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I am new to Forums and YouTube so I'm not quite sure how they work. Please tell me if I'm breaking the etiquette or need to be in another "thread".

I need to replace an old dash cam which no longer works properly (and anyway I have treated myself to a new posh car for my retirement so want to get a commensurate quality dash cam, he-he!). My old dash cam was 1080p Full HD and very cheap (what I call a "Shanghai-Special" and no more than £40 (= $40, effectively)).

Unless advised otherwise by you good people, I think I want the following spec@.:
dual dash cam,
display,
at least 1080p front and rear,
g-sensor,
GPS,
capacitor powered,
motion detection,
parking mode,
CPL & UV option,
(Wi-Fi optional no need for LDWS FCW).​

I have obviously read innumerable reviews and looked at many sample videos, both from suppliers' websites and YouTube, but I am astonished by how poor the quality of all of them is when compared to the video I get from my old dash cam. I cannot understand it. There must be something I am not understanding? I believe that video quality is degraded by compressing the video which is done to achieve a greater time-capacity for a given memory card size and to get a higher nominal frame rate (but I am prepared to buy bigger cards). Do I need a supersmooth 30 fps?

* Isn't the point that I am not wanting three hour records of my journey through some astounding landscape saved for posterity in hi-fi cinema-quality. Rather I am wanting records of events that were either detected automatically or flagged by me (pressing a button) along with a little context (events leading up to and following, and location and speed information). I frankly don't worry about true colour rendition, perfect contrast and absence of barrel-distortion, etc.: only inasmuch as they detract from my ability to identify and analyse what was happening. Importantly I think I need to know:
The local conditions, weather and state of road
The make and model of vehicles involved,
Registration numbers of vehicles,
Positions and movements of vehicles,
Behavior of pedestrians and drivers,
Help to identify people, (clothing, features).​

When judging video quality quickly I am using the criterion of the ease of reading car registration numbers on selected frozen frames around the event. By this judgement, why can't I find a new dash cam which has as good quality as my old one, while having the features I mentioned in my own "spec." above@)?

NOTE: I realised that the comparison I was making may have been false inasmuch as I was viewing my own videos direct on my computer but viewing comparisons by excerpts which had been uploaded and downloaded from the internet, possible suffering deterioration. To test this I have uploaded a sample of my own video to YouTube and compared THIS, when viewed back, as it were. There was no apparent deterioration of video quality. You can see that sample at YouTube, titled “Car Journey from Sainsbury’s to Lidl” (you see I lead a simple life!) and my YouTube id is “Bobandmalc Harborough”. (I expect there is a simpler way of identifying a YouTube entry, but I haven’t found it yet.) (Quality is not adversely affected by my viewing resolution; I can view at up to 3840 x 2160 pxs.)

I'm sure some of you will be able to put me right if my thinking is wrong? Has anyone got some recommendations, please? Price relatively unimportant; I'm even prepared to buy two separate dash cams for front and rear if that's what I have to resort to get good quality.

Regards and thanks to all who can help,

Malcolm, (United Kingdom).
 
very hard to judge anything based on YouTube footage as it gets recompressed and even the best of cameras won't look great there, that said dual channel products aren't currently as good as single channel models so your old camera may well have given a lot of dual channel options a run for their money on the picture quality side of things
 
......When judging video quality quickly I am using the criterion of the ease of reading car registration numbers on selected frozen frames around the event. By this judgement, why can't I find a new dash cam which has as good quality as my old one, while having the features I mentioned in my own "spec." above@)? ......

If the video clips are not taken from cams mounted side-by-side recording the same events, it's hard to be confident about comparisons.

You'll also find that cams with a narrow field of view tend to be good at capturing number plates but the trade-off is that they don't see as much of what's going on around them - sometimes to the extent that vehicles can pass you on a sharp bend or junction but they're outside the cam's field of view.
 
Have a look at the thinkware F770, I did and bought one there were many reasons that swayed myself towards it, I find the footage quality awsome, I have 5 nextbase cams inc top range one and a MIO vue, but as overall package and for the reasons you state in your requirements I think it is the best, would be happy to spend double but no need, cost around £250 for hard wired front/rear set up, rear is 1080p as well, once fitted can be forgotten about.
I have no connection to, but can recommend chameleon in colchester, maddog1974 on here for ace service, I got sick of continual problems/batteries with other makes of cam, though there are many excellent ones out there as well as bad, F770 uses capacitors btw, my next choice was blackvue dr650, but liked F770 features more
 
Thanks very much for your post, Tabetha.
Interesting comments: the only problem I have is that neither of the ones you suggest have a display, which is indispensible for me. It's a pity, as I have re-looked at the posted video examples and I agree the quality is good.
At the moment I am thinking of the QVIA R975, which has now replaced the Lukas LK9750, which I had fancied up to now. There is a new Zoom QVIA Z970 but the very few example videos from that are poor in my opinion. I am also considering the BlackVue DR490L Pro - sadly the GPS is through an add-on dongle-thing, which is very untidy. I can live with no Wifi as it has nice display and interface.
(I will soon be having eye surgery and hope to get back on the road - at present I can just continue to walk to the bus stop tantalisingly passing my delicious barely-driven BMWi3 on my drive! (I feel I need to apologise for owning my first BMW after a lifetime of VWs - but it really isn't like an normal BMW.) Meanwhile I continue to look around in the hope that my perfect-spec dash cam is released.)
Best wishes and thanks again.
 
I struggled to read it on a 24 inch monitor at 125%
 
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