Parking Mode of the N4 dash cam

C

Carmen

New Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2021
Messages
12
Reaction score
1
Location
New York City
Country
United States
There are motion detection, motion + collision detection, collision detection, low bitrates detection on the settings, which one is best?
 
I dont like motion detect as usually it record way too much as there are a lot of motion where you park, some cameras are so sensitive a cat on a fence far away that in the video can barely be seen as a cat, it will start a recording, only a very few cameras over the years have had the opposite issue and not been sensitive enough.

So my preferred parking mode is always recording low bitrate, granted it also record all the time but at a lower bitrate so should not generate as much heat inside camera as motion detect always triggered CUZ it use the normal bitrate.
If possible i also like to have G-sensor on, that way if my car is hit the actual hit will get locket ( otherwise low bitrate files will be deleted when the card is full )
Othrwise low bitrate are also flawed to a degree, say you have been parked in a place and get back to your car 4 hours later to find a dent in the car, then with no g sensor to lock the event or just act as a beacon, then you will have to sit and look thru a lot of your 4 hours of footage to find the actual event.

Mind you i only use parking guard in cameras as of lately, and only as i have to as dashcam brands sending me cameras to test have provided a hard wire kit to make that possible, and then i just use parking guard for 1 hour on the timer, or with a very high low voltage cut off if there is no timer in the camera.
At home i have CCTV on my car, so dont need parking guard there, and 1 hour cover all my shopping.

The first camera i got to do parking guard with was the SG9663DR which is a dual 1080p system, this model in regular recording using best bitrate generate 350 MB files ( 3 minute ) But when in parking mode the 3 minute low bitrate files are just 118 MB in size, so easy to tell these from the regular footage, even if they are in the same folder as regular videos.
The Viofo A139 i am currently using parking guard on, it is 1440p on the front sensor, i have totally forgotten to see what size the low bitrate parking mode files are on that camera, unlike the SG camera it do put the parking guard files in a separate folder.

At first i was unsure if low bitrate would be good, as bitrate also have a say in regard to finer detail in the video, so after i installed the system i parked my car alongside a 60 km/h road to see if it could capture little license plate details, and this worked fine ( in good daylight of course )


In Denmark faster speed roads you can not get to park at the side of the road, though on 80 km/h highways you will also find little rest stops which could be said to be roadside too, but if possible they do like to put a little more distance in between stopped cars and 80 km/h traffic.
The default town speed here is 50 km/h, and this could be 40 or maybe 30 km/h near schools ASO, some larger roads in town can be 70 km/h, these are mostly ring roads / beltways i think they are called in America, roads for traffic to bypass town centers.

The main thing if you plan to use parking guard a lot is to get a LARGE memory card, for a 2 channel system recording 1080p this should at least be 128 GB, larger will always be better, but you of course have to be mindful what the system support in memory size.
Personally i use 256GB memory cards. This with the little i drive ( 20 min daily on AVG ) and little parking guard i use ( 1 hour ) give me at least a week wort of footage.
And of course if you use parking mode A LOT ! then you have to remember, what power you use while parked need to be recharged by driving before you can park again and expect to record it.
At home if possible i will always recommend to use CCTV on the car VS using parking guard in a car parked in the driveway.

Good thing is a car charge its battery way faster than a dashcam can discharge it, but say you use parking guard for 8 hours while you sleep and 8 hours while you work, then you better do a good hour of driving every day to compensate for that drain on the battery.

And only use 12.2 V cut off on the hard wire kit, this is said to be a 50% discharged battery, any lower and you will start to dig into the life of your battery hard, and if you live in a place with cold winters it might mean you can not crank your car in the morning if the battery are way under 12 Volts.
 
Last edited:
This is how the files are spread out over the 256GB memory card in my A139 using parking guard, do remember this system will also delete parking guard files and even files in the RO folder ( Read Only )

Additional information:
I use maximum bitrage for normal recording.
I use 1 hour timer cut off for parking guard.
I use low bitrate + G sensor for parking guard.
I use the manual event button to save encounters in traffic. ( not super often but this is what make most of the content in the RO folder )

Interesting additional info in regard to large memory card, which anyone using parking guard should have, no matter the kind of parking mode he / she use.

THESE ARE NUMBERS AS OBSERVED ON June 1

The size of the parking guard folder is just shy of 73 GB spread on 625 files, oldest file in the folder are dated May 25 ( 5 days of old footage ) But remember i only use 1 hour parking guard every time i stop.
The size of the RO folder is 10.6 GB spread on 75 files, oldest file in it is dated May 2 ( 1 month of footage )


It is important to not make too much stuff hit the RO folder, ideal it should just be actual events.
You should not use G - sensor on while driving, this tend to create false events for the RO folder, i recommend press the manual event folder if you had a crash, if you are unconscious a large memory card will record, and rescue people should turn off your car to prevent accidental fire, so even then you should still have a recording of the event.

