Sample Video From New Dashcam

[James Burleigh]

I took the new dashcam out for a couple-hour local ride today. It works great. The device stores files according to date directories, and under each directory are 5-minute QuickTime Movie files (you can also select 3-minute files).

Here's a 1-minute sample of the video quality from my ride today. It includes city riding, riding on the freeway (roll-on fun

), and practicing slow-speed U-turns....

https://youtu.be/9V9EdjUsnGA

At one point the camera slipped from its mount and was dangling by the USB cable (I hadn't attached it firmly). But I could use suggestions about an easy-on / easy off wire tether that allows me to remove the camera easily every time I park the bike at the train station, but saves it when I'm riding from slipping out of its mount.

 

[mcatrophy]

That's not bad.

(Someone likes playing u-turns .)

 

[rickysnickers]

Why is the date upside down? Nice u-turn job on an uphill too!

 

[Top_Speed1]

IS the mount a bit loose? It (video) looks kinda jittery, other than that it looks very nice!

 

[mcatrophy]

Why is the date upside down? ...

Read the link he gives in his post. The camera is mounted upside-down.

 

[James Burleigh]

The camera is mounted tightly enough: I think the jittery is a function of my dash shelf and sh*tty shocks.

I took my new dashcam toy to work today

. Tonight I hope to download and share some lane-sharing segments

; one peg-scrapping segment on a downhill, positively cambered, decreasing-radius turn where each time I take it I practice Code's recommendation to "get on the throttle as soon as you can"

; and some slow-speed handling that I practice every time I get on the bike now.

 

[08FJR4ME]

Nice JB,

You can't beet it considering the price. Some image stabilization would go a long way but would most likely drive the price up some more. Now if you had two of them you could mount one looking backwards also.

How cool would that be. So if your making a movie you could cut and splice as needed seeing from both perspectives.

Dave

 

[Mr_Canoehead]

I actually think that takes better video than my GoPro. The GoPro is way too fisheyed and the hi-rez fills the card very quickly (the 64GB card fills at the same rate that the battery drains - about 1 hour of video and they are both done).

 

[James Burleigh]

Another example here....

 

[wfooshee]

The "jittery" motion is an artifact of how the camera records video, through what is called a "rolling shutter." Basically there is no physical shutter like a movie camera, just the sensor pixels being activated across each line, then the next line, then the next line. If the camera moves during the frame, as it will on a vibrating platform, part of the picture is in a different place than another part, even while it's being scanned, so it doesn't fit right in the final image of that frame. The effect is more pronounced in these cameras because they, and their sensors, are so small.

It's the same reason that propellers look so weird when these are on airplanes, as the blade spins through the frame while the frame is being scanned.

If the camera were capable of taking an instantaneous snapshot of each frame rather than scanning each frame the jittery distortion of the image would not be there, although the vibrational difference from frame to frame still would be.

And some cameras are much more susceptible to this. GoPro and some of those ilk seem to have done well in controlling the effect, but like he said in his post about acquiring the camera, you need more $$$$$ for those compared to the basic dashcams.