@safedrivesolutions created a great video showing the difference in parking mode. Under ideal lighting, you may capture the event needed, but at 1FPS time lapse, you're losing 29 frames a second over low bitrate (29.97 FPS). So there are far fewer frames to analyze if you don't capture that moment perfectly.
I'm not assuming here. That's just a fact.
As you can see in the above post, SafeDriveSolutions made a very good video about the 1FPS time-lapse. I don't think Ben can go out from the video frame in less than one second. If you have a dashcam with 1FPS time-lapse parking mode just park it on some supermaket parking or on some road and then study the videos to see if you can miss at least one car or one person.
More, than that, compared to other dashcam manufacturers, Viofo is offering more FPS options for the time-lapse parking mode, so if you will be afraid that Speedy Gonzales will be not captured after scratching your car you can chose the highest FPS from time-laps mode and check again. The biggest advantage of 1FPS is not more space on card for parking mode, but the SNV. Normally I would chose 3FPS or 5FPS, but because of he SNV, the 1FPS is the only attractive option for me if I want to chose the time-lapse mode.
And even more than more than that, Viofo also have a time-lapse mode for the normal driving mode. Compared to the parking mode, the speed on the normal driving mode is double, because it is summing the speed of dashcam car and the speed of the opposite car or pedestrian. In your opinion the 1FPS time-lapse option in driving mode is a disaster because nothing is captured.
I know also the people who are desperate to have 60FPS or even more FPS for driving mode just because they think they will capture more details, but in reality is no experiment proving that 60FPS is a clearly winner over 30FPS. In some video Vortex Radar made a short comparison of 60FPS vs 30FPS and in some moment the 60FPS won. But in others, dont. More than that, 30FPS is always better in low light than 60FPS or equal, but never 60FPS is better than 30FPS in low light. People are paying more money for 60FPS just because they are fooled by the marketing numbers and they like to be fooled because they don't know the facts, they are just assuming.
Never, never, a 60FPS night video will be better than a 30FPS HDR video from the same dashcam.
There will definitely be users who do not like the new parking mode or think it will not be functional. No need to worry. Users who are suitable for their own use will use this mode when the necessary conditions are met and will be satisfied. Other users can continue with the current parking modes.
The continuous parking mode is killing the car battery. Going with the car battery at 12V or 11.8V day by day will make your car battery life even shorter. More than that, actual products are designed to last at least the warranty duration which in Europe is 2 years. Years ago the car batteries were lasting longer.
I am using standard parking mode even it is time-lapse or low-bitrate because I like the car to be monitored all the time, but the Duration is set at 1 hour. Many places where I go I park the car about 1 hour so it is enough for me, but if life will change, I can increase this 1 hour duration. At home I have CCTV cameras and in my opinion these are the best for protecting your car when it is parked. Except when you want to see car license numbers, for this purpose, the dashcam is better but only during day. In low light is not useful even with HDR enabled in parking mode. Of course, at home I can have a CCTV camera with optical zoom so I can point it just around my car and with its IR LEDs to hope I can capture also the license plates. But I need to park the car exactly at the same spot.
Of course you can tell me that you can put the voltage cut at 12.4V. But how many hours will record your dashcam with this voltage cut? If you will want one night recording I guess it will not cover all night even the car battery is new. For example when the car battery is new, the Low bitrate parking mode maybe can last 6 hours until it reach 12.4V. But after 6 months it will last only 4 hours and so on.
So, what will you do at that moment? Lower the voltage cut? Accept less and less hours for parking mode?
But after 2 years when you will observe that even you put the voltage cut at 11.8V the parking mode can not last more than 1 hour? Your car engine is starting OK, battery is enough for this and if not using dashcam in parking mode you can still use that tired battery for more than 6 months.
So, you will look for a solution.
At that moment you can have some solutions:
1. buy a dedicated battery pack, maybe about $400. Even with that, you need to drive at least 45 minutes daily. For shorter driving periods you need another solution and this can be the low energy parking mode
2. accept that the car battery must be replaced each 2 years and replace it. A normal car battery is not expensive these days but other types are expensive. But you will always have your parked car protected by the dashcam.
3. when you start to feel that the car battery is not so good as before and you will want to save some money, you will chose the low energy parking mode even you like more the low bitrate parking mode.
As a summary, a new option for parking mode as was described by me can save some money. And it can be even better by an improved firmware.
