Why does the a129 only save 1 minute files?

[Danky Franky]

Is that normal? Is there a way to change that so it records one long file? I want to record an hour of my trip up the coast. will that have to be 60, 1 minute files?

 

[CaptureYourAction]

Change the looping time. 1 min is the default.

 

[Danky Franky]

Change the looping time. 1 min is the default.

Thank you!

 

[Vlad1977]

Don't forget that these files get very large, very fast. This means that instead of 60 files that are 100mb, you will have 12 files of 500mb for a 5 minute loop.

The consideration with this is that each file will take longer to transfer and so no / less feedback during the transfer. Also, if something happens during one of the transfers, it will have to restart. Shouldn't happen, though.

I use dashcamviewer that re-plays them as if it's one file. If you wanted to stitch them together into one file, it would be a very large file and it would probably need to be done on an NTFS drive and not fat32. There are tools to do this or you may be able to binary copy / merge them in Windows.

Just some info you might find useful or should consider

 

[DT MI]

Another factor to consider when setting the file size (loop time) is if a larger file becomes corrupt for any reason you'll be losing more data - i.e. 5 or 10 minutes of video versus 1 minute. It's a compromise between file size and data security. Everyone has their own priorities so there's no one correct setting.

 

[SawMaster]

I've not tried the A129, but with all the cams I've used they seem to record more reliably with a shorter file time versus the longer options. I can't explain why, just what I've seen. For viewing many players can sticth vids together seamlessly even if there's a small overlap between files which is how many cams work. And of course that can be done with most vid editing platforms.

Phil

 

[Paul Iddon]

I think most users set loop time to 3 minutes.

Paul.

 

[harriska2]

I use Final Cut Pro (or imovie) to simply put them together.

 

[DAP]

4 GB File size limit on FAT32 filesystems requires video be split into a bunch of smaller files. exFAT supports larger files, but requires a license fee to use, so it is rare to find a camera that will use exFAT. SD card specification forbids the use of anything but exFAT for any card larger than 32GB, so you must re-format larger cards to FAT32 for them to work in a dash cam.