Quote:
Originally Posted by hemanth.anand I'll be eager to see the resulting videos from your setup.
The problem with mobile cameras as dashcamera is that their view angle is less.
If you have any wide angle mobile camera lens, use it so that you improve the view angle
Even a new one should not cost more than 500bucks on ebay I guess |
Hi, I don't know whether you managed to sample the output from shajufx's experience, but I did a DIY using this app: here's my story.
As I've been subscribed to this topic for a while, I've have been following posts closely. Finally managed some DIY and here's my two pence worth:
I had an old Samsung S3 lying about (8MP camera capable of HD1080p@30fps). Wiped it clean with a factory reset, slotted a 16GB class 10 SD card, and installed
Autoboy Dash Cam - Blackbox. I've used the app with most of the default settings intact, except routing video storage to the SD card and tweaking video settings to a respectable HD720p@60fps in the interest of maximising recording quality and balancing space.
To complete the set up, I also bought a Stuff-cool magnetic dash/windshield suction mount (INR750) and a 1.5m USB charging cable (INR400-odd) to power the phone off the USB charger. Total spend: INR. 1647 (including the SD card at INR500-odd).
On a recent Pune - Mumbai run, I set it up and let it record throughout the drive. With the phone plugged into the USB charger, battery did not discharge at all right till destination. Caveat - I set the screen to dim automatically, so video recorded in the background without the phone display eating battery power and redundantly show on its display what was already visible through the windshield. (There isn't any SIM on this device, so perhaps power consumption was lesser as the S3 wasn't trying to hook to mobile networks all the time.) Other settings: Wifi was turned off, GPS was turned on. Although the app has an option to record sound, I turned it off as I didn't want the background score to document my un-parliamentary language interspersing Adam Levine's lyrics during the drive.
As the timing of the drive provided for varying daylight conditions (evening, twilight and night), I managed to sample recordings in varying light conditions. Please see the attached samples of the videos recorded (edited somewhat on the computer in the interest of saving to web, so original files are of slightly better resolution) for each light mode.
Evening 6pm-ish light conditions
Twilight 7:30pm-ish light conditions
Night 8pm-ish highway conditions
In terms of other operating results: the file size of saved videos varies from 450mb per five minutes for the daylight recordings to 250mb per five minutes in twilight and night recordings (resolution of 1280x720 in .mp4 format in five minute recordings). The app does a great job of seamlessly capturing video while automatically saving five-minute file clippings (you can set them for longer/shorter clips, the app beeps every five minutes when changing over one file to another while recording in the background mode, and the LED blinks to show its recording while the screen is turned off.). The entire sub-3-hour drive used about 8.7 GB on the SD Card. I presume it would be more if my drive had more daylight drive-time. The app lets you allocate the amount of space you want to use on your SD card for storing video clips and as I had set this to 15GB, I did not get to test the loop recording feature of the app since I used only 8.7GB and had space to spare on this particular drive.
Pros:
You can easily switch the entire setup between cars, or leave it plugged in forever (do remove your phone when parking in public places, temptation is best not offered!).
Provides for easy removal/re-installation and copying out the data onto your laptop, either via USB cable, Bluetooth or WiFi transfer.
It has some functionality wherein you can use it simultaneously with navigation/maps, but I haven't tried that yet. Multi-tasking is possible, you can check other apps / functions on the phone with this app recording in the background.
Recording Auto start and auto-off is easily configurable.
Automatic upload to YouTube is also possible (so be careful when setting this up, else it may eat data or auto-upload as soon as you get home to a WiFi network. I have this disabled.).
While recording, you can switch/toggle to the front-facing camera and capture what's happening inside the car as well, just in case you want your karaoke moment saved for posterity.
At the risk of testing its battery life, you can use this as a multi-function (a) in-car Bluetooth music player (b) navigation, and (c) Dash Cam, simultaneously.
Cons:
Can't think of any at this moment, am pretty satisfied with the setup. The only con I can think of is space running out on the 16GB, which would mean an upgrade to a 32GB SD card on this particular device. So while the current setup is great for everyday driving, longer highway runs may need more cards or a pit-stop to move data off to a laptop every two daylight hours or so if you want to capture the entire trip (unless you set it to lower resolution / tweak the configurations).
You would need a two-port charger to charge both your phone and run this setup on constant power simultaneously.
Concerns:
Phone overheating: This did not happen on this drive. Barring a little warmth (it wouldn't be uncomfortable to hold the phone in your palm), it didn't heat up. However, in the Indian Summer conditions with the phone mounted on the windshield and the sun beating down on it hard, I'm not sure if this would be a problem.
Conclusion: Its a decent use of old hardware that would otherwise get you about INR2k in the used-phone-market. Recordings are decent enough. The app records GPS coordinates and vehicle speed via a .srt file that displays as subtitles when you watch the video (I haven't uploaded these). Remember to not swear much at traffic if the mic is turned on!