why is the 522gw such trouble?

[Nextbase Support]

Movement of the vehicle should wake the camera up.

Please perform a Parking Mode test:

1) Plug the camera in using the USB cable. Ensure the Blue LED is illuminated and that the cam is receiving power.
2) Make sure the cam can record, you may need to select 'POWER ON' on the screen if plugged into a PC.
3) Ensure Parking Mode is turned 'ON'.
4) Put the camera on a flat, still surface.
5) Press the record button. The camera will start recording a normal file.
6) Now leave the camera still. After a period of inactivity, the camera will turn off.
7) Once the cam has turned off, shake it.

If the camera turns on and records with a padlock on the screen, Parking Mode is functional.

Kind regards,
Millie
Nextbase Technical Support

 

[SMG]

Ah, right, yes that works, so for the camera to start working whilst in parking mode, every time I use the car it records as if its been bumped, with a locked file, that works OK now, & thats probably why the SD card needs formatting regularly. Would I be correct?

 

[Nextbase Support]

Hello,

Absolutely. I've commented further here.

Kind regards,
Millie
Nextbase Technical Support

 

[kamkar]

The event files are often put in a locked folder, so the camera can not delete those as part of the overwriting routine when the memory card is full.
You have to do that manual, either by formatting the card in the dashcam, or on the computer, this could be a problem if you have many false events and or a small memory card.
It also depend on how the system are set up to handle the events / event folder, some older systems have no safeguards to you could fill the whole memory card with false events that can not be deleted and so have no room for regular driving files, and that would be bad, but i dont think newer systems are that bad / primitive.

Some brands level this problem of many event files taking up space by assigning XX % of the memory card to event recordings, and then also do overwriting of those once that segment is filled up,,,,,,, but there are room for plenty of events so dont appear to me as being a problem.
Of course as always you will want to keep the number of false events as low as possible ( one of the main reasons motion detect is not popular as that mode can generate terrible many false events )
In the cameras i have tested parking guard using my favorite low bitrate, those recordings are treated as regular files, and so will also be overwritten when the card is full and they are the oldest files present, this is also why i like to have G-sensor on while parked to at least lock the actual event itself if something happened.

My SG camera generated about 300 MB files for regular recordings ( for each of the 2 cameras ) in low bitrate parking modes the files are just 128 MB in size, so room for A LOT of those if you have a adequate sized memory card, and IMO if you use parking guard you should be using 256GB memory cards in a 2 channel system.

I now use my event button to lock events in traffic i want to share, and as events are at a minimum in my car, i can with ease just retrieve the events from the memory card event folder once every month, remember i do not use G sensor when driving and dont use motion detect, so events are rare in my car, using parking guard low bitrate + G sensor, most false events is from slamming the door when i get back into the car, they would also be there getting out of the car and slamming the door, but the camera have a delay in engaging parking guard ( set to 30 seconds ) so i can get out and slam the door before parking guard engage.

The getting back in car false G - sensor events from the door i could mitigate by turning on the car before i slam the door, but i keep forgetting to do that.

When working with individual files on the memory card it can cause problems if you delete a file here and there, or move files off the memory card to your computer, in the latter case copy the file from memory card to computer instead.