Team-BHP - The Dashcam / Car Video Recorder (DVR) Thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by fusionbang (Post 3753434)

Why are you looking for the car splitter in XUV? it already has 3 charging points. I understand the 3rd row point cannot be used when you are driving alone. But you can use the 2nd row point to connect a charger and charge your phone. It can reach your cup holders in the front.

fusionbang, thanks for the reminder of the 2nd row charging point. Always sitting in the driver's seat, I completely forgot about that!

I have bought Lenovo MV60 car dvr from China. The build quality looks great and also the Lenovo brand gives some piece of mind.

The details can be found at the following link : http://overseas.jd.com/product/lenov...k/1302855.html

The total cost is 824 CNY ( ~8.4K INR) including a 64 Gb micro sd card & reader.

Anyone has used Lenovo car dvrs? Please feedback your experience in that case.
Once I am back in India, I will use and upload some sample videos.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SDP (Post 3765062)

Are there any reliable dashcams-DVRs, which can record 12-14 hours of footage without the need to change cards. Asking this question as my SJ4000 takes max 32GB card and that can just about manage 4-4.5 hrs of recording, which is problematic during interstate road-trips.

http://youtu.be/S6swIkYt9R4

Attaching this clip taken in 720p during a recent monsoon drive . The DOD LS430W records upto 10 hours in 720p on a 32GB card .Awesome product and I will always recommend DOD as compared to other cheaper brands available .

Have been using since close to 2 years and have never faced any issues . Off late , I have seen instances of a few videos being corrupted , but I would blame that to the card .

Full HD recording should be around 5-6 hours on a 32 GB card ( though I havent used Full HD entirely till date .

Amazon India now sells a newer model - DOD 460W along with other DOD models

Quote:

Originally Posted by SDP (Post 3765168)

Thanks Satya. By any chance DODs can handle 64GB cards?

Quote:

Originally Posted by speedsatya (Post 3765185)

The LS430W can support 64GB , but their website says the newer product LS460W supports upto 32GB

If any device supports 32GB cards, it should theoretically support bigger cards, just that you need to format the SD card as FAT32 instead of the default EXFAT file system on 64GB and above cards.

I'm using a 64GB microSD on my Sansa Clip+ (official max is 32GB) and 128GB SD on my head unit (again official max is 32GB) without problems.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SunnyBoi (Post 3766799)

If any device supports 32GB cards, it should theoretically support bigger cards, just that you need to format the SD card as FAT32 instead of the default EXFAT file system on 64GB and above cards.

Do bear in mind that support for 32 GB cards does not automatically imply support for higher capacities.

Check the device specifications to see if it supports the SDXC. If it supports SDXC then you should be able to use cards with capacity higher than 32 GB. If it only supports SDHC then you're limited to 32 GB.
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#SDXC

Quote:

The Secure Digital eXtended Capacity (SDXC) format... supports cards up to 2 TB (2048 GB), compared to a limit of 32 GB for SDHC cards in the SD 2.0 specification. SDXC adopts Microsoft's exFAT file system as a mandatory feature.

Also, exFAT is actually the recommended file system for SD/micro SD cards, its been optimized for such cards. So stick to exFAT instead of FAT32, you're limiting yourself by using FAT32.
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT

Quote:

exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table) is a Microsoft file system optimized for flash drives.
exFAT can be used where the NTFS file system is not a feasible solution (due to data structure overhead), or where the file size limit of the standard FAT32 file system is unacceptable.
exFAT has been adopted by the SD Card Association as the default file system for SDXC cards larger than 32 GiB.

