Nextbase 312GW problem?

[1st time user]

Hi @1st time user don’t worry we have all started somewhere!

If you had a SanDisk class 10 card it should be fine - providing its regularly formatted and a genuine card. How often have you been formatting it?

Is there any error message on the screen when you notice it’s stopped recording?

Sorry, the card is a Samsung and not a SanDisk. I format it every time I copy files onto my laptop. There are no error messages on the screen when recording stops, just a frozen image. If I power off and back on again it restarts recording. When viewing recordings, I get an error message saying "Cannot open video file Codec not found Splitter, Splitter Most likely file is broken try to repair it" When I go to Repair Broken File, I get an error message saying "cannot recover this file. A new card was delivered yesterday with 98MB/S write speed which I will be trying in a couple of days time.

 

[Kremmen]

I made doubly sure when I got my card. I went to Sandisk, found an official UK supplier (Scan) and ordered from them. Far too many fakes around.

 

[Nextbase Support]

@1st time user I’ll link the card we recommend/test with below. I see lots of negative experiences when Samsung cards are used.

What firmware are you on on the unit?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/B073JWXGNT

 

[Dogfish]

Hi, I've just joined the forum after reading through this thread. There are a couple of points I don't think have been mentioned so far so apologies if I've missed something.

Firstly, when I bought my 312GW I opted to buy a Nextbase SD 16GB card. My thinking was if I had any problems Nextbase would not be able to blame a third-party manufacturer. Inside the packaging the card turned out to be a Sandisk Ultra (as linked by Tiffany above) so it's clear that Sandisk cards will work satisfactorily provided you get the right grade. I also have another 16GB Nextbase card in a 412GW cam and have had no problems with either card. I do currently have a problem with my 312GW cam which Tiffany and her colleagues are helping me with. If and when this is resolved I'll start another thread to report on it.

Secondly, for those not already aware of it, SD card lifetimes are defined by the number of write cycles. Because a dashcam is a write-intensive environment the cards will therefore tend to fail more quickly than in other applications. I recently had a member of a car forum complain that he thought his cam was broken because it was only recording 8 seconds rather than three minutes. He'd bought a new cam and found it did the same. I mentioned the effect on card life of intensive write cycles and, along with other members, suggested he tried a new card. Needless to say this did cure his problem.

 

[jokiin]

Secondly, for those not already aware of it, SD card lifetimes are defined by the number of write cycles. Because a dashcam is a write-intensive environment the cards will therefore tend to fail more quickly than in other applications. I recently had a member of a car forum complain that he thought his cam was broken because it was only recording 8 seconds rather than three minutes. He'd bought a new cam and found it did the same. I mentioned the effect on card life of intensive write cycles and, along with other members, suggested he tried a new card. Needless to say this did cure his problem.

quite a lot of people don't understand that even though there are no moving parts cards still wear out

 

[Kremmen]

Good post, I never knew that. Do we know roughly how many hours of recording is a good lifetime ?

 

[Nextbase Support]

Good explanation - thank you for posting @Dogfish

 

[Dogfish]

Do we know roughly how many hours of recording is a good lifetime ?

I have seen 100,000 write cycles quoted. I don't know how many hours of cam recording that would represent. Also that's likely to be a MTBF figure so a worst-case figure will be lower. I would imagine that because the cam cycles round the memory, overwriting the oldest recordings, a larger capacity card should have a longer life.

 

[Nextbase Support]

It depends on the make/model, some quote the figures on their websites.