Why Can't I Find a Dash Cam That Records 4k at 60fps?

Strike3

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My phone does it, why shouldn't a dashcam?
Then you would have high resolution, low motion blur and realistic motion.
It would be much better for things like capturing license plates in accidents.
The technology exists to do it, and with so many dashcams on the market, it's surprising that none (that I can find) will do this.

Or is there somewhere specific I should be looking?
 
Motion blur is controlled by shutter speed, not FPS.
From an evidence point of view there is no advantage to 60fps for dashcam video.
You need to be on a racetrack for 60fps to be really useful.

The main reason is cost, your phone probably cost a lot more than any dashcam, and it will perform very poorly when used as a dashcam in the dark.
 
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As Nigel say 60 FPS only eliminate motion blur in the sense that 1:60 second then is the slowest exposure the camera can use, and while that is 2 X faster than the 1:30 second a 30 FPS camera can and will drop to, then in that end it dont really matter much if there are any motion faster than a toddler can crawl.

If you are comparing to action cameras, then you probably also know that heat are a substantial problem and some will even do a thermal shut down if you try and record one big take.
My osmo action get almighty warm on the metal parts around the lens and what are supposed to be a heat sink on the front of the camera, but i have not seen a shut down myself.
The windscreen in a car are something else than on something moving or a stick at least, at least you most often have some airflow, more than you normally have in a car unless you have everything on full tilt.

I have also compared 2 similar 1080 cameras, one with 30 FPS and the other with 60 FPS, and if there was any difference in the two in regard to plate capture it was extremely marginal, so my at the time notion that 60 FPS was the future of dashcams was put on hold.
I am more inclined to think HDR will be better for dashcams than 60 FPS, but i have not yet seen good HDR in a dashcam
 
The main reason is cost, your phone probably cost a lot more than any dashcam, and it will perform very poorly when used as a dashcam in the dark.
cost is less of an inhibitor than overheating is, yeah the phone will record 4K60fps, for a while
 
I work with video cameras for a living, so I'm familiar with how frame rates and shutter speeds affect the image and motion.

Motion blur is less likely to occur when you have more frames per second. You would have to be moving really fast in relation to the camera or use a much slower shutter speed than you would at 24fps or even 30fps.

Fast-moving objects are generally more likely to be captured cleanly with a faster frame rate.

Also it looks more realistic.
 
cost is less of an inhibitor than overheating is, yeah the phone will record 4K60fps, for a while
My phone works great at shooting 4k 60fps in bright sunlight, and in my car I mount it by the air conditioner so it doesn't overheat.

As far as cost, I don't even see any expensive ones that do this.
 
I work with video cameras for a living, so I'm familiar with how frame rates and shutter speeds affect the image and motion.
Works differently in dashcams!

Normal video cameras set shutter speed based on frame rate, dashcams don't.
A dashcam will happily use a shutter speed of 1/2000th of a second in good light even at 30fps.
 
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Also it looks more realistic.
Because of the inertia of cars and the Earth, if you interpolate 30fps video into 60fps on playback then it looks identical to what 60fps would have. Yes, it is nice to have 60fps for smoothness, but from an evidence point of view it is not necessary and wastes some card space.
 
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My phone works great at shooting 4k 60fps in bright sunlight, and in my car I mount it by the air conditioner so it doesn't overheat.

As far as cost, I don't even see any expensive ones that do this.
it's not about price, even the 4K30fps cameras that are in the market overheat, making a product that you need to mount by the air conditioner so it doesn't overheat isn't a practical solution as I'm sure you could appreciate
 
it's not about price, even the 4K30fps cameras that are in the market overheat, making a product that you need to mount by the air conditioner so it doesn't overheat isn't a practical solution as I'm sure you could appreciate
It could be made to work, but installing a refrigeration compressor, radiator and pipework in addition to the hardwire kit would be expensive - it is down to cost! It could probably be achieved with a heatpipe, radiator and fan, plus remote microphone to avoid picking up the fan noise, but nobody is going to buy that.
 
It could be made to work, but installing a refrigeration compressor, radiator and pipework in addition to the hardwire kit would be expensive - it is down to cost! It could probably be achieved with a heatpipe, radiator and fan, plus remote microphone to avoid picking up the fan noise, but nobody is going to buy that.
Idunno, I'm not that interested in the sound most of the time, and air conditioner mounts are already cheap, convenient, and work pretty well for cooling down phones...
 
