The CADDX Dolphin, any good for dashcam use?

dirkzelf

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In short, NOT YET. But look at the footage (day and night), it is stunning for a +/- 30 EU action camera.

You all know I'm a sucker for good low light car-camera's, so I just HAD TO buy me this one and test it, even when I intended to choose between Mobius Maxi and the GitUp F1 4K .... this one got my first attention.

https://caddxfpv.com/products/1-1

This camera with F1.2 lens and Starlight illumination (whatever that means...), has great potential, I took it out on my Beamer on the helmet, and was pleasantly surprised! Check these out:


At the end of the afternoon:



Night (pitch dark), including unlit outer city roads (from 03:00):



PRO:

1) great daylight recordings, crisp and clear for a 30 EU camera!!

2) great low light recording, ESPECIALLY for a 30 EU camera!!

3) great size/format

4) MP4/H264

5) time-coded filenames

6) Due to the 30fps maximum recording the camera does not get extremely hot.

7) cycle recording

8) auto start recording (well, sort of...)


Nevertheless, not yet ready for dashcam use. This is what I found and asked about with CADDX, but as I don't even get a confirmation of receipt for my messages, I don't feel awkward to reply here.

- It does NOT come with a full description of ALL functions, including LED statusses and HOW TO button operations, car DVR mode use, charging times, full spec etc.

- When you long press the power button, it does NOT turn off as long as the USB power is connected, this is negative for the charging process.

- The camera comes with a POWER only cable, and NONE of my standard micro USB connectors fit the camera.... too little space around the female socket.... BIG DISADVANTAGE....

- I can NOT read/copy files from the SD card through the PC-USB connection, I HAVE to take out the SD card EVERY time, and that is also a point to consider, the SD card is very hard to get out of the housing. I cut a data cable so it fit the camera, but when connected to the PC, it tells me there was a failiure caused by the USB device (camera).

- The battery is not swappable, I know it's not a big deal for the RC guys, but for car DVR use that is a big NO NO.... And there is NO supercapacitor version of this camera.

- File storage is a joke, sorry. It makes ABSOLUTELY no sense to create so many subfolders!! Here's the structure as it is now:


Schermopname (2499).png

1st subfolder

- record2
- some (camera?)-number 578713245656539662
- date
- hours of the day

This makes no sense, well at least not to me.....

Just create one folder called VIDEOS, and store ALL files in that ONE folder, after all, the files are ALL date/time coded, so they are easy to find when stored in that one folder! Please stop the madness of creating all those weird sub-folders! It is frustrating and confusing. Besides it's an unnessecary LOAD on the firmware! This matter alone might make me not wanting to use the camera at all.....!

- I can NOT exit the android app when connected in DIRECT/STANDALONE mode.

- The LED is in the front only, so when connected in the car, we can NEVER see the led flashing to check for recording or not.... BIG problem!

- The LED's can not be turned of.

- There is no BLACK version....

- Having date/time coded files is great, but for some applications just numbered filenames (i.e. REC00001.MP4 etc) might be helpful, but not really a big issue.

- No ventilation holes/openings. I know it conflicts the splash proof of the camera, but for in car use the camera is always close to the windscreen and as such subject to extreme heat up. Extra cooling would be much appreciated too many users.

- The auto recording is not a setting, just a remembered state of when the camera was shut down, if you stop recording manually, shut down the camera and restart it, the camera does NOT restart automatic recording, you HAVE to start manually again. Besides it doesn't stop recording when the USB power is pulled.

- NO date and time in the image of the video, for evidence reasons with incidenst/accidents.

- Cycle recording deletes the oldest files when card is full. But what files? The ones in the other (older) folders, or just the current folder?? Come to think of it, this may ALSO be a reaon to save all files in ONE folder named VIDEOS. It would really solve a lot of confusion, frustration and programming effort, possibly leaving programming space for other useful features....!

- Audio is terribly out of sync

- freezing frames for no reason (but does continue after a few seconds)

- No real 30 fps (29, and in night recording it even drops to 24, sometimes even lower than that depending on the level of lighting in the image.... It doesn't have to and it shouldn't, it gets enough light as it is with the F1.2 lens!

- Home Wifi connection is nice for sharing and surveillance, but useless for the average action camera user...!

- Wifi direct/standalone is useless for changing settings, you can ONLY change that through your home wifi. WHO INVENTS THAT?!?!?

And we can't change:

- clip lenght
- 50/60 Hz
- auto/manual start-stop recording with external power
- audio on or off

AND we can't change all settings in direct/standalone mode, ONLY in home wifi connect mode..... Not cool.
 
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Just to be completely clear, the Youtube night clip is actually glued together from 2 clips, and run 29 fps, but that's what Moviemaker produced.

The original files are 24fps!!

The bottom of the camera is magnetic, and can be placed on a magnet, but careful, if you take a too strong magnet, the camera shuts off for some reason. So, the most common phone holder magnet is OK, so please make sure the magnet is not too strong.

As a matter of fact there is a mounting magnet included, but not very strong (for obvious reasons) so if you need strong mounting, use something else. In hefty environment the camera could fall of. You don't want to loose it while going 260 kph (or 400) on your Kawasaki Ninja, or Suzuki Hayabusa..... (y)

 
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Looks to be the same size as the GoPro Hero Session (38x38x36mm), so there should be plenty of mounting options available.
 
Looks to be the same size as the GoPro Hero Session (38x38x36mm), so there should be plenty of mounting options available.

some reviewers on YT also mentioned that.
 
as you can see in the picture, the camera uses variable framerate, and it seems to depend on the light coming in, the first 3 outside in bright sunlight, the last 3 inside my appartment, with sun coming into the room through the "blinds".

Notice it never reaches 30fps. In the first 3 clips there is considerable stutter, which you can see in the frame rate.

As you can see there is also a file containing 0kb, that's probably because it camt close to a strong magnet accidentally. It's not a camera bug I guess.


Schermopname (2503).png
 
In meantime I've discovered that the framerate drops even to 14-17 fps in low light, thats really a bad thing, it just has to do with the light metering, when I drive the motorcycle I seem to have plety light, but the car has other lighting (not so bright), and frames just plummet into the tens-range....

COME ON CADDX, FIX THAT FRAMERATE!!
 
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