Open-source dashcam software

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Daniel15

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Location
Mountain View, CA (originally Australia)
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United States
Dash Cam
SG9665GC v3
I was wondering whether there's any dashcam software (similar to Registrator Viewer) that's open-source? I'm always a bit hesitant to use proprietary software if an open-source equivalent exists. I'm a developer, so it's useful to be able for me to add new features myself

Thanks!
 
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Daniel15 said:
I was wondering whether there's any dashcam software (similar to Registrator Viewer) that's open-source? I'm always a bit hesitant to use proprietary software if an open-source equivalent exists.

Thanks!
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First off I haven't started using any editor yet! I run a Linux version called Ubuntu 16.04 and have been looking at the available editors through searches on the Internet and various forums. The best thing I could come up with was "Kdenlive" it was always mentioned when the best Linux video editors was used as a search criteria. I haven't started playing with it so can't answer any questions about it yet.
Their were a couple others that seemed OK but when I investigated them more something usually seemed to be lacking. Sorry I can't be of more help, just letting you know what conclusion I came to.

Good luck and I'll be watching your post, maybe we will both learn something new. By open source if you are interested in Linux, their is a forum called linuxquestions.org that is probably the best on the Internet, free and extremely helpful to those needing help.

Another great place to find out things:
https://launchpad.net/openshot-project
 
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I'm mainly looking for something that shows GPS data, like Registrator Viewer does.

Lola said:
By open source if you are interested in Linux, their is a forum called linuxquestions.org that is probably the best on the Internet, free and extremely helpful to those needing help.
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I'm already a pretty active open-source contributor :)
 
Daniel15 said:
I was wondering whether there's any dashcam software (similar to Registrator Viewer) that's open-source? I'm always a bit hesitant to use proprietary software if an open-source equivalent exists. I'm a developer, so it's useful to be able for me to add new features myself

Thanks!
Click to expand...
If you want the GPS / google earth map I have found nothing. A straight editor that will play your video is Shotcut. Not much video quality loss.
 
LInux user here. Using a Nextbase 312GW.

My camera came with a WIndoze program "DATAKAM PLAYER.exe " which half works under Wine. The only thing it did that was useful to me was to extract the gpx track from the video *.MOV files.

I found that all the usual linux video players worked well with the video files: vlc, mplayer and mpv among others. I nearly always use mpv which is very fast and flexible, but I think that others are also good.

That left the problem of extracting the gpx tracks without the pain of DATAKAM.
Fortunately, there is an excellent opensource go program called sggps which has been mentioned elsewhere on this forum. Find it at github.com/kbsriram/dcutils/go/cmd/sggps
It is excellent although "barebones".

Although I haven't wanted to edit any of the video, I guess openshot would do the job.

My main use for the dashcam is actually for editing Openstreetmap,
www.openstreetmap.org/. mpv and sggps does all that I need for that.

If I want to view a track on a proper opensource (excellent) map, I usually just use the OSM josm editor, but viking is probably a simpler option if you are not an OSM contributor. There are a myriad of other gps tools available under linux.
 
An addendum: I have just discovered that sggps no longer works with the latest firmware on my Nextbase 312GW. It would seem that the format of the *.MOV files must have changed. I guess that I need to start hacking - unless someone here knows what has happened.
 
For those comfortable working on the command line, ffmpeg is nifty program. I have several uploads to youtube using ffmpeg without touching Kdenlive or other editors. I have also written several script files that use ffmpeg. Its available in Windoze, Linux and MacOs.
 
GTA Driver said:
For those comfortable working on the command line, ffmpeg is nifty program. I have several uploads to youtube using ffmpeg without touching Kdenlive or other editors. I have also written several script files that use ffmpeg. Its available in Windoze, Linux and MacOs.
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That's what I'm using. I'm slowly but surely building an open source webcam. ffmpeg is there for recording and encoding video. I'm also playing around with open source GPX trackers and then tying it all together with shell scripts. Hopefully I'll be debuting my proof of concept soon.
 
As I have posted in other threads, my open source mov2gpx program is now available on github. Version 1 works on one Nextbase model and very likely similar cameras.
I discovered later that other Nextbase cameras write the gps information into the video in a different way. Except for one outlier, it looks easy to rewrite to cover those models as well. That will be version 2 - when I have time.

It should work on most operating systems including linux on which it was developed.
The releases directory includes various pre-compiled binaries.
 
epimorphic said:
As I have posted in other threads, my open source mov2gpx program is now available on github. Version 1 works on one Nextbase model and very likely similar cameras.
I discovered later that other Nextbase cameras write the gps information into the video in a different way. Except for one outlier, it looks easy to rewrite to cover those models as well. That will be version 2 - when I have time.

It should work on most operating systems including linux on which it was developed.
The releases directory includes various pre-compiled binaries.
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Looks awesome! I know I've been super busy lately with my open source camera I want to build. Seeing this thread reminded me to kick my butt into gear with my project. Thanks for the update.
 
can somebody help me out, how to extract GPS data in .mov file using python 3 script . the video has been taken from akaso dash cam v1
 
crispy9952002 said:
can somebody help me out, how to extract GPS data in .mov file using python 3 script . the video has been taken from akaso dash cam v1
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Well, my mov2gpx program is open source: see my earlier post. That is written in go, but you should be able to do something similar in python.

However, there is no single way to encode the gps information in a mov file.
I have the program working for my Nextbase dashcam. I had intended to add support for all the other NEXTBASE models, and NEXTBASE sent me samples of video from those other cameras.

When I looked at how the gps was encoded, I was shocked about how different the various models did it. I had expected some sort of general pattern. It looked as if was going to be far more work than I had anticipated to add those other models. I confess that with a busy life, I just haven't had the time to extend and rework the code which looked as if it would have to include lots of special cases rather than anything elegant. All reverse engineered, so a fair bit of work.

I suspect, but don't know, that the various chip set manufacturers all have different approaches which is why there is so much variation even within a single "brand". My program seems to work for certain cameras from different brands which supports my speculation that it is the chip set rather than the brand that matters. And, of course, many cameras use mp4, but that is pretty similar to the mov format.

So there is almost certainly no simple answer to your question, but my source code should get you started. Oh, and I know nothing about akaso cameras.
 
I forgot to mention a couple of things that may help you reverse engineer the gps encoding.

First the -debug switch on my mov2gpx.

That will output a sort of partial parse of the atoms and so forth in the MOV file.
I am assuming that mov2gpx doesn't work for your camera. If it does work, you are in luck and can then pretty much just translate from go code to python.

More likely, it won't work but the -debug output will give you a head start. You will need to have read the QTFF documentation: there is a link in the mov2gpx man page.

The other open source program that may help you decode the mov file is exiftool.

When you have worked out how the gps information is embedded in the MOV file, please post the details here to help others.
 
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