Raytis Enforcer DX1 Discussion - Dual Ch Remote Body 2x1080p30

kandrey89

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Dash Cam
Panorama X2, GoPro 3/3+ Black
Hi,

Just saw the Raytis Enforcer DX1 announcement here.

First impressions from the photos and manual:
  1. Manual is well written, in English with no obvious mistakes. However, only the index is searchable, the rest of the text is not searchable.
  2. There's no selection of % of space dedicated for emergency vs normal driving. Thus seems like the locked files from emergency write cannot be overwritten when the emergency % of space is used up, hence you'll end up with filled up card and cannot record normal driving. Not a good thing, but perhaps they can change the firmware to alter the operation where recording loops over within their own separate sections of space on the uSD card, ie emergency loops over 40% of the card, while nromal driving loops over within the remaining 60% of the card.
  3. There is no remote button to trigger emergency record, this is a big negative! You have to press the "Power" button on the remote body unit to trigger an emergency record, which may be difficult to access, or have the G-sensor trigger it. They thought about the power button on the 12/24V adapter for users whose socket power is always ON, but failed to realize the emergency button needs the same feature. A simple 3.5mm socket for a momentary trigger button on a cord would suffice, that way, user could tuck it away wherever they need it, within reach inside their car.
  4. There's no speaker in the remote body unit? Only through the RCA connector? That means you won't hear beep signals if there are any when G-sensor turns on, emergency mode triggered, etc. If there's no infotainment system, then you need an external speaker that has an RCA input, or make one, manufacturer doesn't sell one, so it's a limitation. If the speaker was inside the remote body, even though the remote body would be tucked away, it might be harder to hear but better than nothing.
  5. Does not have parking mode. A bad thing. Unless I am misunderstanding something, because the manual does say that it has motion detection, but it also states that standard power setup cannot support it, so what kind of a setup supports it, needs clarification. Perhaps this dashcam supports parking mode, but the ACC/BATT for ignition detection and battery supplied power accessory isn't manufactured yet?
  6. No GPS, to record speed into the video stream. A bad thing.
  7. Requires a screen with RCA inputs for Menu interaction. Not great but I understand why, plus you can buy your own size from ebay.
  8. Concern about the cam mount, does not seem versatile or flexible enough for various windshields or angles of viewing, not adjustable left/right swivel. No other available mount options.
  9. Interesting that the manufacturer decided to post on this forum but has not engaged with or provided samples for review to the community.

Overall, the dashcam looks great, although it has limited itself by not incorporating several features that most people would prefer. It does have some limitations that I feel could be fixed with new firmware.

Things that might not be fixed without a remote body redesign/change:
  1. Parking Mode
  2. Remote Emergency Trigger Button
  3. GPS
  4. Remote Body Internal Speaker/buzzer

Things that firmware might fix:
  1. Allocation of Emergency vs Normal driving space, and loop recordings to overwrite separately inside each category/space.
  2. Might be more, but without a sample to try, I cannot tell just from reading the manual.
 
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It don't look bad at all, but as it seem to be build around A7LA70 then i find it hard to see that at least in regard to IQ it cant be better than already known systems on same platform.

Also i would for remote cameras to be a little smaller, at least from the outside of the car, what i say is make them more narrow and instead deeper where it matter little.

Could be interesting to know what sensors is used.

But 300 bucks don't seem to be over the top ?
 
Can you please post some videos? We need to know technical details, especially the bitrate.

But 300 bucks don't seem to be over the top ?

I agree it's too expensive ($200, and I would have bought instantly), but I guess we're paying a premium for the form factor.
 
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Can you please post some videos? We need to know technical details, especially the bitrate.

Average bit-rate is 10Mbps per ch. where firmware can provide stable performance. Anything over that bit-rate brings up different issues.
 
And i think with H264 you will need 25 - 30 mbit on each channel for optimal performance, to be honest even if it was H265 10 mbit might be on the low side too.

I find the 18 - 20 mbit we see on many single channel cameras today is a little on the low side ( depending on chip brand / model ), at least that's what i think.

On Novatek i think 25 mbit will be the sweetest spot, and really you do not want to get much higher with H264 as file size start to go upward of 1 Gb for a 3 minute recording, and to be honest i think that's a little severe for a SD card.
 
I really wish like on the SGZC12RC that have 2 USB inputs, if what is a service port on that camera could be used to connect a external harddrive for storage.
Then that would be awesome and what i would go for in a heartbeat as i can get a 256 - 512 GB harddrive ( even SSD ) for little money.

