Required 30 min or 1 hour mp4 files, 24+ hours capacity

Questions said:
Thank you. Good questions.

It will vary from well lit to not much more than what's provided by headlights. Something that can adjust back to low light settings fairly fast after being flashed by passing headlights would be best.
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some cameras will work better in low light that others, if it's just headlights you'll see what's going on but not with great detail
 
How far away is the road traffic?

(thinking 'motion detection, yeah I know it's a stretch...)

:)
 
dash riposki said:
How far away is the road traffic?

(thinking 'motion detection, yeah I know it's a stretch...)

:)
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:-) Yep. The cam will usually be within 15 to 30 feet of the road, I can't use motion detect. I'm required to use continuous video.
 
It would be easier to make recommendations if you could be more explicit on what the application is, if possible.
 
BTW, generally at night, if I have the detail to count the axles then the detail is good enough. I'll always be capturing the video from the side (usually 30 to 90 degrees). If I'm shooting at night then I can make it closer to 90 degrees, so headlight glare is minimized.
 
DT MI said:
It would be easier to make recommendations if you could be more explicit on what the application is, if possible.
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Sorry, yes, I can say. I'm counting vehicles pass and most often also counting the axles.
 
Questions said:
Sorry, yes, I can say. I'm counting vehicles pass and most often also counting the axles.
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Here, they put a rubber tube across the road and each time an axle goes over and squashes it a counter at the side of the road gets incremented - very simple to use and you can see instantly what the count is without having to convert video or even count. They used to use simple mechanical counters but these days they can measure the speed, length and axle count of each vehicle and keep separate counts for different categories of vehicle.
 
Nigel said:
Here, they put a rubber tube across the road and each time an axle goes over and squashes it a counter at the side of the road gets incremented - very simple to use and you can see instantly what the count is without having to convert video or even count. They used to use simple mechanical counters but these days they can measure the speed, length and axle count of each vehicle and keep separate counts for different categories of vehicle.
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True (rubber tubes, laser curtains, inductive loops, Doppler sets, RFID transponders, etc.), these all work fine. But if you are testing to see that the tubes, loops, lasers, Dopplers, RFIDs, or whatever are working as they should then you capture video then sit, watch it, and count axles and classify vehicle types. When your manual count of axles differs from the systems count of axles &/or vehicle type then you re-review the video to see whether the system was right or wrong. That's what I'm doing; verifying that the system that is counting vehicles &/or axles, &/or vehicle type is doing so correctly. That takes a human watching video. (Mind numbingly boring, but necessary.) Yes, you can use a tube counter to verify other systems to a statistically significant degree of accuracy and confidence, but you still need video to reconcile discrepancies. Also, a basic tube system that can detect vehicle types costs upwards of $2000 for a single lane. Multi-lane systems raise the cost rapidly while performance degrades. To audit 3 lanes in each direction, I'd need at least two tube systems (and still need video). Plus there is the issue that for many places you can't put anything above or on the road. So we're back to video.
  • Purpose built DVRs are very expensive.
  • Inexpensive DVRs work great, but wear out and become unreliable rather quickly.
    • Both of the above require file downloading and conversion, which is a huge hassle and waste of time.
  • Laptops with external IP or webcams work great, but then you need to hassle with larger power sources since AC power is commonly not available. Also, there is the theft issue.
  • Smaller and inexpensive tablet PCs work great as well and don't have the power issues, but they are less tolerant of heat and they aren't as rugged (fragility is the main issue).
  • Which leaves dash and action cameras as an option.
    • Rugged
    • Power isn't an issue
    • MP4 file type
    • Adequate resolution
    • Small and unobtrusive
    • Inexpensive
So for the dash or action camera:
  • If the video chunks can be quickly merged into 30 minute blocks (Registrator Viewer) then that is one issue out of the way. 30 minute blocks are optimal (for many reasons).
  • If it has has halfway decent low light capability then I'm good. (I tested with a $19 dash cam I've had on my car for several years. It's like this one. It worked fine and could even be set to record in 30 minute blocks. But it can only store video for about 3 hours and it records in AVI.)
  • If I can record for 24 hours then I'm set for capacity. Longer would be better, but 24 hours is okay.
  • And of course, if it stores the file as MP4 then I'm golden.
The question that remains is which unit should I try. I figure the experience in this forum is going to be greatly superior to what I can come up with just reading manuals and looking at reviews.

