Dash Cams

[dudley77]

Does anyone know much about dash cams? For instance should the sd card require very frequent clearing

[malagabob]

Well the storage isn’t infinite So yes.

[bhg481]

Most dashcams will allow the recordings to cycle ie, as the card fills newer recordings will replace (overwrite) the oldest ones. This means, in effect, the card never fills but you only retain the latest recordings. The camera manufacturers, however, recommend that you "format" the card every so-often, which wipes it clean.

[dudley77]

Thanks bhg481. That is my understanding and I had it set up on the loop system as you describe but after only 100 miles the screen shows ‘card full’ and the manufactures tell me that you should clear the card every now and again because “after a long time there are old files that the device cannot remove on its own’. I would suggest that 100 miles does not constitute a long time and I do not think it right that you have to reset the sd card around twice a week which would make the device a liability rather than an asset.

[bhg481]

What size card, dudley, and what resolution do you record at? I've reduced the resolution on mine to 1280 x 720 and find it's absolutely adequate. I use 32GB cards for the most part and can record about 6 hours' driving before overwriting occurs.
The reason for formatting is that if you have the dashcam set up to "lock" files automatically if a high G-Force occurs (assumes an accident) then those files cannot be overwritten and the card will eventually fill. Re-formatting will, however, delete those files.
It might pay you to take out the card and have a look at it on your computer; you might be surprised how many "locked" files you've got which are filling your card.
Just out of interest I have my dashcam set up to record 5 minute sections and each takes up around 0.5GB on my 32GB card, hence about 60 5-minute records on the card = 5 hours.

[dudley77]

Hi again, bhg, thanks, I thought it was going to be much simpler than that and on loop setting the card would be continually overwritten each time it reached maximimum footage and you would not need to look at it unless an incident occurred. I don’t have a card reader on my iMac so I need to get one or use someone else’s. As it’s rather more complicated than I thought, I’m not sure it’s for me and at 81 I’m not sure I can be bothered.

[bhg481]

I turned off the G sensor on my dashcam, dudley, so I never get locked files. If you can fathom out how to do that and then re-format the card you should have no more problems.