Even with 1 USB port i am wondering if it can be done, and then just power the camera via some other connection like a 3.5 mm barrel plug or something.
 
performance wise it's similar to the Koonlung K1S, same hardware, it does come from a better manufacturer though so although it has less features than the K1S it will have better stability, it has been around for about 2 years already and should be reasonably well sorted by now
 
I agree, remote cams could be smaller width and height wise, the thickness/depth does not matter to 90%+ people.

I think ideal remote cam size is: 1" x 1" x 2" (WxHxD) with the USB connector inserted from the back in the depth dimension, with a right angle and cable pointing up.

I wonder why a metal ball swivel with a screw locking mechanism isn't a popular mount option?
I have the ballhead version in the right picture at work, and they are great, the locking mechanism controls the rotation of the ballhead and also the ball angle, so you could position the 90* angle all the way around. But it's too big for a dashcam, a smaller version of this I think would be great, OUT OF METAL, not plastic!
ball-joint-01.jpg
slik-compact-ballhead-tripod-head-with-monopod_2103315.jpg


If DX1 had a parking mode, a GPS, an emergency trigger button, firmware fix for emergency vs normal allocation, and the bitrate is the same or better as Panorama X2 (which I think is 18Mbps), then I would buy it right now to replace my current dashcam.
 
bitrate you're stuck at a max of 10mbit per channel on the A7 platform, they're not stable at anything above that unfortunately, same hardware as the K1S so same limitations apply
 
bitrate you're stuck at a max of 10mbit per channel on the A7 platform, they're not stable at anything above that unfortunately, same hardware as the K1S so same limitations apply
Ah I see, didn't know that, thanks.
 
Hello everyone, thanks for all the feedback. I'll try to address all of your concerns here, do let me know if I missed anything or didn't provide a satisfactory answer.

Emergency/Normal storage space
The main purpose of Emergency Recording is to protect valuable footage from being lost in the event of a collision. It's not intended to be a "save this file for later" function, although it certainly can be used that way. If you really do have footage that you'd like to keep, it would make more sense to back it up to your computer as soon as possible, rather than leave it on the memory card indefinitely, eating up precious storage space.
While proposing a dedicated % of storage for emergency recordings might seem like a good idea, it doesn't really work out. Let's say for some reason you filled up the entire allocated 40% storage space for locked files, then you get caught up in an accident. Emergency recording mode is triggered, yet because the emergency partition is full, the newest emergency recording can't be saved. As for the idea of allowing looped recording on protected files, that kind of defeats the purpose of having protected files in the first place. Additionally, dedicated space equals sacrificed space that could have been used to store more normal recordings. One could argue that setting a lower ratio would fix that, but then the previous argument of filling up the dedicated space would come up again, this time even more prone to occur. So basically, the concept is quite contradictory and not very practical.

The DX1 does not have dedicated storage space for locked files, normal files and locked files share the same storage space. We do not plan to change this behavior.

Remote button to trigger Emergency Recording
Personally, I think it's more of a "nice to have" than a "big negative". As already stated above, Emergency Recording wasn't really designed to be manually activated. Nevertheless, it's a good idea, we understand how it could be useful. We will consider it for future products.

Built-in speaker
The DX1 does not have a built-in speaker. It was designed for discreetness, so emitting sounds directly from the hardware wasn't on the drawing board. We agree that it could help alert the driver for cars that do not have RCA input devices, but as suggested, only helpful for Emergency Recording triggers. Having it bleep and bloop for anything else is probably more of a nuisance. Unless there is a more compelling reason or large demand for implementing one, it'll most likely not be considered.

Parking Mode
The DX1 has the feature "Motion Detection", which is basically Parking Mode. The caveat is that we do not supply the necessary equipment to wire your power delivery system to fully support it. The reason for that is because the wiring job requires a more in-depth knowledge of your car and electrical systems, not to mention potentially dangerous. But we also acknowledge that some of our customers may be "power users", people who are comfortable with doing more advanced setups, so we went ahead and included this feature. It's available, you can enable and use it should you desire, you just need to get the proper power delivery system installed. If you don't, you'll likely drain the internal battery, which leads to other problems, such as no auto-start next session, date/time gets reset, etc.

GPS
jokiin is correct in saying not having certain features helps improve the stability of the system. Pros of having GPS: path of driving route, coordinates and speed data. Nice information to have to compliment recordings, sure, but are any of these necessary? Cons: unstable system - system might not record, crash, skip, lag, or other issues. In favor of the most important aspect of having a dashcam, footage, we concluded that the cons outweigh the pros, so no GPS for the DX1.