Quote:

exFAT allows individual files larger than 4 GiB, facilitating long continuous recording of HD video which can exceed the 4 GiB limit in less than an hour. Current digital cameras using FAT32 will break the video files into multiple segments of approximately 2 or 4 GiB. With the increase of capacity and the increase of data being transferred, the write operation needs to be made more efficient. SDXC cards, running at UHS-I have a minimum guaranteed write speed of 10 MBps and exFAT plays a factor in achieving that throughput.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arunphilip (Post 3766861)

Check the device specifications to see if it supports the SDXC. If it supports SDXC then you should be able to use cards with capacity higher than 32 GB. If it only supports SDHC then you're limited to 32 GB.
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#SDXC

Also, exFAT is actually the recommended file system for SD/micro SD cards, its been optimized for such cards. So stick to exFAT instead of FAT32, you're limiting yourself by using FAT32.
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT

I'm very happy with using a 64GB card with FAT32 in my old MP3 player (made in 2007, using the card since 2012). Never had any problems and probably never will have any problems. Ofcourse your mileage will vary.

I get 20MBps write speeds on my 128GB SDcard formatted with FAT32 and 9MBps from my 64GB microSD card when copying from Windows. These speeds are more than enough for any practical use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SDP (Post 3765062)

Sorry, haven't read through the entire thread. Kindly point me to the post if this is already answered.

Are there any reliable dashcams-DVRs, which can record 12-14 hours of footage without the need to change cards. Asking this question as my SJ4000 takes max 32GB card and that can just about manage 4-4.5 hrs of recording, which is problematic during interstate road-trips.

So far the best solution I found for this is to keep a stock of 2 or 3 32 GB SD cards. That's what I did during my trip in May where sometimes I was driving for more than 5 hours at a stretch. Changing SD cards takes just a few seconds and you can do it every 4 hours of recording. If the device supports 64GB cards, then it is much better. If you can manage with 720p, then a 32GB card holds more than 6 hours of video.

Mods - I do not know if this is the right thread. If not, please move it.

Jugaad in the Crudest form :

An old Android [Dell XCD 35] was lying in the house and I decided to use it as a Makeshift Dashcam [ without any sim] , exclusively for recording. The phone would be mounted to the car itself.

I searched for a pertinent app and Autoguard Dashcam popped up with good user rating and hence installed it.

I bought a Car Mobile Holder and fixed it just behind the RVM to the Windshield after a long deliberation on various positions for getting the max. view without any hindrance to the lens. I say long deliberation because initially, I was apprehensive of the adhesiveness of the mobile holder stupid:

When I test-ran the car on autoguard app, the recording and other options were quite good but the biggest problem lay in form of the 'shift to emergency' mode ; any pothole or speed breaker on the path, the car shudders and the app asks to send an automatic call . This would not work anways since the phone did not have a sim. I tried it with different settings on sensor to see that the disturbances may be overlooked but with little luck.

Alternatively, I tried using the videocam though it eats up lots of memory. I am looking out for any loop recorder or dashcam app without the crash-guard settings.

Pros:
Practically free [ except for the mobile holder]
Satisfactory video quality

Cons:
Have to switch on/off it manually.
Charging using a separate usb cable [ though, the phone, without a sim, has massive power backup]

Though it does not provide all the services of the Dashcams of upmarket, it dons the role of a basic dashcam - recording the video lol:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G01z...ature=youtu.be

Any suggestions are welcome !

Quote:

Originally Posted by poised2drive (Post 3767447)

Jugaad in the Crudest form :

An old Android [Dell XCD 35] was lying in the house and I decided to use it as a Makeshift Dashcam

Good way to reuse old hardware. :thumbs up

Autoguard is good and I had used it for sometime on my phone as well. It let's you loop record and restrict memory available for storing the video files. IIRC it also has a stealth mode, where you could be using navigation, and it would continue recording in the background.

To accomplish auto start and shutdown, root it and install Tasker. You can then trigger the app (autoguard) on a power event.

Be sure to remove the phone from the car when parking for a longer duration or at an unknown place. Would prevent the chances of vandalism to the car.

But, I would still recommend going for a cheap dedicated dashcam.

Quote:

Originally Posted by poised2drive (Post 3767447)

the biggest problem lay in form of the 'shift to emergency' mode ; any pothole or speed breaker on the path, the car shudders and the app asks to send an automatic call . This would not work anways since the phone did not have a sim.

Emergency calls go through despite no SIMs. It needs just any network to call an emergency number, maybe you should find a way to disable dialing Emergency call numbers from the app or improve on the mounting.