researching for upcoming 2021 C8 LT2 Z51

[realityintrudes]

I am fortunate to have a build spot for a 2021 C8 LT2 Z51. Though I have been waiting many months (like everyone else for this car) and was pushed from a 2020 to 2021, I passed on a November allocation slot because the Z51 is summer tires only, and I intend this to be a year-round daily driver with true winter snow tires whenever I won't be plowing my very long driveway with the front end. As you might expect, access to the needed size snow tires are tough to ensure (ie, true snow/ice and not all season).

As I will likely do the dealer's next GM allocation process in January/February (initial one was stated to be for the first 2021 quarter's production), it means I need to get serious about my first ever dash cam purchase. My C8 will have 1) the PDR which will record forward all the time whenever to car is on, and 2) the rear camera as a rear view camera that doesn't record.

My factors off the top of my head include:
- I desire true independent, F&R maximal protection protection.
- I plan on buying a second Valentine 1 Gen 2 detector.
- My smartphone is just a phone for me and I don't use any apps meaningfully.
- I have still been (outrageously) paying for the true, original Verizon unlimited data plans.
- Being in rural PA/NY, I have absolutely no cell coverage at home and lousy HughesNet satellite which means no streaming.

Over the next few months, I look forward to learning all I can from the dashcamtalk brain-trust!
ri

 

[kamkar]

Welcome to the forum realityintrudes.
Uuuuu thats a nice car on the horizon

ATM the best over all performing hardware ( sensor ) are the IMX 291, but it is "only" a 1080p sensor,,,,, which are also fine for most things / claims against you.
Alternative 1440p cameras are starting to pop up on the shelves, they do not have the same low light performance as IMX291 cameras, but if you have light on your car and dont drive faster than it you will still be good.
There are also a few true 4K dashcams, and more on the way, these are also okay but due to many smaller pixels they are also the worst night time performers,,,,, but also still fine in recording all you do with your car in relation to lane markings / road side / signs / colors of lights.
Just be ware of the many fake 4K cameras out there, you need a 8megapixel sensor for true 4K footage, the fake 4K cameras use a 4 or 5 mpix sensor but then upscale to 4K, in which case you only have 4-5 mpix image quality saved as 4K.
But all dashcams struggle with any little detail at night for one reason or the other, it is just the nature of the tech level deployed in consumer dashcams at the moment, if you get sideswiped and he run you are still best off seeing the plate yourself and call it out for the microphone to record, cuz in low light chance are your camera will not get a plate capture at any speed faster than the top speed of a crawling baby.

BTW low light, that do not mean pitch black night, actually just driving into the shade of trees or a building on a otherwise nice summer day can be a issue in regard to a small license plate at speed.

Which dashcam to go for kinda depend on your real estate on the windscreen and out back.

Sound like you have a healthy relationship with your phone, you do not want to give it more to do, so stay clear of dashcams with smart features, most often they are at the expense of something else like image quality ASO
Personally i talk on my phone for 5 min - 1 hour monthly, and use about 1 GB of data ( out of a 40 / 40 plan ) i feel i die a little every time i touch my phone.
Your best option to review footage are always to put the memory card in a card reader on the PC /laptop / TV, then you get a proper screen where you at least have a chance of seeing any small detail your cameras have captured.

Not sure if you mean to, but dashcams are lousy reversing cameras, a proper one of those maybe paired with parking sensors are much batter, knowing many / most sports cars often have poor visibility out back.

Remember dashcams are not cinematic devises, not even if you have a true 4K one, there are still a few leagues up to the image quality of a nice new action camera, it is merely a accident recorder which when that dont happen can record other funny / crazy / outrageous stuff that go on on the road,,,,,, most likely in front of you.

Anyways we are here to help you make a informed dashcam buying decision, but the actual pull of the trigger are up to you.
And there are no stupid questions in here, only some that have been asked many times already.

Hope you soon can get some starlink out there in the sticks of PA/NY, that should allow for some normal internet interactions at home.
There are a few beta tester videos on youtube already, it is not the +gigabit speeds we Danes can often get on fiber or cable, but still a speed many Americans can only dream about, and sufficient for streaming 4K to your TV at home, and not take down the internet in the rest of the house.

 

[realityintrudes]

kamkar- Thank you for your thoughtful response. I also like your Signature tag.
I am already on the waiting list for Starlink.
Your focus on low-light performance is spot on for my needs.
I hope to learn much before the birth of my first Corvette (and it will be transferable to the Subarus).
ri

 

[kamkar]

Nice with starlink, probably the best solution for the large US.
Little Denmark are saturated with fiber cables in the more rural parts, and the major towns are often fully decked out in cable so you can get a 1000 / 100 mbit connection like i am on now.
Fiber also coming to the big towns here, but harder to get permission to tear up sidewalks there VS digging down a cable alongside a rural road / highway.
If i am going to keep up with phones after my old mother die ( she is the the reason i have one ) then i think 5G would be the reason, there are 3 national 5G networks going up here now, and usually you have access to 2 networks as they have roaming agreements in between them self.

Also Denmark are pretty soft made up of glacial sediments, so you can pretty much plow down fiber cables, where as the US it will take something tougher to get a cable in the ground, at least in many places.
Everything is in the ground here aside for a few of the very largest high voltage transmission lines, that "spaghetti" of wires you guys have hanging in the US and other places around the world we have not had for a long time.