Camera mount
These were conceptualized to be mounted on the front and rear windshields, so as a compromise for better stability (non-shaky videos), we opted for a sturdier single-axis mount design.

Camera module mount location
The camera modules are NOT waterproof. They are designed for interior use only. We strongly advise against mounting outside the vehicle.

Camera module size
All the opinions on the width, depth and height are noted!

Video sample
Come on now, would you really trust footage provided by the manufacturer? ;) We had thought it better for the customers to share their real world usage videos, rather than watch cherry-picked footage.

Sensor
OmniVision OV2710

Bitrate
Like niko and jokiin commented, higher bitrates, lower stability. We believe this to be the sweet spot for the DX1 with the A7 SoC.
Front channel: 11Mbit/s
Rear channel: 7Mbit/s
Both camera modules are identical, bitrate is determined by the port you plug the camera into.

Finally... the price
I know it's a hard pill to swallow at first glance, but please allow me to justify it a bit without going into details.
1. The form factor
2. Reliability
3. 1080p@30fps + 1080p@30fps
4. It's no celebration when you launch at MSRP, right? For a very limited time only, it's now on sale for $249.99! Sale ends Sep. 30th, 2016. And yes, the original extended warranty offer also applies!
Please see original announcement for links, I think I'm not allowed to post it here.

Thank you all again for your interest in the ENFORCER DX1. We hope to have the chance to serve you.
 
Responses in red inside the quoted message.

Hello everyone, thanks for all the feedback. I'll try to address all of your concerns here, do let me know if I missed anything or didn't provide a satisfactory answer.

Emergency/Normal storage space
The main purpose of Emergency Recording is to protect valuable footage from being lost in the event of a collision. It's not intended to be a "save this file for later" function, although it certainly can be used that way. If you really do have footage that you'd like to keep, it would make more sense to back it up to your computer as soon as possible, rather than leave it on the memory card indefinitely, eating up precious storage space.
While proposing a dedicated % of storage for emergency recordings might seem like a good idea, it doesn't really work out. Let's say for some reason you filled up the entire allocated 40% storage space for locked files, then you get caught up in an accident. Emergency recording mode is triggered, yet because the emergency partition is full, the newest emergency recording can't be saved. As for the idea of allowing looped recording on protected files, that kind of defeats the purpose of having protected files in the first place. Additionally, dedicated space equals sacrificed space that could have been used to store more normal recordings. One could argue that setting a lower ratio would fix that, but then the previous argument of filling up the dedicated space would come up again, this time even more prone to occur. So basically, the concept is quite contradictory and not very practical.

The DX1 does not have dedicated storage space for locked files, normal files and locked files share the same storage space. We do not plan to change this behavior.
Sure you can think of it that way, but from my practical perspective and application I want the emergency allocation to loop over recordings because I treat emergency recordings not as a one time accident but as events of interest, hence also the need for a remote trigger button. I know approximately how many emergency recordings I make or are activated with the help of the speaker (this is why it's needed), so I know how fast I'm overwriting the emergency recording space and I would pull the data every month or two. I own 128GB cards, for only $60 or so, they are Samsung Evo, so I get plenty of space for emergency/normal/parking, and any person interested in protecting something with a $300 dashcam is certainly not shy about storing as much as possible by spending $60 for a near top of the line uSD card size.
Considering your usage for a second, if the protected files are so precious and important, why wouldn't the user retrieve them right after the accident, if the user would then there is no point in keeping them forever, since your use case advocates using the emergency mode on rare occasions instead of as interesting events.
Since you also have parking mode, I'd also request a parking mode allocation. I'm not just pulling this out of my "behind", my Panorama X2 does all this already, and I'm perfectly happy with the amount of storage for each section that I set and how much recording is stored and the fact that I don't have to pull the recordings often because I am running out of space in my event/emergency folder.
In fact, you made my point for me: if I run out of space in the emergency folder, because your current firmware does not overwrite, I will fail to record my latest emergency which can be a very big accident. So because everyone is lazy to clean out their emergency folder it's best to enable overwrite for emergency recordings otherwise people will be pissed off because the dashcam didn't record the latest accident. I'd be too lazy to clean out the emergency record files from the card. Formatting the card every so often is as stupid of a suggestion as I can think of because you'd be deleting everything, without reviewing or knowing what happened in the parking mode for example.
A real emergency record in case of an accident is not at issue here, because it'll be pulled off the card the first thing you do when you get home, it's all the other times you wish to make sure you record just in case but do not need it so you let it sit in the emergency record folder.


