Two or Three Camera System for a Ute (Light Pick Up Truck)?

I went for a night drive with the A119S for the first time tonight. The footage is pretty garbage. Looks like the tint will have to be cut (I verified the part number with the manufacturer and it's 35% tint). I walked past the rear of the tray a couple of times on purpose to see if I was identifiable in the video but I'm really not - when the video starts, there is a streetlamp almost directly across the road. The footage gets a bit better when I reach the main street, which has better lighting. Here is the first segment of film from the drive:

 
I've got a reversing camera mounted just below the tailgate and the lens seems to stay clean and condensation free. I did give it a layer of wax.

The one under the tray still gets a better angle, so it's not off the cards but if I can get the rear windscreen one to work well enough on its own, I'll be happy.
 
The A119S has been playing up a bit.

Recording stops at random intervals. It has happened 5 times out of 10-15 drives. The first time it turned back on after about 30 seconds, the rest of the times it has just stopped outright.

At first I thought it might have been an issue with the cheap two way adaptor I was using for the cigarette lighter, that's why I didn't post about it here, but it has continued after I've stopped using that (dashcam is the only thing plugged in). I have had the other end of the cable plugged in to the GPS mount rather than the actual camera, I am going to see what happens if I plug the cable into the camera itself. If that doesn't fix it, I guess it's a good thing I bought from a vendor within Australia that fulfils warranty locally...
 
The A119S has been playing up a bit.

Recording stops at random intervals. It has happened 5 times out of 10-15 drives. The first time it turned back on after about 30 seconds, the rest of the times it has just stopped outright.

At first I thought it might have been an issue with the cheap two way adaptor I was using for the cigarette lighter, that's why I didn't post about it here, but it has continued after I've stopped using that (dashcam is the only thing plugged in). I have had the other end of the cable plugged in to the GPS mount rather than the actual camera, I am going to see what happens if I plug the cable into the camera itself. If that doesn't fix it, I guess it's a good thing I bought from a vendor within Australia that fulfils warranty locally...

This thread sounds like the same issue: https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/a119s-v2-failing.28864/
 
Have you taken a closer look at the SD card, they are often the reason a camera become flaky.

Run H2testw on it, or similar HDD storage benchmark/test program.

I had brand new original brand sd cards die / go weird on me even before i got to fill them up one time, things like this just happen from time to time, but thankfully its not often cuz i have a bunch of memory cards.

Had to RMA cards from just about any brand in my arsenal, with kingston being the RMA leader, but thats due to me not having anything else at one time, and if you only have kingston then its kingston cards that will fail sooner or later.
 
Have you taken a closer look at the SD card, they are often the reason a camera become flaky.

Very first drive after I swapped the cable from the mount to the camera itself, it quit just as I pulled out from the curb, so next step is a new memory card.

On the plus side, I now have some daytime footage of myself walking past the back of the tray and I'm very easy to identify, hopefully the same results are yielded at night if there's no tint in the way, although I feel I should try this with the camera mounted on the front windscreen before I commit to cutting the tint.
 
I captured the high point of my driving career, it's all downhill from here:


Seriously, though, with the tailgate off, I can read way more number plates, it seems like the sweet spot is only just blocked.

Also, as expected, it's pretty worthless with a load on the tray, and this load isn't even much taller than the tray sides ("dropsides"):


That's the only footage I got of that trip, it cut out again.
 
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Yeah the load will just add to the problems.

Maybe you shouldent focus so much on plate capture and just general behavior out back, which i think the camera will capture alright leading up to a potential crash with you.
If anything happening originating from behind, most likely some one sleeping and hitting your rear head on, or a idiot updating facetwitt and then sideswiping you.

What ever both will claim to get off or shift blame, should be easy dis-proofed even just by your front camera alone.

But off course for use on youtube to really underline the idiots out there a glorious in your face non interrupted HD recording are the best, but still what you have are not half bad.
What annoy me the most in your current recordings are that grading behind your rear window, but a more narrow lens will let you "zoom" better into a opening, though i dont think it will ever be possible to overcome that with a lens as that grading are probably some distance from your rear window.

Even with hit and run on the rise here in Denmark i dont really bother much with plate capture, only place where i use it are in testing and that will be in the best of conditions as in anything less than that then all dashcams will struggle and plate capture will be down to a small set of circumstances coming together to make it happen in low light.
 
Have you taken a closer look at the SD card, they are often the reason a camera become flaky.

When buying a new card, should one look for faster write speed or any other particular features? Or just be sure it's a genuine branded card, not a fake? The one I've been using is a 32GB Samsung EVO. It's genuine, but it had already seen a fair bit of use in my old phone. Should the files be in a particular format? It's in the default FAT32 at the moment.
 
When buying a new card, should one look for faster write speed or any other particular features?....
Class 10 should be more than adequate for any current dash cam.

