Useful error messages. It does you no good if the camera fails silently, or gives you error messages that give you no clue what is going wrong.

 

[kamkar]

Well personal or not i dislike all that suck on the google tit.
If my youtube got 3 million followers, i would still not monetize it

That being said i do watch a few big youtubers, but more for the entertainment of it, these i have bookmarked as i do not like to follow anyone on anything.

I have youtube worked up pretty good, the things it throw at me / which it think i might like, well lets just say some times i sit here and look at my screen with a open mouth thinking WTF

 

[Lothar]

Useful error messages. It does you no good if the camera fails silently, or gives you error messages that give you no clue what is going wrong.

My dashcam makes different beeps which make it easy to discern what is wrong. Not better than those that "talk" obviously, but the beeps are still pretty easy to figure out.
Memory card problems and a loose(or bad) rear cable are always the bad issues 99.99%(no idea what the actual figure is, but I'm confident it is close to this number) of the time. Knowing this little troubleshooting gem helps.

Not starting at all indicates a probable power source problem...No error message should occur because the dashcam is not powered anyway. In this case, I would first check all the cables are connected properly and if so, then either try the original car charger the dashcam came with to verify or unhook the dashcam and plug it to a wall wart to check by using a different power source.

Some of those Thinkware dashcams that talk are very annoying because they are very chatty and talk too much for me. Talking is not really a checkbox feature that I look for in a dashcam.

 

[DAP]

My dashcam makes different beeps which make it easy to discern what is wrong. Not better than those that "talk" obviously, but the beeps are still pretty easy to figure out.
Memory card problems and a loose(or bad) rear cable are always the bad issues 99.99%(no idea what the actual figure is, but I'm confident it is close to this number) of the time. Knowing this little troubleshooting gem helps.

Not starting at all indicates a probable power source problem...No error message should occur because the dashcam is not powered anyway. In this case, I would first check all the cables are connected properly and if so, then either try the original car charger the dashcam came with to verify or unhook the dashcam and plug it to a wall wart to check by using a different power source.

Some of those Thinkware dashcams that talk are very annoying because they are very chatty and talk too much for me. Talking is not really a checkbox feature that I look for in a dashcam.

The last problem I had with the A129 pro cameras was random rebooting. I would have been quiet happy with an error message printed on the screen, but all I got was the startup sound over and over again every couple of minutes.
The cause of this problem was too much resistance in the USB cable causing voltage dropouts. I fixed this by using a much larger gauge of wire. I would have been able to fix it sooner if there were useful error messages telling me that the input voltage was low and unstable.

 

[kamkar]

The main thing is it make a hell of a racket if the memory card go bad, or more likely like me have forgotten the memory card at the computer.
It is in those situations i am glad i have spare cards in my car,,,,, even if i have 3 systems on the windscreen.