I have been wondering about fitting a Dash Camera to my car. I was surprised to find that the Nextbase cameras that I was looking at only hold at most, the last three minutes of picture data apart from data that has been specically saved.
Has anyone got Dash Cam and if so do you look at the recordings very often? Would you buy another one if the one you have failed?
on 04/02/2022, Michael Chare supposed :
It maybe depends on the size of memory card you fit and the resolution, mine stores around 5 or 6 hours, of both front and rear views, before beginning to over write. I can press a button, to have it permanently save a section of video from being over written.
Let's explore this....
You have a dash cam that shows the last month of your driving. That proves, on analysis, that you exceeded the speed limit on say 50 occasions before you have a big collision. How, exactly, is that helpful (to you, rather than the police)?
My nextbase saved Gbytes/hours of data. It saves in blocks of X minutes and then continues with the next block. It has a G force detector and if triggered writes protects X minutes of data prior to the trigger. Once the sd card becomes full the most historic data is then overwritten.
I don't look at the recordings however I've not had an accident or incident where I've needed to.
There are multiple examples on Ebay showing dash cam videos of accidents and of false insurance claims (staged accidents ).
And when you have an accident that is not your fault....
are people selling them? Oh, perhaps you mean YouTube not Ebay?!
My dashcam managed to miss a fox running across the road, and (more worryingly) a dog that ran out and I hit. Luckily I was emergency stopping at the time and it scampered off.
Picking through the footage a frame at a time and there was no sign of either event - even though the emergency stop triggered the recording lock.
On the footage with the fox, you can hear me and SWMBO both saying in unison "Is that a f****ng fox ?" on the audio. But on the video - nada.
It's made me a lot more sympathetic to people who insist they saw something that CCTV doesn't bear out.
(I believe there may be an issue with the SD card and frame rate. All of which tells you these things are more complex than they seem).
Not sure why cars these days don't come with dashcams (or a slot for an SD Card) as standard, really.
Mine didn't
Which dash cam do you have?
Yes, indeed. Many cars come with forward-facing cameras for speed limit/lane/etc. recognition, and rear-facing cameras for reversing. It shouldn't be rocket science to provide a way of recording the output from these cameras.
Michael Chare presented the following explanation :
It came under various names, direct from China many years ago. Not available now..
The dashcam itself holds three minutes, but you always put a memory card in it and then holds hours and hours. Buy a nice big-capacity memory card, and get it with the dashcam, to be sure it's compatible.
I have three, one for each vehicle. I've never had to use one in anger, but I often do look at the recordings for various reasons:
I wouldn't go on the road without a dashcam. I regard it as essential. I think Nexbase is the best make.
Bill
The simple solution is to drive in a responsible manner.
Bill
I have a NextBase 520GW. It takes an SD card. It records the last 6-8 HOURS of use.
You may be reading it wrongly, or had an ambiguous description from some supplier. There is a 3 minute limit, but that applies to the camera 'locking' the last 3 minutes before a collision so that it won't be overwritten until you release it.
And the letter turns up just after that file was wiped to make space for the next recording (Sod's Law, of course).
Always useful, even if it turns out it /wasn't/ your fault.
I use it now and again to identify an unusual car. The last time was for the Morgan 3-wheeler remake.
I've just been looking through the umpteen models and makes on Amazon to see if there's one I like as a rear-view camera. I've had a front-view one for over 5 years (Z-Edge Z1). That was a replacement for my first trial dashcam which didn't work properly, as it didn't automatically wipe and record over the earliest file. It's been junked. The Z1 has been excellent, and it records in super-HD (2304 x 1296). I was surprised to find that most cams are still only HD, although there are some claiming to do 4k. For rear-view, HD should be fine; trying to read a number plate on a car coming towards you requires a fast response and detail as the closing speed is additive. For one following, it should appear almost stationary most of the time.
There's still a problem fitting one, as running power cables to the back is more awkward than to the front. But it should be possible with a bit of messing around (and avoiding the side airbags, of course!).
And don't follow drivers who emergency stop to allow a Pheasant to cross the road:-(
...or a peasant
The last pheasant I hit cost me £1,300 in repairs it did so much damage, worth avoiding!
You are right, thanks for your reply. After reading the manual for the Garmin 67W, I decided that I failed to understand the Nextbase manual correctly. Both products allow you to restrict the length of the recording as this is a legal rquirement in some countries. With the Nextbase you have to set the Recording history to 'Maximum' to avoid the restriction.
In message snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net>, Jeff Gaines <jgaines snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk> writes
This one was walking! Steering behind it would have worked. I'm not a 1 car length follower but it certainly woke me up:-)
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