Dash cams, what to get and where to get it (Q&A only)

thebuzz

MiskyBoyy wrote: »

Just ordered the G1W CB from the genuine, reputable seller on e-bay listed here a few times.

Looking forward to receiving it now

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281702970175

It's funny how all the sample pics are from Ireland with Irish reg's etc lol

How does this work? There doesn't seem to be a thing for the cigarette lighter so what does it run on? The red and black wires look confusing to me .

I'm looking for a dash cam that's decent quality and easy to install if anyone could recommend one please, not too expensive either (looking to China for that really).

MiskyBoyy

thebuzz wrote: »

How does this work? There doesn't seem to be a thing for the cigarette lighter so what does it run on? The red and black wires look confusing to me .

I'm looking for a dash cam that's decent quality and easy to install if anyone could recommend one please, not too expensive either (looking to China for that really).

Oh no, it does come with a regular cigarette lighter plug too. That's just an extra bit bundled in for people like me who want to hard wire it into their car.

This is same dashcam without the extras, $5 cheaper:http://www.ebay.com/itm/Blueskysea-G1W-CB-Capacitor-Stealth-Vision-FHD-1080P-Car-Dash-Cam-DVR-Black-Box-/311363332652?hash=item487eb36a2c

& here's the store page for said dashcam with all different extras if you want any: http://stores.ebay.com/estore009/G1W-CB-/_i.html?_fsub=11153022013&_sid=846893523&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322

I'd recommend this cam btw, cheap and great quality video.

blabley

Based on this thread I'm looking to get the G1W CB, but does it have a button where I can save an incident? Then just carry on recording on a loop...

Hal1

Sure there would be a good review of it, try techmoans channel on youtube.

Anyhow I found out this for you:

5 minute loop means that it creates video files of 5 minutes. After the SD card is full (about 3:30 hours worth of recording in a 32gb card at 1080p) it records over the oldest file unless you protect the file (by pressing the mode button when it's recording, or twice if the screen is off and recording)

Sadly, you'll have to wait the 3 minutes, no way around it except flashing another firmware, which is a no-go on a capacitor based camera.

The licence plate function puts whatever you write on it next to the time and date on the video. Would look something like this (the AAAAAA part)

source: https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/g1w-cb-questions.13399/

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

Hal1

Did you format the card after upgrading the firmware? it's recommended to do so.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

Hal1

I have the 0801 and had to flash it (due to the known problems of it switching off after a short time and low speed card errors). I got a class 6 16gb off ebay and it's been fine since (touch wood).

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

MiskyBoyy

Thomas Powerful Lodging wrote: »

Good stuff - can you let us know how you get on with your camera (quality of picture, etc...) when you get it hooked up - thinking of buying one myself.

Hey there. I received my G1W-CB today. Just did a quick video shortly after receiving it to show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH4seaNZPEo

I'll try out different exposure settings etc. & maybe look into a polarizing filter to further help the quality in sunlight but at the moment it's very good.

This is also a still/screenshot from a video this evening:



Overall, I'm very happy with it,considering it costs less than €50 it's an absolute steal.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

5W30

Just ordered a Mini 0806 as an upgrade from my cheap GS8000L. Hopefully I get a decent model that works. Ordered from Amazon direct. €105~

AndyBoBandy

5W30 wrote: »

Just ordered a Mini 0806 as an upgrade from my cheap GS8000L. Hopefully I get a decent model that works. Ordered from Amazon direct. €105~

Try it out first, and if you feel it's a bit buggy, install the custom firmware from dashcamtalk

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

AndyBoBandy

MiskyBoyy wrote: »

Hey there. I received my G1W-CB today. Just did a quick video shortly after receiving it to show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH4seaNZPEo

The road/cars in the video appear quite dark, this is because almost 50% of what your camera is seeing is blue (bright) sky, therefore the camera is trying to compensate both by balancing the image (because the top of the image is so bright, it will darken to compensate, resulting in much darker cars/traffic).

I had the same issues when I first set up my camera, as I wanted as much 'useful' image as possible, but you soon realise that having half your video of the sky does nothing other than darken the road/traffic portion (bottom half) of the video.

Try tilting the camera down a bit so you see more of your bonnet (try to position the camera so that on a straight road, the cars ahead of you, along with the oncoming traffic are as close to the centre of the screen as possible).

You will see more bonnet, (and nothing happens on the bonnet), but I would rather see some bonnet with a good light balance, than no bonnet and a bright sky with everything else in the image very dark.

the only downside is you might get more screen reflection if the camera is pointed downwards, but a cpl filter will take care of that.

MiskyBoyy

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

The road/cars in the video appear quite dark, this is because almost 50% of what your camera is seeing is blue (bright) sky, therefore the camera is trying to compensate both by balancing the image (because the top of the image is so bright, it will darken to compensate, resulting in much darker cars/traffic).

Yeah you make a valid point. I was thinking of playing about with it to see how it differs. Would make sense alright.

I also want to try a polarizing filter too like I said earlier to see how that works for me. :cool:

blabley

Cheers for the feedback about the G1W-CB, ordered mine today... Mine will be going in a camper so will see what it looks like once it's in place as to if I need a filter or out.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

CreepingDeath

5W30 wrote: »

Just ordered a Mini 0806 as an upgrade from my cheap GS8000L. Hopefully I get a decent model that works. Ordered from Amazon direct. €105~

I just received my Mini 0806 this week, it was an upgrade from an old Oitez DP-R03 whose battery died/refused to charge.