Remote button to trigger Emergency Recording
Personally, I think it's more of a "nice to have" than a "big negative". As already stated above, Emergency Recording wasn't really designed to be manually activated. Nevertheless, it's a good idea, we understand how it could be useful. We will consider it for future products.

I think most power users use the emergency record as an event record, and by event I mean something "interesting" that you might or might not review, but it won't be overwritten for a little longer because event recordings are rare compared to normal driving overwrite occurrence. Having the camera only be triggered by a hard to reach button or by a g-sensor makes emergency mode useless unless you're in an accident, but it doesn't help you if you see an accident and offer video proof in assistance or want to share it later as part of your dashcam experience or showcase on youtube and whatnot.

Built-in speaker
The DX1 does not have a built-in speaker. It was designed for discreetness, so emitting sounds directly from the hardware wasn't on the drawing board. We agree that it could help alert the driver for cars that do not have RCA input devices, but as suggested, only helpful for Emergency Recording triggers. Having it bleep and bloop for anything else is probably more of a nuisance. Unless there is a more compelling reason or large demand for implementing one, it'll most likely not be considered.

Let's you know how many times and when the dashcam emergency record is triggered.

Parking Mode
The DX1 has the feature "Motion Detection", which is basically Parking Mode. The caveat is that we do not supply the necessary equipment to wire your power delivery system to fully support it. The reason for that is because the wiring job requires a more in-depth knowledge of your car and electrical systems, not to mention potentially dangerous. But we also acknowledge that some of our customers may be "power users", people who are comfortable with doing more advanced setups, so we went ahead and included this feature. It's available, you can enable and use it should you desire, you just need to get the proper power delivery system installed. If you don't, you'll likely drain the internal battery, which leads to other problems, such as no auto-start next session, date/time gets reset, etc.

So where do we get this special cable? Most people on this forum are power users. Routing and sticking 3 wires into your fuse panel is NOT even potentially dangerous nor hard.

GPS
jokiin is correct in saying not having certain features helps improve the stability of the system. Pros of having GPS: path of driving route, coordinates and speed data. Nice information to have to compliment recordings, sure, but are any of these necessary? Cons: unstable system - system might not record, crash, skip, lag, or other issues. In favor of the most important aspect of having a dashcam, footage, we concluded that the cons outweigh the pros, so no GPS for the DX1.

Mmmmmm, sorry but I prefer to present video evidence with my speed indicated should I be wrongfully cited.

Camera mount
These were conceptualized to be mounted on the front and rear windshields, so as a compromise for better stability (non-shaky videos), we opted for a sturdier single-axis mount design.

I have the plastic gimbal mount for my heavy Panorama X2 and there are no stability issues. I don't want to adhesively mount the dashcam on my windshields because I need to clean them often inside and a dashcam will be in the way. What you forgot to consider is that people have polka dots which prevent suction cups from sticking, so how do you adjust a single axis off center dashcam to center the image?

Camera module mount location
The camera modules are NOT waterproof. They are designed for interior use only. We strongly advise against mounting outside the vehicle.

Camera module size
All the opinions on the width, depth and height are noted!

Video sample
Come on now, would you really trust footage provided by the manufacturer? ;) We had thought it better for the customers to share their real world usage videos, rather than watch cherry-picked footage.

Sensor
OmniVision OV2710

Bitrate
Like niko and jokiin commented, higher bitrates, lower stability. We believe this to be the sweet spot for the DX1 with the A7 SoC.
Front channel: 11Mbit/s
Rear channel: 7Mbit/s
Both camera modules are identical, bitrate is determined by the port you plug the camera into.

Finally... the price
I know it's a hard pill to swallow at first glance, but please allow me to justify it a bit without going into details.
1. The form factor
2. Reliability
3. 1080p@30fps + 1080p@30fps
4. It's no celebration when you launch at MSRP, right? For a very limited time only, it's now on sale for $249.99! Sale ends Sep. 30th, 2016. And yes, the original extended warranty offer also applies!
Please see original announcement for links, I think I'm not allowed to post it here.

Thank you all again for your interest in the ENFORCER DX1. We hope to have the chance to serve you.
 
Great response @Raytis.

