Linux Support for F800 Pro

chiron80

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I'm shopping for a dash cam, and trying to choose between the BlackVue DR750S-2CH and Thinkware F800 Pro. Those particular cameras were recommended on a forum I read as having the best parking mode options. In particular, I like the flexibility of the three different parking options on the F800 Pro.

However, while doing some research I came across these two pages that discusses the "Anti-File Corruption Technology"

https://thinkwarenorthamerica.blogspot.com/2015/05/live-life-hassle-free-with-format-free.html
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/thinkware-format-free-info.12355/

I run Linux on my home computers, and I'm curious if anyone can confirm whether you can read the SD cards with a Linux computer? The second post suggests that the "Anti-File Corruption Technology" may be a different file system format on the SD card, which may make it only readable by Thinkware software (which is not provided for Linux). Alternatively, maybe individual file format is different (again, only readable by Thinkware software, and thus not on Linux).

Can anyone confirm whether the SD cards and videos that are formatted by the Thinkware F800 Pro camera are readable on Linux?
 
the format free system yet the camera still has a format function, go figure, marketing speak, the cameras are fussy about what cards they can work with, something else to consider

the files are just H.264 so no real issue to watch videos, as a Linux user though you won't have a way to view any of the extended data like GPS info, location data etc that requires their player
 
the format free system yet the camera still has a format function, go figure, marketing speak, the cameras are fussy about what cards they can work with, something else to consider

the files are just H.264 so no real issue to watch videos, as a Linux user though you won't have a way to view any of the extended data like GPS info, location data etc that requires their player

Thanks for the info. I knew about the requirements to buy particular SD cards. I suspect that the GPS and other sensor data is stored as additional data streams in the MP4 files. I suspect with a little hacking there is a way to extract that data from the file using Linux software. I'll have to poke around some more online.

So, the files are standard H.264, that's good to know. What format is the file system on the SD card? Is it standard FAT32 or exFAT? Or something else?
 
I suspect that the GPS and other sensor data is stored as additional data streams in the MP4 files. I suspect with a little hacking there is a way to extract that data from the file using Linux software. I'll have to poke around some more online.

GPS data is embedded in the subtitle track:

You can view it with player such as VLC (subtitle track)

Or extract it with tools like ffmpeg:
> ffmpeg -i input.MP4 -map 0:s:0 gps_data.ass
> or ffmpeg -i input.MP4 -map 0:s:0 gps_data.srt

Alternatively you can use tools such as Registrator Viewer
 
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