low cost dash cams with H.265?

[crabu2]

I know the DDpai Mini 3 uses H.265 for video encoding, but are there any other low cost dash cams that uses it instead of H.264?

Thanks!

 

[Nigel]

No significant advantage for dashcam use, so the low cost dashcams have no reason to pay the license fees for h265!

 

[crabu2]

No significant advantage for dashcam use, so the low cost dashcams have no reason to pay the license fees for h265!

The reason I want H.265 is because of SD cards. I figure since the file size is around 1/2, it not only can hold more hours, but take twice as long before the sd card dies.

 

[Dashmellow]

Not only is there no significant advantage to using H.265 for dash cam use as @Nigel points out, there is a significant disadvantage!

If you are in a situation where you are required to provide your "original" raw dash cam footage to law enforcement, prosecutors, attorneys, courts of law, insurance companies or whomever, you may well find yourself in a very compromised situation.

There is a very high likelihood that most, if not all of these entities will be using older computers and in particular, older software that cannot adequately play such files. In fact, there is a very good chance that most of the people in the chain of custody who will be in the position of handling and reviewing your dash cam footage files will not have any idea of what "H.265" even means (much less H.264). They will only know that they can't properly view your footage and will move on to the next case.

Time and time again here on DCT, I see requests for dash cam features and capabilities that are completely disconnected from real world requirements. And the reason for this is that the people seeking these features have never been in a situation where they actually had to submit dash cam footage to authorities as a result of a significant legal or insurance matter.

Dash cam footage is legal evidence. The goal with dash cam footage should be to make it as absolutely easy and idiot-proof for anyone in the chain of custody to review your evidence. Until such time as H.265 becomes the de facto standard compression method as H.264 currently is now, using dash cams that produce H.265 files will only create self inflicted problems.

I speak as a dash cam user with actual experience in such matters.

 

[Nigel]

The reason I want H.265 is because of SD cards. I figure since the file size is around 1/2, it not only can hold more hours, but take twice as long before the sd card dies.

Doesn't work, dashcams use fixed bitrate recording and the bitrate has to be high enough for the difficult times under trees where H265 gives no advantage, and since the bitrate is fixed it then can't give any advantage for the easy bits when you are stopped at the lights.

 

[Deleted member 46308]

Not only is there no significant advantage to using H.265 for dash cam use as @Nigel points out, there is a significant disadvantage!

If you are in a situation where you are required to provide your "original" raw dash cam footage to law enforcement, prosecutors, attorneys, courts of law, insurance companies or whomever, you may well find yourself in a very compromised situation.

There is a very high likelihood that most, if not all of these entities will be using older computers and in particular, older software that cannot adequately play such files. In fact, there is a very good chance that most of the people in the chain of custody who will be in the position of handling and reviewing your dash cam footage files will not have any idea of what "H.265" even means (much less H.264). They will only know that they can't properly view your footage and will move on to the next case.

Time and time again here on DCT, I see requests for dash cam features and capabilities that are completely disconnected from real world requirements. And the reason for this is that the people seeking these features have never been in a situation where they actually had to submit dash cam footage to authorities as a result of a significant legal or insurance matter.

Dash cam footage is legal evidence. The goal with dash cam footage should be to make it as absolutely easy and idiot-proof for anyone in the chain of custody to review your evidence. Until such time as H.265 becomes the de facto standard compression method as H.264 currently is now, using dash cams that produce H.265 files will only create self inflicted problems.

I speak as a dash cam user with actual experience in such matters.

Agree with every point

 

[crabu2]

Not only is there no significant advantage to using H.265 for dash cam use as @Nigel points out, there is a significant disadvantage!

If you are in a situation where you are required to provide your "original" raw dash cam footage to law enforcement, prosecutors, attorneys, courts of law, insurance companies or whomever, you may well find yourself in a very compromised situation.

There is a very high likelihood that most, if not all of these entities will be using older computers and in particular, older software that cannot adequately play such files. In fact, there is a very good chance that most of the people in the chain of custody who will be in the position of handling and reviewing your dash cam footage files will not have any idea of what "H.265" even means (much less H.264). They will only know that they can't properly view your footage and will move on to the next case.

Time and time again here on DCT, I see requests for dash cam features and capabilities that are completely disconnected from real world requirements. And the reason for this is that the people seeking these features have never been in a situation where they actually had to submit dash cam footage to authorities as a result of a significant legal or insurance matter.

Dash cam footage is legal evidence. The goal with dash cam footage should be to make it as absolutely easy and idiot-proof for anyone in the chain of custody to review your evidence. Until such time as H.265 becomes the de facto standard compression method as H.264 currently is now, using dash cams that produce H.265 files will only create self inflicted problems.

I speak as a dash cam user with actual experience in such matters.

