After owning several Dashcams, and looking at multiple reviews of new Dashcams over the years, I'm still disappointed with the offerings out there. A lot of Manufacturers don't even seem offer all of the features people really NEED in a Dashcam, particularly ALL of these being in the ONE unit.
What I would really like to see in a Dashcam (and all together) is:
- A dedicated H265 encoder built in.
- 1080P.
- NO Fish-Eye effect (ie: curved corners on the recorded Videos) Pay attention Blackvue... the DR900S 4K unit in particular! 160 degrees Field Of View (FOV) would be a sweet spot for me.
- Super Capacitors - NO Batteries (I live in Australia, which gets VERY hot summers and inside car temperatures DO get hotter than 80 degrees Celcius in some places in a very short time!).
- A reliable Bluetooth transmitting Rear Camera (my car key Fob WON'T work when using a Rear Camera Cable run around inside my car - top, bottom, or even hanging! Believe me, I've tried everything. I currently use a VIOFO A129 Duo *, for those who are curious.)
- A good microphone that can record sounds outside the car (to a limited extent) with the windows down.
- Able to have an optional CPL Filter attached (this helps reduce glare from the Sun and car headlights to some degree at night).
8. (OPTIONAL) A realistic "Parking Mode". That is, Buffered recording (5 to 15 seconds before an event happens), that starts automatically, can record audio as well while this is going on, and have the ability to record at 30 frames per second when recording the event to your SD-Card if something happens. I currently just let my Dashcam keep recording as normal when I leave my car, although it would be nice to save a little bit of power and storage space by having a proper "Parking Mode" feature that you don't have to remember to turn on and off each time...
Now, I've deliberately specified
1080P instead of 4K for a couple of reasons:
a) 1080P encoded at H265 with a
dedicated chip in real-time will produce a sharper picture to be written to your SD-Card because there are less pixels in the video to process. There would be more "artifacts" in a 4K Video than in a 1080P Video because there are more pixels to process on-the-fly - and also while in a moving vehicle, which as we all know, makes things hard to read in the playback of a Video.
b) H265 compression also means less space is taken up on your SD-Card.
c) A dedicated chip for the H265 encoding makes a LOT of difference. Anyone who has ever used a Logitech C920 HD Webcam will know what I mean - these things have a dedicated encoding chip (although it encodes at
H264, not H265!) so your CPU doesn't have to compress the video on-the-fly when you are using "Skype" with someone. (The difference is like Night and Day - see it for yourself if you don't believe me!)
d) Encoding and recording the Video at 1080P will also consume less power than doing the same for 4K Video (Important for those who want to use a Battery supply for their Dashcams).
And, let's face it - even with 4K Video Dashcams available out there now, you STILL can't make out much at night time (License Plates, etc) when the vehicle is moving!
Please tell me if something like what I've described above already exists.
* = Even my current VIOFO A129 has a "Fish-Eye" lens, which I've discovered after buying it (which I hate).
Thank You