[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

High Definition cars, Jayanagar 4th T block.
https://goo.gl/maps/TjfgpZFPo1Q2
On the pricier side, but installation is neat and reliable. Weekends, you may have to wait longer.

How much do they usually charge for installation?

Do they also sell the hardwire kit with fuse tap et al?

[shishir_bn]

Has anyone used Procus Car dash recently? This is available at Amazon.

Any feedback on the same would help. Just for the front side recording and not looking for rear recording. Also does this come with any App which can be used to download the video?

[quickdraw]

Thanks to the kind members on this group I chose to buy a Mini 2 and 70 Mai. I will use the 70mai in the back and hardwire the Mini2 to the front. I got a colleague to purchase these online in China and bring them down for me and both of them together cost ₹5200

[Guite]

What does hard wiring means in the context of dash cams?

[rdst_1]

Originally Posted by Guite

What does hard wiring means in the context of dash cams?

Giving the dashcam power ftom the battery through fuses which turn on with the ignition or in some cases even when car is off.
The simple method is to use a mobile charging/cigarette lighter port to provide power via a car phone charger.

[SCORPION]

Originally Posted by Guite

What does hard wiring means in the context of dash cams?

There are 2 issues with powering a dashcam:

1. Either your 12 volt power outlet, or a USB port will need to be used.

2. Unless you pull out the adapter each time, your dashcam could remain powered either throughout or until the power management system switches off the power automatically. How long it remains on after switching off the ignition depends on if its powered by USB port or the power outlet and again varies between different makes of cars.

As a result, you now have one power outlet/USB port permanently connected to the dashcam and so you have one less for other uses. Secondly, you have to remember to unplug the adapter each time, or, depending on your car, risk draining the battery if you don't use your car regularly.

Hardwiring means, powering your adapter directly from the passenger cabin fuse box using a fuse tap. You can buy Hardwiring kits online which consists of a fuse tap with an additional fuse for your dashcam, a female socket for your adapter, and a length of wire for the positive terminal and ground. All you need to do is to choose a suitably rated (amp) fuse in the fuse box. You need to identify which fuse you are going to use (10 amps is sufficient), and order the same rating of hardwiring kit.
You can do it yourself if you are a DIY guy. If not, any good accessory guy can do it for you in which case even the hardwiring kit might be available with him.

Once you have hard wired the dashcam, you have the following advantages :

1. All wires are now discrete, provided you have routed the power cable through the claddings, A-pillar and the roof lining.

2. Provided you have chosen a suitable fuse, power to the dashcam will switch ON/OFF depending on the ignition switch. You may also choose, if you so wish, to use a fuse which is always powered. Any self respecting dashcam is designed to start recording as soon as the power is ON without any human interference and will also shutdown/sleep once the power supply is turned off. So your dashcam becomes practically hands free.

3. You now have all your power sockets available for other purposes.

Edit: @rdst_1, you beat me to it!! I just realised I could have made it short and sweet like you have. Anyway, since I have typed so much, I will let it be.

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by Guite

What does hard wiring means in the context of dash cams?

What is it? Two members have explained in details
Why is it needed? Apart from freeing up your USB or 12V socket, Many people would want to record even the car is not running and parked. One of the reasons maybe for collecting proof of theft/vandalism. Many dashcams come with this parking mode feature where you can record either in timelapse or actual speed. Hardwiring ensures that the dashcam can draw power from the battery (Depends on if parking mode is enabled or disabled) even after key is removed.

[harsh79]

Originally Posted by Guite

What does hard wiring means in the context of dash cams?

Different ways to hardwire.

[Guite]

Wow, four responses. Thank you all for the enthusiastic responses. Now I understand it completely.

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

Hardwiring ensures that the dashcam can draw power from the battery (Depends on if parking mode is enabled or disabled) even after key is removed.

Or the way around. The 12v socket in the pre-facelift EcoSport is continuously powered so leaving the dashcam plugged in can drain your battery, as has happened with a few people.

Hard-wiring can be done such that the dashcam gets powered only when the engine is running. I personally prefer this.

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by libranof1987

Or the way around. The 12v socket in the pre-facelift EcoSport is continuously powered so leaving the dashcam plugged in can drain your battery, as has happened with a few people.

Hard-wiring can be done such that the dashcam gets powered only when the engine is running. I personally prefer this.