Thanks again everyone,
Andrew
 
if that $19 dashcam was adequate then you should be over the moon with a Mobius, add a 128gb card and you should be good to go

I'd avoid most action cams as they typically don't like long run times
 
The Mobius is a no-go, as it records in MOV format. Also, I forgot to mention that it should have a display I can use for setup and positioning. All the units on my short list have a display, so I didn't think to put it as a requirement.

Here again is the short list I cam up with originally.
  • Dome D201
  • Xiaomi Yi Dash Cam
  • MateGo MG380G
  • Koonlung K1S
  • SJ5000 Plus
  • CDV300X
  • Panorama X2
  • BlackVue DR750LW-2CH
  • R280
  • Panorama II / S / G

UPDATE: Looking through the spec's, it looks like the "MateGo MG380G" would be a good choice. It allows for a 128 GB card, has adequate resolution and bitrate, capacitor powered (for heat tolerance), and has good reviews for video quality and reliability. (I'm still looking to see how many minutes are recorded per file.) Thoughts?
 
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Questions said:
The Mobius is a no-go, as it records in MOV format.
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user selectable, MOV, MP4, AVI

can be connected to a smart phone with an OTG cable for live view for setup, can also do AV out to an accessory monitor if need be

majority of cameras on your list are not suitable for one reason or another
 
jokiin said:
  • user selectable, MOV, MP4, AVI
  • can be connected to a smart phone with an OTG cable for live view for setup, can also do AV out to an accessory monitor if need be
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Excellent! The price point is great. Is the MP4 using h.264 compression, so I can get 24 hours of video at an adequate resolution and frame rate? Are there any other units I should consider (such as the MateGo)?

UPDATE: Also, where would be a reliable source for purchasing the Mobius? I'm not finding it on Amazon or GearBest.
 
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Questions said:
Excellent! The price point is great. Is the MP4 using h.264 compression, so I can get 24 hours of video at an adequate resolution and frame rate? Are there any other units I should consider (such as the MateGo)?
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yes it's H.264, the matego would also work, the night results aren't outstanding on the generic version but still superior to the camera you've tried previously, it should be able to support a 128gb card to get he record time you need but may need to be formatted FAT32 to do that, not that hard to do
 
I could still use a reliable source for purchasing the Mobius.

Also, at Amazon, I'm seeing the MateGo advertised as "SpyTec" and "MateGo". Is there a difference or caution? The first is "Prime", so I could get it more quickly. But I don't want a clone that really isn't the unit it claims to be.
 
If you want @Questions i can upload 3-4-5 of my 3 minute files from a driving session you can then DL them and toy with them in registrator viewer, but really "RV" is pretty strait forward to use, just too bad Vadim the Russian that made it passed avay.
 
Questions said:
Excellent! The price point is great ... where would be a reliable source for purchasing the Mobius?
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Mobius offers a user-selectable choice of MOV, MP4, AVI & WAV file formats, however, please note some limitations as posted by Tom Frank of RCGroups ...

"... the AVI file format is NOT editable with most editors, including many commercial ones. The AVI format the Mobius (and it's little brother the #16 HD keychain camera) is not "standard", and the video after any split in the video stream will not be readable because all the playback information is in the file header. If an AVI file is needed for the editor being used (e.g. VirtualDub) shoot your video in either MOV or MP4 format, and run it through the MP4cam2AVI.exe file conversion utility to re-package the file into an AVI wrapper. The video will NOT need to be re-encoded that way, so it keeps it's original quality and is a very fast conversion.

Finally, if seamless recording (i.e. no loss of any video between consecutive clips) is desired, such as is normally done with car recorders, surveillance cameras, etc., you MUST use the MOV format. There will be a loss of 1-2 sec. of video with the other output formats".
 
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