Searching for Dual Channel Dashcam

Julian23

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Dash Cam
Viofo A139
Hello, I have been lurking here for a long time, reading many topics but I am still unsure about what cam to get.
The cam has to be at least 2x 1080p and prefered 60fps in the front if possible but it's not a must have.
It needs to handle like 35°C in the summer and parking mode would be nice.
Its a must have for me to be able to save the last recorded minutes by the press of a button and night videos quality has to be good. ( This requirement eliminates the Blackvue DR900s-2ch)
The Viofo A129 Duo seems like a good newcomer but I heard about some reliabilty problems and DAB interferences. Video quality looks very good.
The SG9663 has been long here but I cant really see the advantage from it over the A129.
Correct me if I am wrong.
Are there any new dashcams coming out this year that are worth waiting for or other cams I dont know that would fit my needs?
 
At the moment no dual channel dashcam support 60 FPS on one of 2 cameras, you can run the front camera alone on 60FPS but then it is a single channel camera.
This might change soon, but having run 2 similar cameras one on 60 FPS and one on 30 FPS i found no worthwhile difference between the 2 frame rates, true you get 2 X the chances with 60 FPS to get that capture, but i found if the 60 FPS camera get it so did the 30 FPS camera.

Event creation differ some between the dashcams, some make use of a short buffer that are not a minute so you have to be quick to push the event button to get something locked and protected, of course if you don't drive for long after the event you can just use the event file as a time indicator, what is not in the locked file are in among the regular files providing you have not driven so long it have been recycled.
The DC from street guardian work on actual files instead, so say you record in 2 minute segments, and then have a event and the current recording are less than one minute old, then the previous + the current 2 minute files will be saved and you have 4 minutes of locked footage ( well 8 minutes as you also get the same time frame footage from the rear camera )
On the other hand if the current recording are past 1 minute and you press the event button then the current 2 minute file will be saved + the following 2 minute file and again you have 8 minutes of locked footage from your dual channel camera.

So if you record in 5 minute segments, then you will get 10 minutes saved from the front camera and 10 minutes ( 2 files ) from the rear camera, so you have a whopping 20 minutes of recording space taken up by a single event.
The DC do actually also recycle the read only files also, but you will have to create a lot of them before the first one are deleted to make room for the latest one, personally i don't see this as a issue on my DC and i do prefer the event handling / definition in recording segments instead of a short buffer + a set time frame after that.
Most i think record in 3 minute segments, so when i press the event button i get 12 minutes of footage locked, 6 minutes / 2 files from each of the two cameras.

This year the big news will be remote cameras, so if stealth are a big deal for you that's worth waiting for, i have just received a test sample of the K2S dual remote camera, you can see it here.
This camera are not yet released for sale, but it give you a idea of what to expect from a system like this, as you can see in one pic the camera units are only 1/2 the size of the already small DC rear camera in my car.
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/k2s-received.37896/

The A129 duo and the SG9663DC are much the same, but viofo do not yet beat SG on customer care and service + for us EURO boys at least a little while yet we have a EU seller in hiniko in Ireland.
SG also have other newer than the DC dual channel cameras.

I don't think you can expect a dashcam to sit in the sun on a 35 degree day and do parking mode too, if you are parked in the shade i think you will be good but if the sun are also on the camera on the windscreen i think you will see a thermal shut down.
I have yet to try parking guard myself, but that will come this year, which i do hope will have just as good a summer as 2018 though Danish farmers will not like that one bit.
 
First of all thanks for the good explanation.

Like I said 60fps would be nice but if there is no cam that has it I'm okay with that. I still would prefer a dual channel cam over a single 60fps one.
I didnt know how the cam stores the data but the manuel event locking on the SG sound pretty good. From the customer service that I read here on the forum they seem to be very good. Can't say anything different about them.

I wouldnt care if I get a "normal" or remote dashcam, the only thing that is important is the video quality and an accessible button for the manuel saving of a event.
The topic that I still dont know is how big of an impact they would make on a car with DAB radio. Maybe someone has experience with that?

