What Dashcam to buy?

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cshwone

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#304164 10-Apr-2023 13:10

I know nothing about dashcams but self preservation is kicking in with the amount of near misses, when people can't use roundabouts properly or come out of a junction without looking, really increasing.

Looking for recommendations for a reasonable dashcam please. Two family cars - 2021 Swift and 2022 Hilux Workmate if that has any relevance.

Thanks,

josephhinvest

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#3060928 10-Apr-2023 13:21

PB Tech have the Transcend Drive Pro 250 on sale currently (be quick). I bought one two weeks ago and it’s good and cheap. 1080p at 60 fps, GPS tagged, includes a 32gb SD card, unit has wifi so you can easily copy clips straight to your phone. Comes with a plenty long cord for neat installation. I’m really impressed with it actually, can recommend.

Cheers,
Joseph.

josephhinvest

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#3060930 10-Apr-2023 13:30

josephhinvest: PB Tech have the Transcend Drive Pro 250 on sale currently (be quick). I bought one two weeks ago and it’s good and cheap. 1080p at 60 fps, GPS tagged, includes a 32gb SD card, unit has wifi so you can easily copy clips straight to your phone. Comes with a plenty long cord for neat installation. I’m really impressed with it actually, can recommend.

Cheers,
Joseph.

Sample video from last week

Gordy7

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#3060978 10-Apr-2023 13:36

I have been very happy with a couple of these:

AZDOME GS63H Dash Cam Dual Lens 4K UHD Recording Car Camera DVR Night Vision WDR Built-In GPS Wi-Fi G-Sensor Motion Detection

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32815617931.html

4k resolution and GPS worth having.

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

tweake

2391 posts

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#3061003 10-Apr-2023 14:12

cshwone:

I know nothing about dashcams but self preservation is kicking in with the amount of near misses, when people can't use roundabouts properly or come out of a junction without looking, really increasing.

Looking for recommendations for a reasonable dashcam please. Two family cars - 2021 Swift and 2022 Hilux Workmate if that has any relevance.

Thanks,

reminds me i should get a new one for the work car. its the "winters coming" rush at the mo.

using a very wide camera lens i find not useful. the goal here is to read number plates, some insurance co's don't pay out unless you ID the car, getting footage of an incident only is not good enough. often the cameras will have high resolution but thats made useless by wider camera angle.

get dual cameras. more often than not you get attacked from behind and they are generally closer so you can get good pics of plates and sometimes the driver. also in a frontal assault the rear cam can get details when they pass. it helps to get pics of front and rear plates, and its not the first time i've seen two different plates on a car.

for the hilux there is very few truck cams around (water proof rear camera to mount on the deck/tray).

Gordy7

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#3061110 10-Apr-2023 17:11

tweake:

cshwone:

I know nothing about dashcams but self preservation is kicking in with the amount of near misses, when people can't use roundabouts properly or come out of a junction without looking, really increasing.

Looking for recommendations for a reasonable dashcam please. Two family cars - 2021 Swift and 2022 Hilux Workmate if that has any relevance.

Thanks,

reminds me i should get a new one for the work car. its the "winters coming" rush at the mo.

using a very wide camera lens i find not useful. the goal here is to read number plates, some insurance co's don't pay out unless you ID the car, getting footage of an incident only is not good enough. often the cameras will have high resolution but thats made useless by wider camera angle.

get dual cameras. more often than not you get attacked from behind and they are generally closer so you can get good pics of plates and sometimes the driver. also in a frontal assault the rear cam can get details when they pass. it helps to get pics of front and rear plates, and its not the first time i've seen two different plates on a car.

for the hilux there is very few truck cams around (water proof rear camera to mount on the deck/tray).

I originally had a 1k resolution camera with a narrower field of view but camera vibration and the speed of an offending car did mean that it was sometimes difficult to catch an offenders rego plate. The 4k camera with a 140 degree view is much better for me as is the faster frame capture rate and sharper images. It does mean that to capture plenty of history a much larger uSD card is required.

I am also thinking of getting a 2nd camera for my car for rear view to capture the tail gating clowns.