...Or just be sure it's a genuine branded card, not a fake?....
That's important for sure. Check other postings for specific cards that are known to work - either in general or specifically with your camera. Keep in mind that manufacturing/design changes over time so a card that worked previously may not function the same when a 'new generation' comes out.

...The one I've been using is a 32GB Samsung EVO. It's genuine, but it had already seen a fair bit of use in my old phone.....
All cards have a limited life span so that could be an issue.

...It's in the default FAT32 at the moment.
To the best of my knowledge all dash cams need FAT32. Some will offer to reformat if it's not - others may just get 'flaky'.
 
A regular class 10 U1 should be fine, only think are the sandisk cards that can be problematic in some dashcams.

My arsenal are made up of. Lexar - Toshiba - Kingston . Trancend - PNY and i am looking for a way to add some Samsung cards too.

If you have a Amazon.au that will be a good place, or maybe some local store where you can do a little online shopping.
I would not go outside for a little think like this, though i sort of do myself, but only within EU so i still have a fairly good chance of warranty.
And then its always a Amazon, and those guys are fast if a card go bad, almost having a new card in my mailbox before i get to ship them ( on their expense ) the broken card.
 
Samsung has recently made changes to it's "EVO" line but older ones should serve you very well until they wear out. I've got one like yours which has given me 2-3 times it's expected lifespan so far and it still tested 100% when I last checked it half a year ago. IMHO one of the top 2 or 3 SD cards there is for cam use (y) (y) (y)

Phil
 
I just had the 128 Gb Toshiba U3 card in my phone flip on me, but so did the phone to a degree i had to factory reset it.

And the Toshiba card are are also operational again but it had lost its "log of system" so it had to be formatted.

I an now in the process of loading a little bit of the card up with 8000 pictures of cute girls to again be my live wallpaper. :happy:
 
Some day soon I'm going to move the A119S to the front windscreen, which has no tint, and test it at night with the headlights off and stand the same distance away from the camera as the rear of the tray in the current configuration and see if I'm recognisable. This will make or break the rear windscreen placement, I'll either cut the tint and reinstate the camera in the rear or leave it in the front and forget the tray-cam idea.

The current memory card was consistently testing with no errors on my computer but the issue of recording cutting out appeared to be getting worse. I installed the latest firmware - it is the same version it had, but I reinstalled it... and the problem seems to have mostly disappeared but the GPS information never appears in all the footage thus far and it also behaved a little bit oddly at one point:

I went for two drives of ~40 minutes and it never cut out completely but at one point, the screen turned on, which I noticed, and the red dot that signifies recording was off. Upon reviewing the footage, I discovered that 16 seconds was missing. The recording before the cutout was 2:51 instead of 3:00, but the clock shows that there is 16 seconds missing before the next segment begins, not just 9. A bit odd.
 
I've fitted the A119s at the front and worked out I've got to stand exactly one metre from the nudge bar to replicate the distance from the camera's position in the rear windscreen to the back of the tray. Now I've just got to wait for dark.

As well as where I live, I'll drive somewhere where there's no street lights and I'll go at about 7:00 because sunset is at ten to five and the moon rises at nine.
 
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I've fitted the A119s at the front and worked out I've got to stand exactly one metre from the nudge bar to replicate the distance from the camera's position in the rear windscreen to the back of the tray. Now I've just got to wait for dark.

As well as where I live, I'll drive somewhere where there's no street lights and I'll go at about 7:00 because sunset is at ten to five and the moon rises at nine.

I didn't end up driving somewhere where there are no street lights, I feel that the footage I got in my own street tells me enough (TL;DR, it's not good enough).

While far better than in the rear with the tint, the footage wasn't really good enough for my liking. The reflection of the lights on my stereo head unit affected the footage somewhat, but even if I account for this, I can only get a general impression of what I look like in the footage. I recognise the way I move and walk, etc., but without these cues, it's not undoubtedly me. I've got a shade to install above the head unit already because the sunlight makes it appear dim and hard to read during the day, I just haven't fitted it yet.

I got some footage with some condensation on the windscreeen and in the second video I use the wipers at the beginning. Surprisingly, the first of the two segments (with the condensation) seems better, though.


 
Hehe yeah at night like that you will see no facial features if things are not standing still, you will be hard pressed to tell of its a male or a female.
So at night all you can expect to get are colors of intersections, lane / road side markings and then more or less recognizable shapes of this and that.

But even that little will be fine to disproof whatever claims some dumb ass will come up with after he sideswiped you while doing facetwitt on the phone.
 
UPDATE

A couple of weeks ago, the A119S reverted to it's factory defaults without me doing anything and the problem with the recording stopping at random returned. I feel that the whole point of default software is that it should be stable, so I have returned the camera. In a sense, I'm back at square one, but I know a whole lot more than I did when I was at square one the first time around.

I will update again when I get something else (maybe another one the same, we'll see) and report on how it works. I still haven't got an exterior camera for the towbar either, but I'll get there eventually.
 
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