Need Advice On A Dash Cam

[kamkar]

Yes i know it is not a global phenomena in the US with just 1 plate, if you are fortunate to live in a two plate state, and someone drive you into a tree and run, you will think of my two camera advise and say thank you mate. ( heyyyy almost haiku ) and you just double your chance if / when you need it the most.

Okay then at least decrepit old euro boy haiku,,,,,,,, not that much down with the finer arts.

 

[George Maharis]

I live in a one tag state and it is on the back.

I like your haiku Kamkar, it is the very reason why I need the dual camera system.

Now that I know I need a dual camera system, with good night vision (all I need to know is if I can get a plate number). What are my options with dual cameras. Also, how does parking mode work with two cameras?

P.S. Before I joined I wanted to put a camera in every window in my car.

P.P.S As I've said before, I have to deal with the most outrageous drivers.

 

[George Maharis]

With hardwired kits does it connect to your car battery? How much strain does it put on your battery?

At the moment I can't decide between VIOFO A129 Plus Duo and SG9663DR. Which is the better of the two?

What is the difference between buffered parking mode and parking mode?

 

[kamkar]

Hard wire kits normally piggy back on a couple of fuses in the fuse box, most cameras today use a 3 wire kit with one constant +12V and +12V ACC and then a ground wire, the ACC wire tell the camera what to do.

As i recall the best cameras in regard to low light performance are using the Sony IMX 291 but other also Sony "starvis" sensors are emerging. mind you the better low light, it is not meaning that little details like plate capture are better in any significant way, but overall their footage are more easy on the eye to watch.

A dual camera give you coverage front & rear, and so a chance at least of a plate capture no matter if the offender are in coming or out going. but in day to day traffic most things happen on the front camera.
You have to remember a dashcam are mainly so you can document you do nothing wrong, that will fend off most claims against you, at the same time they do also often give a good capture of what others do, and on good days you can also tell who they are or from a plate capture, or at the very least what they drive.
But dont focus too much on plate capture, it can be done but i would not place any bets on it, if you can you are best off seeing the plate and call it out for the dashcam microphone to pick up.

Side cameras are also not bad or a camera that can be turned towards the side, but many dashcams dont allow for the front camera to be turned sideways, but long beg´fore that is needed anyone should be posing in front of your cameras front & rear, so you will be good with that audio i assume.
Side cameras like some of us do have, well it is just a sign of our addiction, and the time we have been in the dashcam game, i dont feel they are a absolute necessity.

Back to the hard wire kits, the kit itself do not put a load on the battery, only the camera do this, for that reason the hard wire kits have a low voltage cut off, several voltages are often to choose from but i would not recommend you go below 12.2 volts for the cut off voltage, this is generally a 50% depleted battery.
Lead acid batteries are not really meant for deep discharge, doing so will eat into their life span, but with sensible cut off voltage used it is not like your battery will just last a few years, but some life are taken.
Also you have to take into account that you cant do parking guard for 23.5 hours of the day and only drive 0.5 hour daily, there need to be a balance in between what you use while parked, and what you can charge back up while driving.

How long you can expect to be able to use parking guard depend on the size and state of your battery, and of course how much juice the dashcam use.
If your car allow for it you can put in a larger size battery, my little car just have a 45 Ah battery but when i replaced it last summer i was able to get a new one with 55 Ah that still fit in my little Japanese car.
My car is a 2012 model and the battery appeared okay, but i was having some problems with a dashcam and the new battery fixed that.

The A129 plus duo are a 1440p camera ( front camera only ) the SG9663DR are 1080p only but both sensors are IMX 291, while viofo are not bad SG still beat them on service, you can always talk to the boss of SG here on the forum and they have US offices and sales points, but so do viofo.
In regard to parking guard function i prefer the Dr system as in case of a event it save 2 segments from each camera, in my case i use 3 minute segments, so i get 6 min from the front camera locked and the same 6 min from the rear camera too, this mean that mist often i have at the very least 1 minute from before the event, but it can be as much as several minutes.
Buffered systems just rely on a memory buffer so you just get 10 seconds or so from before the event.
Personally i use always record low bitrate and then i have G-sensor on for parking mode with high sensitivity, this way my car record all the time while parked, and the G - sensor will lock any tangible events my car might have while parked.

I do not feel much for parking guard, so i only use that on the build in timer set to 1 hour, this cover all my shopping, and otherwise i dont do long time parking out and about, but if i should one day i can just up the timer to 24 Hours and leave it to the low voltage cut off in the hard wire kit to stop recording when my battery hit 12.2 volts.

On youtube you can find several videos on how to install hard wire kits for dashcams, it is not super complicated but it can be a bit problematic finding the right fuses to use in some new cars due to the wire harness being a "smart" one, but most often you can get it dont without having to reach all the way to the battery.
SG also have a technician that will be able to advise on what fuse numbers to use for such a install if things should become gritty, my car have no smarts so i just got a cheap 12 V LED probe in the dollar store so find out what fuses are live always or with the turn of the key ( ACC )
My largest problem is the location of my fuse box, and my tired and my old body not really being able to contort in a level needed to reach in there with ease.

A main thing to do if you want to use parking guard. and not least for longer periods, that is to get a sufficient large memory card, personally i use 256 GB memory cards.

 

[SawMaster]

Limiting parking mode time to a couple hours by setting the HWK to 12.2V will hardly shorten your car battery service life- perhaps a few months at most. Setting the voltage any lower will have an effect, but how much that effect will be is hard to say. Battery age, size, and climate also play a role in this. With a new and large battery I've run one cam continuously and I'd say that cost me about 20% of it's service life. My battery is cheap as car batteries go, and after doing the math I figured that to run that one cam constantly cost me somewhere between $0.50 and $0.75 per day. I am happy with that. But some cars take expensive batteries, so those costs would go up, and also with a smaller battery which wear out faster from this kind of use. Of course a 2-channel cam will have more effect here, as they use perhaps 30% to 50% more power than a single channel cam.