I have also notified my 1 friend and my little sister to contact police to retrieve memory cards if i have been in a bad accident and are in hospital.
 
kamkar said:
I dont like motion detect as usually it record way too much as there are a lot of motion where you park, some cameras are so sensitive a cat on a fence far away that in the video can barely be seen as a cat, it will start a recording, only a very few cameras over the years have had the opposite issue and not been sensitive enough.

So my preferred parking mode is always recording low bitrate, granted it also record all the time but at a lower bitrate so should not generate as much heat inside camera as motion detect always triggered CUZ it use the normal bitrate.
If possible i also like to have G-sensor on, that way if my car is hit the actual hit will get locket ( otherwise low bitrate files will be deleted when the card is full )
Othrwise low bitrate are also flawed to a degree, say you have been parked in a place and get back to your car 4 hours later to find a dent in the car, then with no g sensor to lock the event or just act as a beacon, then you will have to sit and look thru a lot of your 4 hours of footage to find the actual event.

Mind you i only use parking guard in cameras as of lately, and only as i have to as dashcam brands sending me cameras to test have provided a hard wire kit to make that possible, and then i just use parking guard for 1 hour on the timer, or with a very high low voltage cut off if there is no timer in the camera.
At home i have CCTV on my car, so dont need parking guard there, and 1 hour cover all my shopping.

The first camera i got to do parking guard with was the SG9663DR which is a dual 1080p system, this model in regular recording using best bitrate generate 350 MB files ( 3 minute ) But when in parking mode the 3 minute low bitrate files are just 118 MB in size, so easy to tell these from the regular footage, even if they are in the same folder as regular videos.
The Viofo A139 i am currently using parking guard on, it is 1440p on the front sensor, i have totally forgotten to see what size the low bitrate parking mode files are on that camera, unlike the SG camera it do put the parking guard files in a separate folder.

At first i was unsure if low bitrate would be good, as bitrate also have a say in regard to finer detail in the video, so after i installed the system i parked my car alongside a 60 km/h road to see if it could capture little license plate details, and this worked fine ( in good daylight of course )


In Denmark faster speed roads you can not get to park at the side of the road, though on 80 km/h highways you will also find little rest stops which could be said to be roadside too, but if possible they do like to put a little more distance in between stopped cars and 80 km/h traffic.
The default town speed here is 50 km/h, and this could be 40 or maybe 30 km/h near schools ASO, some larger roads in town can be 70 km/h, these are mostly ring roads / beltways i think they are called in America, roads for traffic to bypass town centers.

The main thing if you plan to use parking guard a lot is to get a LARGE memory card, for a 2 channel system recording 1080p this should at least be 128 GB, larger will always be better, but you of course have to be mindful what the system support in memory size.
Personally i use 256GB memory cards. This with the little i drive ( 20 min daily on AVG ) and little parking guard i use ( 1 hour ) give me at least a week wort of footage.
And of course if you use parking mode A LOT ! then you have to remember, what power you use while parked need to be recharged by driving before you can park again and expect to record it.
At home if possible i will always recommend to use CCTV on the car VS using parking guard in a car parked in the driveway.

Good thing is a car charge its battery way faster than a dashcam can discharge it, but say you use parking guard for 8 hours while you sleep and 8 hours while you work, then you better do a good hour of driving every day to compensate for that drain on the battery.

And only use 12.2 V cut off on the hard wire kit, this is said to be a 50% discharged battery, any lower and you will start to dig into the life of your battery hard, and if you live in a place with cold winters it might mean you can not crank your car in the morning if the battery are way under 12 Volts.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your reply, which helped me a lot.
 
kamkar said:
I dont like motion detect as usually it record way too much as there are a lot of motion where you park, some cameras are so sensitive a cat on a fence far away that in the video can barely be seen as a cat, it will start a recording, only a very few cameras over the years have had the opposite issue and not been sensitive enough.

So my preferred parking mode is always recording low bitrate, granted it also record all the time but at a lower bitrate so should not generate as much heat inside camera as motion detect always triggered CUZ it use the normal bitrate.
If possible i also like to have G-sensor on, that way if my car is hit the actual hit will get locket ( otherwise low bitrate files will be deleted when the card is full )
Othrwise low bitrate are also flawed to a degree, say you have been parked in a place and get back to your car 4 hours later to find a dent in the car, then with no g sensor to lock the event or just act as a beacon, then you will have to sit and look thru a lot of your 4 hours of footage to find the actual event.