Dashmellow,

If it were a year or 2 ago, I would have ageed with you 100%, but thinks have been changing and are changing. The iPhone's had it for a while now and Android is getting it with Android Pie. Windows has had players that can play H.265 and VLC player supports it too. In the next few years, H.265 is going to be the standard. So If I can get it now, I'd rather have it.

BTW, what turned me on to H.265 was the iPhone. My personal phone is an Android, but I got to use an iPhone 8 as a demo last summer. I noticed that the iPhone was taking pics and video using much less space and I was like, what the heck is going on... So after a bit of research, I found out about H.265.

 

[jokiin]

the proposed advantages of H.265 just aren't there for dashcam use, your iPhone has way more powerful processing available to take advantage of H.265, the time may come when a dashcam can benefit but right now it's just not happening, all you get for your trouble right now is a less compatible file format

 

[Nigel]

... In the next few years, H.265 is going to be the standard. So If I can get it now, I'd rather have it....

I doubt that will happen, the future is licence free AV1, but only once hardware encoding is available, takes too much effort to encode it in software: https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/intel-svt-av1-open-source-encoder,news-59891.html !

 

[Dashmellow]

Dashmellow,

If it were a year or 2 ago, I would have ageed with you 100%, but thinks have been changing and are changing. The iPhone's had it for a while now and Android is getting it with Android Pie. Windows has had players that can play H.265 and VLC player supports it too. In the next few years, H.265 is going to be the standard. So If I can get it now, I'd rather have it.

BTW, what turned me on to H.265 was the iPhone. My personal phone is an Android, but I got to use an iPhone 8 as a demo last summer. I noticed that the iPhone was taking pics and video using much less space and I was like, what the heck is going on... So after a bit of research, I found out about H.265.

Good luck with that thinking. It's just not there yet, especially on a municipal level with cash strapped police departments, court houses, prosecutors offices and even many law offices and insurance companies who are often using older equipment and software and will be for years to come. And many of these people don't have much technical knowledge of video formats or compression or the fact that some players might work and that others don't. They just won't be able to view the footage and not even know why.

And do you really think you are going to show footage to a jury or an insurance company or a prosecutor's office on your iPhone or Android? Dash cam footage as legal evidence requires examination, analysis and presentation to others within the chain of custody or to a jury on a desktop or laptop. Also, to remind you of what I said in my above post, in a contentious insurance or legal matter you may be required to submit a copy of "your original raw dash cam footage" directly off the memory card from your dash cam, not something that was transferred to a smartphone.

You are assuming too much in regard to H.265 becoming a standard. Even if some had the capability, all it would take to throw a monkey wrench into your insurance or legal matter is for only one key entity within the chain of custody to not be able to view your video.

You seem to have confirmed what I alluded to above in regard to the fact that you have apparently never been in a situation where you've ever needed to submit dash cam footage for a legal or insurance matter.

I'll also repeat what I said above: "The goal with dash cam footage should be to make it as absolutely easy and idiot-proof for anyone in the chain of custody to review your evidence.

 

[M A R K]

Don’t underestimate what technology the state has.
Over the last few years I have spent quite some time working with various police forces deploying body worn video. Indeed back in 2014 I was actually introduced to a room full of Chief Constables as “the UKs foremost expert” on the subject. Nobody was more surprised at that than myself . As such I would like to think this is an area I can actually advise on.
Anyway a lot of the issues and considerations there with body worn cameras apply to dash cams as well.
First of all, the world has moved on from needing the actual original file off the camera. It is now accepted that a digital file can be converted into a different format. The key is demonstrating the chain of custody being able to demonstrate that whilst the file may not be the original, the content has not been changed. Only if there is a valid concern that the file may have been tampered with may the original file be subjected to digital forensics but on the day in a court room, nobody cares if the video being shown on a screen was converted from .mov to .mp4
In addition, many forces around the world use Digital Evidence Software which ingests movies, photos, scans etc and then enables an officer to work with said file and then export it for court. That export could be any format. Indeed platforms such as evidence.com (one of the biggest out there) will actually just stream the file transcoding on the fly as needed straight onto an officers laptop of a courts TV screens.
This is 2019. Law enforcement is ready to accept digital media files from any source in any format and use cloud services (such as evidence.com but there are plenty of others) to do that.
As for H265.
As soon as Apple put it on the iPhone they almost guaranteed global acceptance of the standard due to the sheer market dominance they hold. Expect to see it more and more over the next 12 months although not exclusively. Remember it’s “a” standard not “the” standard.

 

[Nigel]

Don’t underestimate what technology the state has.

Don't underestimate the difference between UK and USA!

 

[M A R K]

Don't underestimate the difference between UK and USA!