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

MartinGZ

359 posts

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#3061117 10-Apr-2023 18:00

I'm also looking. This video is worth a look, if you can stand him. Basically not a lot of difference between many of the cheaper and the more expensive ones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AnyhHl3_tE

RunningMan

8954 posts

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#3061197 10-Apr-2023 19:38

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=77&topicid=304173&page_no=1#3061195

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Mehrts

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#3061199 10-Apr-2023 19:51

I have a Viofo A129 Pro Duo, which is a 4k front camera and 1080p rear camera setup. The quality is great, and downloading the clips to your phone is very simple via the built-in wifi it provides.

Had the system installed for 18 months now, no real issues in that time. Have definitely caught some amusing footage!

Wheelbarrow01

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Chorus

#3061222 10-Apr-2023 22:37

MartinGZ:

I'm also looking. This video is worth a look, if you can stand him. Basically not a lot of difference between many of the cheaper and the more expensive ones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AnyhHl3_tE

LOL I was prepared to give that video a chance, but I only got 6 seconds in before I bailed on it.

BlakJak

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#3064064 15-Apr-2023 21:43

I have a Transcend Drivepro 550. It's a 'dual camera' unit where both cameras are on the same physical device... so basically you have front-recording through the window as you'd expect, and another camera in the cab facing the passengers (though I suppose it might also catch rear window things). It's obviously made for left-hand-drive vehicles because the interior-view camera spins 180 degrees on the left side (i.e. best view of the passenger, not the driver, in NZ). It works better in low-light conditions than the main cam (has IR illumination).
The result is two mp4 files for each 3 minute block, both have the same audio track if you're capturing sound as well.

Daylight video with cab sound (no speech) - Newlands Fire Truck responding. (2021)

Dusk footage with some interior audio (faintly). - Near head-on in Carterton a coupla weeks ago.

Night footage in an urban area (Wellington CBD) - Police armed arrest (2021).

Uses a 32GB Micro-SD card, cyclic over-writing. Wifi support means that when you turn on Wifi it starts up a SSID; you run an app on your mobile phone which lets you connect to the camera once you link to its AP. Good for ad-hoc grabbing of a single 3 minute clip (takes a while to ship the files, even over wifi at range of about a meter).... or you can pull the Micro-SD and read the footage directly. Records at 1080p. Reading registration numbers can be tough even with that resolution.

If I didn't have to be more budget-conscious i'd love to have a dedicated rear-facing unit. But actually it seems to 'do the job'. You'll find other random clips on my Youtube channel from this and the one I had prior, which was a Mivue 338 (max 720p). But here's some footage from that one (from 2017) which lets you compare the rego-reading behavior.

Pet peeve, it has GPS but it doesn't sync it's clock from GPS. So if you want local time, you have to remember to adjust it for daylight savings. My Mivue used to regularly forget its time entirely, which is why the above looks like it's in 2012 :(

Hope it helps, basically the Transcend stuff is pretty decent, just not quite as polished as I would've liked. I've had this one for a few years now mind you.
Consider where you'll mount it and what cable pathway the USB/power cable will take. The suction cup on mine probably fails at random 2-3 times a year which I suppose given that it is often parked on the street in sunlight etc, is not that bad.

No signature to see here, move along...

tchart

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#3064065 15-Apr-2023 21:51

MartinGZ:
I'm also looking. This video is worth a look, if you can stand him. Basically not a lot of difference between many of the cheaper and the more expensive ones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AnyhHl3_tE

^ yep this. Worth watching as most of the cameras out there seem to be made by the same place and that specs are basically BS for lesser brands.

BlakJak

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#3064842 18-Apr-2023 11:26

Wheelbarrow01:

MartinGZ:

I'm also looking. This video is worth a look, if you can stand him. Basically not a lot of difference between many of the cheaper and the more expensive ones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AnyhHl3_tE

LOL I was prepared to give that video a chance, but I only got 6 seconds in before I bailed on it.

Then you did yourself a disservice.

No signature to see here, move along...

Obraik

2123 posts

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#3064859 18-Apr-2023 12:11

If I had to buy a dashcam, I'd be looking for one that can record from the front and rear while also recording while parked if an event happens (such as someone knocking the car, etc). A lot of the worth of the dashcam in my car has come from it recording events happening to it while it was parked.

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