Would be interesting to see if the remote cams can handle more heat because only the cam itself would be in the sun and the main unit depending on the place would be a lot colder in the shadow. But lets see.
 
There are some dual channel cameras that have 60fps front channel, that said though they don't do as well as many 30fps models anyway

Remote camera models do run cooler
 
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The topic that I still dont know is how big of an impact they would make on a car with DAB radio. Maybe someone has experience with that?

I have no personal experience but it is a topic I've closely followed here on these forums. I would say to expect at least some degrading of weaker signals, but do not be surprised if the problem is severe. Some things can be done to give you better chances such as keeping as much distance between cam and radio cabling as possible, and also keeping cams away from the DAB antenna. This may involve running the cam cable under the door sills which may require the purchase of longer cam cables. A few have upgraded their DAB antenna which helped, as car manufacturers tend to use cheap designs. But unless you can find someone with the exact same cam and the exact same car, then it is all just a guess what you will experience. It seems the car is the more critical factor than the cams, so if you find a lot of complaints with the same car, the chances are good that you will have similar issues. There does not seem to be any cam or brand of cam which is giving more problems than others as long as you stay with a good brand and avoid cheap cams, which is good advice anyway even without DAB.

Phil
 
Yes if you are a DAB user, then it would be a good idea to know where its antenna is and how the wire to the DAB antenna are routed, and they stay as far away as you can from those with any camera or wires.
It do seem like cameras do have a big chance of causing problems with DAB, and that's pretty much all cameras, cheaper ones probably being the worst ones.
The coming dual remote cameras as jokiin say should run cooler if you don't put the main unit on the windscreen, which would be silly to so cuz the option to put the main unit in a hidden location are the main thing of the coming "remote" models.
But "remote" should give us a better chance in regard to parking mode on really hot summer days.

The new SG cameras also use time lapse recording all the time for parking mode in a effort to fight heat generation while parked, you can select from 1 to 10 FPS for parking guard.
 
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The Viofo A129 Duo seems like a good newcomer but I heard about some reliabilty problems and DAB interferences. Video quality looks very good.
...
Are there any new dashcams coming out this year that are worth waiting for or other cams I dont know that would fit my needs?
I don't think there is much point worrying about the DAB, it is digital, it will either work or it wont work! All cameras, or other electronic equipment, will result in some very week channels being lost, dual cameras tend to be a bit worse but routing the cable away from the antenna cable will work for most people. At worst you will need to install a decent DAB antenna and then your reception should be better than before the camera install.

Of course there will be new cameras coming out this year, there always are, but the ones you have mentioned are reasonably new anyway, and they are now well tested and can be trusted. If you wait for a new camera then you will be waiting an unknown time and then it will have an unknown number of bugs which will take an unknown amount of time to fix! There should be a few dual remote cameras out this year, but the video quality isn't necessarily going to be better that an A129, there may be some 4K cameras, but the night quality is likely to be not as good as an A129, and there will be some taxi-cams with dual lenses in the windscreen mounted camera recording front and cabin view, easier to install and maybe less radio interference but not ideal for rear views. There might also be some higher resolution dual cams if you wait until Christmas but that might be next year. The A129 will still be a decent choice until the end of the year and probably next year too, especially for Europe where we have decent, easily readable, number plates on our cars.
 
are you looking for a front + cabin or front + rear cam?
 
Front and rear cam. I dont need/ want a cabin cam
You seem to be restricting the choice to a dual front+remote rear or dual remote camera with single lock button and good night vision, which means there is currently very little choice!

The A129 Duo with Bluetooth remote is a very good match.

How long are you prepared to wait for better options to arrive?
 
You seem to be restricting the choice to a dual front+remote rear or dual remote camera with single lock button and good night vision, which means there is currently very little choice!

The A129 Duo with Bluetooth remote is a very good match.

How long are you prepared to wait for better options to arrive?
I plan to get one in the near future but I can wait a few months if there will be released a better dashcam
 
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