True, Ecosport is one of the few cars where 12V socket is never powered off. Especially if the car is rarely used, the battery draining risk is more.

Originally Posted by Guite

What does hard wiring means in the context of dash cams?

For comprehensive details about hardwiring, refer this post.
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/diy-d...r-dashcam.html (DIY: Hardwiring your Dashcam)

[paragsachania]

In the end, if you are using the Fuse-Tap method and still want to keep the Dashcam on 'All the times', you need to pick an empty fuse slot that is always on, meaning that there is 12v power in that slot irrespective of the mode the car is on - Parked, Accessories, Ignition, Engine Running etc.

[Mu009]

Originally Posted by Wanderers

I would suggest you to check Youtube reviews of Blackvue dashcams. That would give you a good idea about the pros and cons.
I like it for its discreetness, quality of material used including cables (digital to rear camera)
The dashcams mountings are fixed but you can still take them out while giving the car for service.
Blackvue also has live view streaming to your mobile anywhere in the world and one can even instruct the people/driver in the car.
There is only one switch/button on the camera (for SD card format) and you don't need to get physical with your dashcam, everything is programmable.
There are regular firmware updates and Blackvue have recently added time lapse parking mode on DR 750 and DR 900. This was one feature which Thinkware had since quite long.

DR 900 has new compression technology H.265 (high efficiency video coding) and thus 4K HD video uses the same space as 1080p.
Nevertheless you should consider higher capacity SD card based on MLC technology.
There are very limited option in MLC cards and cost a bomb. Apart from Blackvue Micro SD card, Transcend, San disk and Samsung have now come out with MLC based SD cards. San disk is cheapest but not preferred and its available up to 64 GB only.

I already knew most of this about the Black Vue - but you answered my query - what differentiates it. And it certainly helps to have an easily accessible and succinct list of the advantages. I'll wait and go for the DR900s when possible then. Thanks!

Also, I was confused about what SD card to go for, and unclear as to why the price increased quite so much with the SD Card (over on amazon.com) - thanks for clearing that up too.

I'm a big "believer" in H.265 myself - over the years I've converted as much of my video library as possible over to that format. That was one of the things that drew me to this camera after I dug in a little bit, post reading your recommendation.

For now, while I bought a stop-gap dash cam that'll be bequeathed to the city car once the Black Vue arrives. Unfortunately, I had some decision fatigue, so I missed out on the sleeker and cheaper Mini2 that has come up in two posts on this thread recently - wound up with the competent but bulky and slightly overpriced Transcend DP230/ It seemed an easy, safe choice. Ah well! Swings and roundabouts I s'pose.

Originally Posted by Guite

Wider FOV is achieved with lens, not sensor. So sensor size is not related to FOV.

This is going into the classic megapixel debate. 4K is just more pixels than FHD. It does not guarantee better picture quality per se.

Picture / video quality would depend on a lot of things: sensor size, sensor quality, lens quality, compression software, etc.

Being reasonably well versed with optics myself, I have absolutely no intention of starting a fruitless megapixel debate. But I beg to differ - FOV is relatedly intimately with sensor size.

[jagzrk]

Originally Posted by shishir_bn

Has anyone used Procus Car dash recently? This is available at Amazon.

Any feedback on the same would help. Just for the front side recording and not looking for rear recording. Also does this come with any App which can be used to download the video?

I have the Procus dashcam from Amazon. Bought it in October 2017 but had an issue with the LED Screen on the dashcam being unreadable. Procus guys promptly sent a replacement through Amazon itself, which is still working fine.

Although, the Procus dashcam is being used for Rear on my wife's car while the VioFo A119S does it's job on the front. The Procus video's number plate readability is a hit or miss, especially in dark where it's almost always unreadable. Otherwise it's pretty good even for usage as a primary cam considering it's cost. The car is always parked out in sun at work and the dashcam (obviously in off condition) took the 2018 summer heat well in a parked car.

There are good number of sample videos on Youtube for Procus Convoy that should help you decide better

[suku_patel_22]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

True, Ecosport is one of the few cars where 12V socket is never powered off. Especially if the car is rarely used, the battery draining risk is more.

That was the case of the pre-facelift EcoSport. In the 2017 EcoSport facelift, both the 12v sockets are switched off when the car's ignition is off. The front USB ports switch off when the car is locked.