No matter what camera you get, it will always log what you do with your car, so if anything happen you will always be able to prove that you was just driving merrily along in your lane no matter what others might claim to get out of a bad spot.
But little things like plate capture ASO you should only look at as icing on the cake, right now in Denmark this time of the year i have not captured a plate in a week at the default 80 km/h highway speeds, as it have been that long since the sun have been out, otherwise the "normal" light grey clouds will often ruin everything in regard to the small details.
In the summer time, even with a few white fluffy cloud around thats not a problem.

And Danish / EU plates are much more readable than US plates + we got to have one both front and rear, which are nice if you have a dual system as then you have 2 chances of a capture.
US plates seem intentional made so they are as hard to read as possible

Of course if you drive slow you can get a plate on tape just fine even at night, but the difference between you and the target can not be more then crawl speed, this you will often see in dashcam factory night footage, and also it is captured in a town with Las Vegas Strip level ambient light at night, and we Danes do not have towns that are lit up like that.

 

[SawMaster]

If night-time vid quality is important I'd go for the IMX291 too, but we're beginning to see more 'players' in the field of sensors now so I need to catch up on those. Nighttime vid quality depends on a lot of factors; speed being a big one. You won't get great results from oncoming cars at our US highway speeds but they will always be enough to show you weren't at fault. Even the 4K cams can do that much. The IMX291 does well daytime too, but here the better 2K and 4K cams give you much better images.

Every choice is a compromise but I think for most people now having the better daytime images is worth the slight loss at night. Right now many of us are beta-testing the A139 from Viofo and for a true 4K cam the nighttime vids are pretty good while the daytime vids are as good as I've seen in any dashcam. No release date has been set but if it's out when your car ships and if the form-factor works for you it could be your best choice. I think form-factor may be your biggest issue as most of today's cars have sensors and pods around the mirror which can interfere with a clean-looking install. When you consider that take into account the cabling as it too may hit a sensor pod or emerge at a bad place otherwise. There are wedge cams and tubular cams offering 2K and 4K high-quality vids as well so something will work- you just have to match each one to the car it's going in.

I'd go for a multi-channel cam these days too (2 or 3 channel). They've matured into reliable devices with good rear vids finally with several to choose from. A front-only cam will still handle 95% of your real needs but the added coverage when it's needed makes the extra cost worthwhile. Be careful when choosing for features as sometimes things like parking modes, g-sensors, and wifi don't work well. So research how well your wanted features work by gaining the shared knowledge of people who are actually using those features (or are finding they don't work). There's sure to be a cam you'll like out there

Phil

 

[kamkar]

The vette, i dont thing you can put a camera on the rear "window" as that is also the lid for the engine compartment, you would probably have to mount a rear camera on the outside.
But then this make wire ( only 1 ) routing hard, and might even entail drilling holes in your fine new vehicle.
And the brands that do offer a waterproof remote camera are still few.

Just saw i video, on a 2008 Lambo in the US, a reversing camera was a 1500 USD option, and for it to be done you also had to buy the several 1000 USD optional rear spoiler.

TBH on the new vette i would assume at least reversing camera is standard

 

[SawMaster]

Several different rear cams mounting several different ways- one should be a good fit here but not having seen this car I don't know. I let the owner decide those things and offer advice in ways to mount their preferred cam.

Almost never do you have to make a permanent alteration to a car just to have a cam, even in the rear. And an 'interior' cam also sees rearward, just not as well as a dedicated rear cam, so there are several of those to choose from with the IMX291, 2K, or 4K sensors up front going with it.

Phil

 

[realityintrudes]

Any separate rear-facing camera on the rear window would in fact be in the engine compartment.
The circled area above the rear window of this blue C8 (mine will be silver) is not only the back-up camera, but also provides what is seen in the digital rear view mirror. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be anyway to capture its recording. My car will have the PDR (Performance Data Recorder) which can be set to record a forward ground view to a memory card whenever the vehicle is on.
ri

 

[kamkar]

You can get stand alone analog DVR recorders, but the feed from that camera back there are probably some propitiatory system, so most likely no option to tap into it.
Generally reversing cameras are low resolution as you just need to see stuff while reversing, so not suited for dahscam use which should at least be 1080p
I have a sneaky feeling the resolution of that rear mirror camera might also be a lower resolution.

You also can not mix and match rear cameras from different brand dashcams, even if it is the same sensor,,, or at least it is pretty unlikely it would work, some times even within the same brand there can be changes.
Viofo for instance have used USB ( not standard USB wires ) for a few of their systems but the new A139 3 channel system are composite wires with just 2 leads in them handling both power and video signal transmission.
The new cables are actually pretty cool and only 1/2 as thick as the USB cables used by others.
At least with those new wires should you need to drill a hole to feed the wire thru it just have to be 5-6 mm VS the mini or micro USB connectors which probably need a 10 - 11 mm hole to feed the plug thru.

Still i assume with that vette, there must be a firewall, and those usually have wires going thru grommets in them, so you could probably sneak one more cable in thru there
But that only bring you into the engine bay, should you go further out back and say install a camera above or below the plate, then you have some more routing to do.

Also dont know what DIY skill level you are at, today some are pretty helpless, i am sure my +30 year old nephew could not point out the spark plug on a moped, hell the kid dont even have a driving license,,, never had one.