Most of the technology in use today is American (software not hardware). The US is much more advanced than most of the world at this sort of stuff. I spent a huge amount of time working with “tiny” police departments in the US which was one of the big drivers for cloud based digital evidence platforms.

 

[Dashmellow]

Just because "some" police departments may have sophisticated digital video capabilities doesn't mean all do. This applies to the UK, the USA and any other country. It depends upon the municipality you may happen to live in.

And an important consideration is that we are not just talking law enforcement here. We are talking insurance companies and claims adjusters, regional prosecutors, court rooms, attorneys and many other associated entities.

As for notion that "the world has moved on from needing the actual original file off the camera" just see what happens with the opposing attorney if you are facing a major lawsuit or are involved in a criminal matter. Original video footage contain meta data that won't be in a copy in a different format.

Assuming that anyone and everyone who needs to see your video will have the full capability to view it properly is just foolish. Do so at your own peril. Having experienced it first hand in an ongoing criminal matter involving both dash cam footage and CCTV footage, I stick with formats that I can have confidence can be easily viewed by anyone I hand it off to.

 

[M A R K]

Just because "some" police departments may have sophisticated digital video capabilities doesn't mean all do. This applies to the UK, the USA and any other country. It depends upon the municipality you may happen to live in.

And an important consideration is that we are not just talking law enforcement here. We are talking insurance companies and claims adjusters, regional prosecutors, court rooms, attorneys and many other associated entities.

As for notion that "the world has moved on from needing the actual original file off the camera" just see what happens with the opposing attorney if you are facing a major lawsuit or are involved in a criminal matter. Original video footage contain meta data that won't be in a copy in a different format.

Assuming that anyone and everyone who needs to see your video will have the full capability to view it properly is just foolish. Do so at your own peril. Having experienced it first hand in an ongoing criminal matter involving both dash cam footage and CCTV footage, I stick with formats that I can have confidence can be easily viewed by anyone I hand it off to.

You could make that argument about any file format. Hey there are judges out there that can’t even turn on a computer.

Clearly you know more about digital evidence management within law enforcement and criminal justice than I so I will bow to your superior experience.

 

[kamkar]

Yeah i saw a little while ago they was serving up a AV1 encoder ( software )

Microsoft Launches Free AV1 Video Codec for Windows 10

The codec is available right now in the Microsoft Store

news.softpedia.com

I don't think its in any hardware yet.

In regard to H.265, if you serve up evidence in that format it is not your problem the law might have a problem handling that, and i am sure they cant dismiss evidence based on that.
So in that regard H.265 don't worry me one bit, but i still don't see me getting to use it much though a range of hardware now have support for it.

 

[M A R K]

Yeah i saw a little while ago they was serving up a AV1 encoder ( software )

Microsoft Launches Free AV1 Video Codec for Windows 10

The codec is available right now in the Microsoft Store

news.softpedia.com

Dont think its in any hardware yet.

I know Google are also trying to push their VP9 idea as well. Like any of these things it’s about mass market adoption rather than being the best.
I would assume however that Google would be pushing VP9 hard on Android but I’m not sure that’s the case
But we’ve always has to deal with loads of different formats with images and videos but these days kind of expect that the main operating systems will support that or that we can download a player (such as VLC).
I’m sure the Microsoft codec will be very good. It will be interesting to see if they can persuade any main camera manufacturers to adopt it.

 

[Dashmellow]

You could make that argument about any file format. Hey there are judges out there that can’t even turn on a computer.

Clearly you know more about digital evidence management within law enforcement and criminal justice than I so I will bow to your superior experience.

Unfortunately I do. I was involved in an ongoing criminal harassment matter that was actually the reason I became interested in dash cams in the first place. At one point the perp told the cops that I was manipulating/fabricating footage to make him appear guilty. Aside from the absurdity of that, original raw footage is a good courtroom weapon against such a claim.

You're quite right about those judges that couldn't turn on a computer. But it's not just them, it's often petty bureaucrats and even certain law enforcement officers. My GF was the IT officer for a local police department, handling everything from servers and networking to the laptops carried in the police cruisers. You wouldn't believe some of the stories I've heard. I guess this is why I advocate the K.I.S.S principle when it comes to submitting dash cam footage.

 

[Nigel]

As for H265.
As soon as Apple put it on the iPhone they almost guaranteed global acceptance of the standard due to the sheer market dominance they hold. Expect to see it more and more over the next 12 months although not exclusively. Remember it’s “a” standard not “the” standard.

As soon as Apple signed up for AV1, one of the last to do so, I think H265 started it's decline! All the major users are now waiting for AV1 hardware to be available rather than investing in H265.

 

[Nigel]

I know Google are also trying to push their VP9 idea as well.

AV1 is based on Google's VP10!