The only item I disagree with is the sound. I want my camera to make some sort of noise when it boots up and shuts down (I'm ok with this being optional), so I know there aren't any power issues (adapters do go bad). I also want a chime if there are SD card problems, or emergency save has been activated, so I know to check the card and unlock that file.

But I do mostly agree with your other points (wish the bitrate was higher, especially with that wide angle lens).

Thank you for dropping the price, I'm really thinking about pulling the trigger, as I still want a set of cams to cover the sides.
 
Great response @Raytis.

The only item I disagree with is the sound. I want my camera to make some sort of noise when it boots up and shuts down (I'm ok with this being optional), so I know there aren't any power issues (adapters do go bad). I also want a chime if there are SD card problems, or emergency save has been activated, so I know to check the card and unlock that file.

But I do mostly agree with your other points (wish the bitrate was higher, especially with that wide angle lens).

Thank you for dropping the price, I'm really thinking about pulling the trigger, as I still want a set of cams to cover the sides.

Forgot about the sound being necessary for these other situations. Yeah it's a big deal to hear if the dashcam turned on or not, or if there are any other issues. My current dashcam works exactly like DashBoat describes and since I have a few problems with my current dashcam, like not always powering on, the sound is VERY helpful to make sure that I am driving with the dashcam running.
 
Some sort of audio alert if camera cant record is crucial i think, and the SD cards always / often seem to be the weakest link.
 
maybe just a 3 colored LED to signal operation mode ?

Green = operational and recording
Red = some form of error / not recording
Yellow might be G-sensor triggered while parked, or optional assignable by end user.
 
maybe just a 3 colored LED to signal operation mode ?

Green = operational and recording
Red = some form of error / not recording
Yellow might be G-sensor triggered while parked, or optional assignable by end user.
At first I didn't see the point, but on second thought, it's cheap and doesn't draw a lot of power to put in low power diffuse LEDs and could help during diagnostics, setup and even normal operation if the remote body is positioned visibly.

I'll try to do a review this weekend, not sure how long it'll take since I want to cover various aspects: image quality, design, technical specs, measured values (power, temperature, etc), usability and whatever else I can think of. The write up alone will probably take 2 days, testing also at least 2 days, if I get into image quality analysis it could very well take a week for that alone (various controlled lighting conditions, charts, color reproduction, day/night, setting tweaks, etc).
 
@kandrey89, your responses in red have been read and noted. It is intriguing to see different ways of utilizing the dashcam. We will take them into consideration and see what we can do to extend support for such uses without compromising the core functions in our future products, or even potentially for the DX1 via firmware updates when possible.

Regarding the "special cable" necessary for full support of Motion Detection/Parking Mode, we do not supply such a kit, and I do apologize, but it is out of the scope of discussion for the DX1.
The exception to this is if your 12/24V socket constantly delivers power even when the ignition switch is set to OFF, then our supplied adapter can fully support it.

The DX1 has an LED indicator on the camera module and the console to indicate status. It appears that it was not clearly documented in the user manual, I will notify the manual team to update it.
For the camera module, a green LED is located on the back of the module below the logo. It lights up (steady) when powered on.
On the console, it's a red LED on the side where the buttons are. Steady light indicates powered on, blinking means recording.
 
@kandrey89, your responses in red have been read and noted. It is intriguing to see different ways of utilizing the dashcam. We will take them into consideration and see what we can do to extend support for such uses without compromising the core functions in our future products, or even potentially for the DX1 via firmware updates when possible.

Regarding the "special cable" necessary for full support of Motion Detection/Parking Mode, we do not supply such a kit, and I do apologize, but it is out of the scope of discussion for the DX1.
The exception to this is if your 12/24V socket constantly delivers power even when the ignition switch is set to OFF, then our supplied adapter can fully support it.

The DX1 has an LED indicator on the camera module and the console to indicate status. It appears that it was not clearly documented in the user manual, I will notify the manual team to update it.
For the camera module, a green LED is located on the back of the module below the logo. It lights up (steady) when powered on.
On the console, it's a red LED on the side where the buttons are. Steady light indicates powered on, blinking means recording.

Still having a hard time understanding what it is that you call motion detect and how that mode is activated.
Do you have a diagram of a cable that I could make myself or buy elsewhere that would work with DX1?
What is the pin layout of your USB power plug and which one activates motion detect, and what is the voltage required on all the pins?

If you can't provide the cable, at least provide a schematic of what the cable should be like, lot's of handy people everywhere that could make the cable themselves.
 
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