Am very impressed I have to say, especially for $87.99.
It's the 3rd batch/generation of that model.

I would rather it had a suction mount, not a permanent sticker mount.
It came with a polarizing filter which is magnetic to optionally attaches in front of the lens, although it feels like it would fall off, but doesn't.

It has GPS, speed and time stamping, or can write those out to a separate text log file.

The video and sound quality is good and I could easily hear my own voice in the car.

I wasn't happy with the QTPlayer.exe movie viewer which was on the camera when it was mounted as a USB device.
It was slow, buggy, didn't show the maps etc.

So I tried this free dashcam movie player : RegistratorViewer

It completely transformed the dashcam playback, it's a must-have.
It could play the video up to 64x speed, it showed my position on a map and let me click on any point in my GPS trail to immediately show the video at that point.
It also had a graph of my speed and the 3-axis G-sensor.
I could click on any point of that graph to immediately see the video at that point. Certain speed bumps showed up as 1G spikes in the graph.

One problem for me, which may require re-positioning of the sticker mount, was that I got a lot of reflection from the windscreen in the video. I could see my own dashboard overlapping the bottom part of the image at times.
But I probably need to position the dashcam lens as close to the windscreen as physically possible.

But still, I'm very impressed so far.
It's also a clever mount with two sides where you can plug in the micro usb cable.

It didn't record the GPS for my commute home yesterday, possibly because I started out in an underground car park, but I powered it up this afternoon once I got out of the car park and it recorded the GPS track.

I had an old Lexar high speed 16Gb Micro SDHC card which worked in it, class 10.

Anyways, that's my review if it helps anyone.
Sorry, can't name the company I got it from, they're on boards naughty list.

martinr5232

CreepingDeath wrote:

Am very impressed I have to say, especially for $87.99. It's the 3rd batch/generation of that model.

Thats a good price. Were you got for any import duty ??

Any chance you could pm me a link for that site im looking to get another cam for her car.

CreepingDeath

martinr5232 wrote: »

Thats a good price. Were you got for any import duty ??

No import duty, free shipping from their EU warehouse.

vectra

CreepingDeath wrote: »

No import duty, free shipping from their EU warehouse.

Would be obliged if you could point me in the direction as well as I want to upgrade from my 0803.
Thanks

Irish Stones

CreepingDeath wrote: »

I got a lot of reflection from the windscreen in the video. I could see my own dashboard overlapping the bottom part of the image at times.
But I probably need to position the dashcam lens as close to the windscreen as physically possible.

I think it's a problem common to other model. My mini0801 shows the same thing, though much depends on the outside light, how the sun hits the dashboard and so on.

Could you please provide a frame of your videos just to see how the GPS data is shown on the image?
Thanks!

CreepingDeath

Irish Stones wrote: »

Could you please provide a frame of your videos just to see how the GPS data is shown on the image?
Thanks!

Sure.

I've attached a frame from the Mini 0806 video. This is at 2560x1080 resolution.
Very impressed with the "RegistratorViewer" software, when I took a snapshot of the current video frame it saved the filename with the exact video timestamp and also set the file creation date to that.

Definitely deserves a donation on their site.

Also, I think you can record the GPS data to a separate log file and not display it on the screen.
Just in case you don't want to document your exact speed if there were an incident caught on camera !
And the RegistratorViewer might be able to read that log file and create a subtitle file for the video, looked like it could do that.
So you could retrospectively add or subtract the GPS/speed to the video footage.
But I haven't tried any of that yet.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

Irish Stones

CreepingDeath wrote: »

when I took a snapshot of the current video frame it saved the filename with the exact video timestamp and also set the file creation date to that.

Thanks so much!
Strangely it shows your speed with a 3-digit figure rather than 2-digit when you're under 100km/h.
The time stamp on the video and time in the filename don't match, one hour difference. Is it due to a time zone setting?

Also, I think you can record the GPS data to a separate log file and not display it on the screen.
Just in case you don't want to document your exact speed if there were an incident caught on camera !
And the RegistratorViewer might be able to read that log file and create a subtitle file for the video, looked like it could do that.
So you could retrospectively add or subtract the GPS/speed to the video footage.
But I haven't tried any of that yet.

Yes, you can choose to have or have not your GPS data stamped on the video, but it saves the log file anyway in a separate folder. At least, this is what mine does. My mini0801 has a different font and position for the data, top-left, with typical "Chinese" font
Your is less invasive

CreepingDeath

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I suspect it might be clearer at slightly lower resolution.
When I zoom in, it the image seems a little noisy, but that might be the reflection from the dashboard.

Although it's supposed to support 1296P, that video says 1080P.
Will have to play around with the settings.

It came with a polarising filter you could put over the lens to reduce glare, darken the skies etc. So potentially existing dashcam owners might be able to get a polarizing filter from ebay and stick it on their own dashcams.

CreepingDeath

Irish Stones wrote: »

The time stamp on the video and time in the filename don't match, one hour difference. Is it due to a time zone setting?

Yes. I remember seeing an adjustment for -/+ hours for GMT offset I'd say.
Probably means manually altering it twice a year for daylight savings time.

vectra

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Much better than my 0803 as well.
Mine will be getting moved tot he rear window when I get one of these.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.