Almost all dashcams offer "parking mode" but they vary in approach. Some wait till the car is hit (g-sensor) or until they detect motion before they start recording. There can be a delay between activation and the start of recording from about 1 1/2 seconds to many seconds. In that time lag whoever did the damage might move out of the cam's view leaving you with no record of what happened. Buffered (also called pre-buffered) parking mode is meant to ensure that you do get the video you need by recording from several seconds before the cam was activated to several seconds afterward, thus capturing the whole event. How much 'before and after' you get varies from cam to cam but all I know of should be adequate to not miss anything. The cam still needs something to activate buffered recording (g-sensor or motion detect) so if that doesn't work well enough you can still miss getting the video you want.

Because of this, some cams now offer "low bitrate" recording for parking mode and many of us use it. It records constantly, but at a lower resolution to save on card wear and so the cam can run cooler. The downside is that it does not alert you to the damage and unless you spot the damage then look at the vids on the card to fing the event, the recording you need can be overwritten. Using a large card help a lot with this issue, but you're still left having to view file after file while you were parked until you find the incident. Most experienced dashcam users have gone to using low-bitrate since it's absolutely going to get you the incident video since it's always recording.

I do feel the need to mention here that many cams have issues with parking mode functioning, which tends to get well discussed in that cam's forum here on DCT, so if parking mode is important to you then you need to see what others have discovered about it, then decide if any reported issues will affect you in the way you want to use your cam. Sometimes an issue will only affect one type of parking mode so you might be OK with that; other issues affect all parking mode use.

Street Guardian cams are a bit enigmatic. They don't have the latest highest resolution, but they do the best that can be got from the older lower resolutions they offer. Unlike many other cams, their video is highly tuned for evidence gathering versus pretty looking cinematic video. In my opinion, what you get from a 1080P SG cam will equal or better what most 2K cams can do for you in terms of evidence capture. Their cams are actually better than some 4K cams with that. Their customer service is the worlds best for any product. And if they offer or advertise a feature in their cams it will work correctly right out of the box- this is their hallmark. They tolerate higher heats than anyone else's cam save the old Mobius, and for reliability and build quality none are better. They cost more than most other similar cams but I think they're well worth it. Only their cost deters me (I'm rather poor) but oneday I'd love to get one for myself simply because they are done so superbly, and I appreciate fine equipment.

Let it be known that SG is not one of the companies I test and review for; my praise for them and their cams is real and unbiased. I do beta-test for Viofo but I am as unbiased there as I can be, and their cams are also excellent in their own right and in their own way. Both are very good choices for a dashcam.

Phil

 

[kamkar]

SG with whom i am affiliated as a tester of their products, i think you have to look hard to find a person having problems with their service and commitment level.
I do have a problem with my DR test sample ( wifi while broadcasting ASO, well no phone or tablet i have can connect to it, but this is also a issue unique to me as far as i can tell from posts in here )
And i also know that if it was a problem to me SG would just send me a new sample, but its just that one thing ( and me being a avid wifi hater ) so all is well, and i do still consider the camera fully functioning and able to give useable feedback on firmware updates to it.

Also a test sample of the old GCX2 model, it somehow backed itself into a corner, but flashing the camera with the same firmware fixed that problem permanently.

Viofo are new to me as the A139 are the first product of theirs i have tried, as i expected it have been a pleasurable experience so far with no to me major gripes.
So i am hoping they will consider me for future products.

Personally i do feel if a brand send me free stuff they also have a right to ask for something in return, but i will not be able to lie or post high praise reviews cuz i dont do that, i normally do a inboxing video, and provide some examples on youtube, and if need be i can also provide some RAW footage if people contact me and let me know what they want to see / study closer.

 

[George Maharis]

Thanks everyone for your input. I'm really leaning towards Street Guardian's A119 V3.

I want to know one last thing, does A119 V3 have audio/mircophone? Because, I don't want audio/microphone.

 

[kamkar]

A119 v3 is a Viofo camera
All dashcams have a microphone, and as far as i know on all of them you can also turn it off, most even offer that on one of the few buttons as audio can be good to have, but if you get there just press the button and it is on.
The LCD screen will have a little icon indicating if microphone are on or not.

What i have learned as a dashcam and microphone user so far.
1: YouTube do not like my taste in music.
2: i dont sing as good as i give myself credit for.
3: i talk a lot to my self or comment on stuff, and not just a word ot two, O on i can go on for a minute or two about some observation, other times,,,,,,, well i think my brain just short circuit.

Most often i strip audio in post production, in the summer cuz i play more music than in winter, or for my language, which though i am Danish are most often in English, and as i have found out there are some cultural differences between Denmark and English speaking countries, and i can be a cornucopia of foul words, so i try to play nice.

In my video editing removing sound is easy, just highlight clips, press split video and audio, and then highlight all the audio now on its separate track and delete it.
Normally i do all my editing first / cut clips down to what is actual needed, maybe insert some text, transitions between clips / picture in picture ASO are most often not something i bother with in my dashcam uploads.
O ! And then i also often upscale to 4K in post production as somehow youtube dont seem to mutilate that resolution so bad, and viewers can playback in any lesser resolution they like.

But some times i feel someone deserve a bit extra.

Like this girl, preoccupied with the devilish handsome older driver that i am.