I laughed my ass off when Linus put water cooling on a 8K RED camera :ROFLMAO:
I have my phone docked off a fixed glass on the front part of my driver side door, on a mount made out of a old SG2 dock and a universal dock from Brodit.
And it sit right in front of the vent so in the winter as i do not like cold the phone are cooking, and in summer not cold that much as my little car dont have AC
 
I work with video cameras for a living, so I'm familiar with how frame rates and shutter speeds affect the image and motion.

Motion blur is less likely to occur when you have more frames per second. You would have to be moving really fast in relation to the camera or use a much slower shutter speed than you would at 24fps or even 30fps.

Fast-moving objects are generally more likely to be captured cleanly with a faster frame rate.

Also it looks more realistic.
More frames per second means less exposure time - darker picture. Most cameras that advertise 60fps will actually shoot at 30 and double each frame when there is not enough light.
 
My phone does it, why shouldn't a dashcam?
Then you would have high resolution, low motion blur and realistic motion.
It would be much better for things like capturing license plates in accidents.
The technology exists to do it, and with so many dashcams on the market, it's surprising that none (that I can find) will do this.

Or is there somewhere specific I should be looking?
So, turn your phone into a dash cam and see how well it performs. Play around with a suitable mounting arrangement and perhaps.. you can sell the concept.
 
LOL:LOL: I can easily list a dozen reasons to choose a dashcam instead of a phone even if you can't get 4K60fps. Always someone coming along who suggest things they aren't fully understanding of... just a normal day here on DCT:cool:

Dashcams have always lagged behind the leading edge technology and always will. Today's offerings are more than sufficient for the purposes we need dashcams to do for us even if somewhat better is possible. Nothing is going to change this except for someone new to design and sell a cam with the specs they want, and that's not going to be a cheap or easy endeavor. Most who have tried this approach have failed for various reasons :(

Even as simple as they may seem to be, making a good dashcam isn't easy at all, and they require considerations far beyond what phones, professional video cams, and DSLR's need. Totally different game even if all these are essentially just video recorders ;)

Phil
 
Well, using my phone as a dashcam is actually something I've been meaning to test further. Every now and then I try just letting the camera run on the mount while driving, and it seems like it works pretty well, but I haven't tried letting it run for a two-hour drive or so because I don't want to use up all my storage or subject it to too many writes or anything like that because I use my phone for a lot of other important stuff.

Also, ideally it would have dashcam features like cloud upload and records that automatically roll over. I know there are a few dashcam apps, but the last one I tried wasn't a great program, and sometimes you can't be too sure what app developers are doing with your data. I'll probably keep messing around with it though.
 
DR 900X does it all, but not 4K60. Thinkware has cams which can be set up for great connectivity. And more cams like these are coming. These do some things for you that no phone I know of can do which can be mighty useful for a dashcam.

Phil
 
4K/60 will probably also be here soon, it seem to be the natural progression of things, both in sell and forget cameras and more dedicated brands.
It will however not be a focus point for me personally.

In this regard the remote systems i like so much will be optimal as you can have the heat generating part out of the sun, and you can pretty much put on as large a cooling solution as you need as physical size are almost inconsequential.
 
4K/60 will probably also be here soon, it seem to be the natural progression of things, both in sell and forget cameras and more dedicated brands.
It will however not be a focus point for me personally.
The 60fps for a resolution normally arrives with the next resolution, so we got 1080P60 when 2K arrived, we got 2K60 when 4K arrived, so we will get 4K60 when 8K dashcams arrive...

I don't think that will be anytime close to soon.

Alternatively we may get a 4K60 dashcam when 5 channel cameras arrive, but which only works if you don't use a couple of channels.

Not sure 5 channel cameras will arrive soon either... unless there is demand?
 
If anyone make a 8K dashcam, i hope i will be dead before that happen. CUZ something like that i will find a waste, first and foremost i think it is a matter of getting low light performance up to par again, something that have dropped off with the 2 and 4K cameras.
Even if they are sort of okay, i would prefer better low light performance in current relevant resolutions over more pixels.
 
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