Possible to set to 15fps?

[Whatsname]

High!

I just bought a great little Mobius cam and for the first time entered this forum.

The Mobius cam can be perfectly used to "guard" my car when it is parked. For that purpose I need maximum recording time, like at least 12 hours, but preferrably more. I tried a 32 GB micro SD card and have set the Mobius to 1280x720, 30fps, 5 min video clip length, and low video data rate. Result: It creates 5 minute clips of app. 225MB each and the bitrate is around 5.700Kbps. This means that a maximum of app. 11 hours can be recorded. Despite the "low quality setting" picture quality is not too bad.

I also tried the following setting: 1920x1080, 30fps, 5 min video clip length, low video rate. This produces 5 minute clips of app. 458MB each and the bitrate is around 12.000 Kbps. These results mean that a max. of app. 5,5 hours can be recorded. Picture quality is quite amazing.

The next step I've tried is to reduce the fps rate from 30 to 12 by using the trick with the SYSCFG.TXT file (ASCII), thus manipulating the firmware. I'm not a programming expert, but this trick is not too difficult to understand. I wanted to try a 12 fps setting because I have experience with a little HD cam that produces only 9 fps clips and "the movements" in these clips are of a quite exceptable quality. Changing from 30 fps to 12 fps made me expect the bitrate to go down from 12.000 Kbps to 12/30 x 12.000 = 4.800 Kbps and the max. recording time to go from app. 5.5 hours to app. 13.8 hours while still having 1920x1080 picture quality.

Unfortunately it appeared that the cam does not take the 12fps firmware change input.....

Anybody knows if and how it is possible to change the fps rate?

Thanks for your comments.

 

[Isoprop]

High!

I just bought a great little Mobius cam and for the first time entered this forum.

The Mobius cam can be perfectly used to "guard" my car when it is parked. For that purpose I need maximum recording time, like at least 12 hours, but preferrably more. I tried a 32 GB micro SD card and have set the Mobius to 1280x720, 30fps, 5 min video clip length, and low video data rate. Result: It creates 5 minute clips of app. 225MB each and the bitrate is around 5.700Kbps. This means that a maximum of app. 11 hours can be recorded. Despite the "low quality setting" picture quality is not too bad.

I also tried the following setting: 1920x1080, 30fps, 5 min video clip length, low video rate. This produces 5 minute clips of app. 458MB each and the bitrate is around 12.000 Kbps. These results mean that a max. of app. 5,5 hours can be recorded. Picture quality is quite amazing.

The next step I've tried is to reduce the fps rate from 30 to 12 by using the trick with the SYSCFG.TXT file (ASCII), thus manipulating the firmware. I'm not a programming expert, but this trick is not too difficult to understand. I wanted to try a 12 fps setting because I have experience with a little HD cam that produces only 9 fps clips and "the movements" in these clips are of a quite exceptable quality. Changing from 30 fps to 12 fps made me expect the bitrate to go down from 12.000 Kbps to 12/30 x 12.000 = 4.800 Kbps and the max. recording time to go from app. 5.5 hours to app. 13.8 hours while still having 1920x1080 picture quality.

Unfortunately it appeared that the cam does not take the 12fps firmware change input.....

Anybody knows if and how it is possible to change the fps rate?

Thanks for your comments.

There's no 'trick' that allows you to modify the firmware by entering invalid settings in the SYSCFG.TXT file. If you enter invalid settings all you will do is set a different value and possibly change a linked value as well. In the worst case you could put your camera in a loop making it necessary to reload the firmware. If a value isn't defined there's no way you can 'trick' the firmware to use it. No way, period.
The reason is simple. All the valid values are defined in a structure (struc) which you can think of as a look-up table or look-up array. The firmware queries the structure which returns a relative number. It is this number which the firmware uses to know which parameter has been selected. For example, 5fps=0, 10fps=1, 15fps=3, etc. Human readable values are thus converted to relative computer values (ints, bytes, longs etc.). If the firmware tries to look up a value in the structure that isn't defined results will be unknown. If the developer forgot to test for an invalid parameter you may get catastrophic results, like a loop.
Firmware v2.18 allows 5fps, 10fps or 15fps. 12fps is not supported.
If you want space for longer recordings you can use 64GB or 128GB cards. You can also use time-lapse videos but you will lose the sound.

 

[throrope]

I bought a 64gb card for a unit that was incorrectly advertised to accept one. Like most dashcams in the $100 range it accepts max 32gb micro sd cards. The 64 gb created grief and even when accepted, the camera did not record more than 32 gb. Before buying bigger, confirm the Mobius configuration.

I suggest trying the camera in motion mode. It should record only when detecting motion. Unless you regularly park in view of moving traffic, you may find it covers you're need as provided.

 

[Isoprop]

I bought a 64gb card for a unit that was incorrectly advertised to accept one. Like most dashcams in the $100 range it accepts max 32gb micro sd cards. The 64 gb created grief and even when accepted, the camera did not record more than 32 gb. Before buying bigger, confirm the Mobius configuration.

I suggest trying the camera in motion mode. It should record only when detecting motion. Unless you regularly park in view of moving traffic, you may find it covers you're need as provided.

I obviously can't guarantee that all 64GB card will work perfectly, but I am currently doing some long-term tests with different 64GB cards (Sandisk, Kingston, PNY, PQI) using loop recording. So far I have tested v2.18 for over 1440 hours and not had ONE single hiccup so far! Add to this over 1000 hours of error-free testing I did with v2.12 (similar code base to v2.18) I believe v2.18 supports 64GB cards exceedingly well. It is, however, important to format the cards to FAT32. ExFAT does not work well when loop recording is enabled. I never had anywhere near this success rate with v2.10 and earlier versions.

 

[BobDiaz]

I've tested the lower frame rates with the hope of being able to reduce the data rate of the video, but it appears that the software is set to a given recording rate. I don't know if this is a minor bug or not, but you just can't lower the data rate by slowing down the frames per second. The only way I could reduce it was to use timelapse mode, 1/4 of a second per frame. This is 4 frames per second, which is just enough to show what is happening. A car moving at 60 miles per hour (96.6kM/hour) is moving at 88 feet per second (26.8 M/ second). In 1/4 of a second that comes to 22 feet (6.7 meters).