Thinkware Format Free Info

[reverend]

This is about the most technical information I've found on it yet (it's still basic but gives you an idea):

http://thinkwarenorthamerica.blogspot.ca/2015/05/live-life-hassle-free-with-format-free.html

Basically it's not a standard Windows file format so I'm guessing the viewer software must install a filesystem driver to stop Windows from wanting to format the card every time you insert it.

It doesn't seem to be in the Ambarella based cameras - only the Cortex ones so guess they've got their own filesystem filter driver on those and the Ambarella cameras are just standard FAT32 or exFAT (not sure which they support as it's SDK dependant but more than likely both).

 

[jokiin]

I guess this then ties you to a specific viewer to playback the files?

 

[reverend]

Exactly mate - I doubt they've written a Windows file system driver but saying that it's a possibility otherwise Windows would want to format the card whenever it sees it inserted!

Not sure if we have anyone here with one of these cameras but they could confirm either way

 

[reverend]

Also potentially locks you into the supported viewer operating systems too so Linux people may be out of luck - OSX too if it's not supported

 

[jokiin]

I'm just thinking it then makes it more difficult to hand someone an incident file or similar, your insurance company, authorities etc

 

[reverend]

Yeah it wouldn't be possible - I'm assuming they'll all be using locked down pcs where they can't go installing random software so they'd more than likely format the card by accident! It's a great idea but technically challenging for playback definitely.

It probably would only actually work with CBR files as if you don't know the file size in advance it would end up fragmented like FAT (unless they allocate a buffer between every segment which loses usable space). Cards with data leveling may throw the good work out the window too.

Another option would be a CBR camera with custom code that writes standard FAT32 file tables and leaves a slight buffer between each file section to handle slight variations and then it would just overwrote each chunk with video data and then update the file table. Same concept but would read back on everything. Maybe this is what they've done?

Don't Ambarella support contiguous writes anyway in the SDK now?

 

[jokiin]

I notice on the page you linked about this they mention how great this is as it means no more going through that time consuming format process every two weeks

sounds more like something introduced to try and fix other problems and they're selling it as a feature

 

[reverend]

Marketing love seeking sticking plasters when root cause is too hard!

 

[jokiin]

for sure firmware problems can drive you nuts but I wonder what the thinking is at times

 

[niko]

The very first format-free dashcam I saw over year ago was Blacksys BH-300 if I remember correctly it uses Cortex. Since then there were few others Korean brand dashcams based on Cortex and using formatless function, so @reverend theory should be correct.

 

[jokiin]

I think formatless is a bit of misnomer really, they make it like it has some sort of magic file system

 

[bobby14]

Somebody posted RAW F750 files and it's just MP4 format and my Windows 7 laptop with nothing special plays it fine in windows media player.

 

[reverend]

The F750 doesn't use format free as it's an Ambarella solution.