Mind you i only use parking guard in cameras as of lately, and only as i have to as dashcam brands sending me cameras to test have provided a hard wire kit to make that possible, and then i just use parking guard for 1 hour on the timer, or with a very high low voltage cut off if there is no timer in the camera.
At home i have CCTV on my car, so dont need parking guard there, and 1 hour cover all my shopping.

The first camera i got to do parking guard with was the SG9663DR which is a dual 1080p system, this model in regular recording using best bitrate generate 350 MB files ( 3 minute ) But when in parking mode the 3 minute low bitrate files are just 118 MB in size, so easy to tell these from the regular footage, even if they are in the same folder as regular videos.
The Viofo A139 i am currently using parking guard on, it is 1440p on the front sensor, i have totally forgotten to see what size the low bitrate parking mode files are on that camera, unlike the SG camera it do put the parking guard files in a separate folder.

At first i was unsure if low bitrate would be good, as bitrate also have a say in regard to finer detail in the video, so after i installed the system i parked my car alongside a 60 km/h road to see if it could capture little license plate details, and this worked fine ( in good daylight of course )


In Denmark faster speed roads you can not get to park at the side of the road, though on 80 km/h highways you will also find little rest stops which could be said to be roadside too, but if possible they do like to put a little more distance in between stopped cars and 80 km/h traffic.
The default town speed here is 50 km/h, and this could be 40 or maybe 30 km/h near schools ASO, some larger roads in town can be 70 km/h, these are mostly ring roads / beltways i think they are called in America, roads for traffic to bypass town centers.

The main thing if you plan to use parking guard a lot is to get a LARGE memory card, for a 2 channel system recording 1080p this should at least be 128 GB, larger will always be better, but you of course have to be mindful what the system support in memory size.
Personally i use 256GB memory cards. This with the little i drive ( 20 min daily on AVG ) and little parking guard i use ( 1 hour ) give me at least a week wort of footage.
And of course if you use parking mode A LOT ! then you have to remember, what power you use while parked need to be recharged by driving before you can park again and expect to record it.
At home if possible i will always recommend to use CCTV on the car VS using parking guard in a car parked in the driveway.

Good thing is a car charge its battery way faster than a dashcam can discharge it, but say you use parking guard for 8 hours while you sleep and 8 hours while you work, then you better do a good hour of driving every day to compensate for that drain on the battery.

And only use 12.2 V cut off on the hard wire kit, this is said to be a 50% discharged battery, any lower and you will start to dig into the life of your battery hard, and if you live in a place with cold winters it might mean you can not crank your car in the morning if the battery are way under 12 Volts.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I‘m trying the motion+ collision detection, and find out it record so many movements.
Will the Low bitrates mode drain the battery if it records all the time?
There is 720P@25 fps resolution for low Low bitrates mode.
 
well if motion detect dident set off that much, it would of course be very easy on the power use, low bitrate record all the time only the lower bitrate do cut down a little on power use, and heat generated internally.
But compared to time lapse which some cameras have for parking mode too, the power use are about the same, the downside with the time lapse is that they do not have sound, which might let you hear when someone ding your door at the parking lot.

The hard wire kit should make sure the battery is not drained, normally the cut off voltages there is to select in between are 11.8 - 12.0 - 12.2 - 12.4 volts i am personally using 12.2 volts for cut off value.
And though my little car have a little battery too ( 55 Ah i think it is ) that should still give a 2 digit hour parking mode in a day if it is fully charged.
I do use 1 hour on the timer, but if i was to park a place where i like more i can just up that timer in the menu before i leave the car, but it is rare i park in such places, and really though cars are very expensive to buy in Denmark thanks to our very high taxes on everything, then i still have a pretty relaxed relationship with my car, but of course people should still respect my property.

The 2 cameras i have tested with parking mode i dont think have a lesser resolution option for parking mode, for sure you would like to use the native resolution as it is a matter of image detail, and you might need that in a pinch.
So the old SG camera recorded 1080p - 1080p and the new viofo record 1440p - 1080p - 1080p

In general dashcams do not use much power, we are still talking milli amps, just when they do so hour after hour it of course will add up.

If you set the low voltage cut off on the hard wire kit ( i do hope it have that, but some hard wire kits have a fixed voltage and in some cases under 12 V which are just terrible for battery life )
Anyway with that set you can experiment to your hearts content, the size of your battery and of course the state of it will determine for how long the camera can record,,,,,, these things are good to know not least if you expect to use it for a longer period.
You can always determine from the video segments time stamp when a recording session start and when it end, and that way see how many hours you can expect.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top