bike and dash cams

[ElyDave]

Given the current climate on the roads I'm thinking about buying both a bike cam and dash cams for me and Mrs Dave

Bike Cams, the obvious being gopro or a Garmin virb.

GoPro obviously expensive, but well known. Is the reputation deserved?
Garmin virb, much cheaper, can be controlled from a Garmin device. Cheaper = less capable? Do they deplete the battery on the main device?
Any other possible/recommended? I have no direct use of these, so interested in practical experience.


Car dash cams, I have absolutely no experience of these, and there are a plethora available.  Wife drives a very modern car with plenty of power sockets and inbuilt sat nav. I drive an old discovery that has one dashboard power socket Andi use a separate sat nav as I can also bung that in hire cars for work.

I would want something g ideally plug in and forget, loop recording to an SD card, writing over the oldest bit as you go?

Anyone use anything that fits the bill?

[Wobbly John]

Will C  - recumbent rider from Mildenhall uses a Virb, and often posted video on his ride reports. You could join one of his rides and see one in the flesh - his last ride was 3rd Dec.

On the bike, I use a SJCam copy, which is pretty good, quality wise.

I run a cheap dashcam, that does all you want from it, but I've found the focus is set too close, so number plates are not really readable (unless they are about to come through the screen.

[SoreTween]

For a dash cam Blackvue have the fit & forget box well and truly ticked.  I have this one that is 1080 front and 720 rear. You wont read many number plates at night and it is far from assured in the day on a moving vehicle.  I can upload samples but there's loads on youtube already.  They are very neat, there's only the last few inches of wiring visible in my car.  From the drivers seat the front camera is invisible behind the mirror and the rear is tiny.  It took a couple of hours to fit and most of that was feeding the wire to the rear camera through the tailgate and rubber flex tube to it.

Also consider:
For powering them forget power sockets, use a piggy back fuse. 
I also have a power magic to keep the cameras running for 6 hours (user selectable) after parking.
I use 64Gb class 10 SD cards which gets me just over a week.  A week for me is typically 4 journeys totalling 6 hours but getting all that depends on how busy the scenery is when I park.  When parked it only keeps recordings that show movement, a tree in the wind can chew up a lot of space.  Sensitivity is adjustable but you'll never get it perfect.
I have 2 cards and swap them at the end of my journey if I've seen something I want to review.

[Edit] 4 journeys not 3, I forgot moving the car outside our gate ready for the 04:30 Monday start.  Naff all moving time but another 6 hours of parking mode.

[grams]

For a bike cam, if you want to record every journey, one essential feature is the ability to switch it on and start recording with one button (not switch it on, wait 20 seconds for it to boot, then press the record button).

You also need to think about how you're going to charge it - Do you have to faff with a waterproof case every time you need to charge it or swap the battery? Can you charge it while it's running? Does it have a replaceable battery? What are you going to do on long rides?

I'm not sure of the current state of the market but a couple of years back the (expensive) Sony cameras were the only ones that solved both problems. The big flaw is they don't have a proper loop mode - even the newer ones with a "loop" mode only overwrite previous footage from the current recording - the memory card gradually fills up with the last X minutes of every single recording.

[dim]

I have the new Garmin Virb Ultra 30 (as good if not better than the Go Pro Hero 5), plus the Garmin Virb links directly to my Garmin Edge 1000 and I can get all my stats on the movie (heartrate, power, speed, cadence, elevation etc).

Downside, is that it's expensive, does not come with the open cage (another £35 so that you can charge it on the go with a powerbank... as battery lasts 1 hour 15min), and it does not come with an SD card (which cost me an additional £100 for a 128 GB)...

on the back, I have a cycliq fly 6 (brilliant and cheap and battery lasts 6hrs) ....

the cycliq uses a different format to the Garmin, so I'm learning Sony Vegas at the moment so that I can combine the 2 videos into 1 for youtube etc

however, £40 can get you something pretty decent such as this:

Sport Action Camera 4K Ultra HD 30fps

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Action-Camera-Waterproof-Camcorder-Sensor/dp/B01GLB6UVO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1483883720&sr=8-3&keywords=4k+ultra+hd+action+camera

[fd3]

I have a Road hawk, non hd version.  Waterproof and simple to use, also small and fits close to the lid.  Downsides are that battery life is allegedly 2 hours, but a little less really, so you need to recharge pretty much every day.  I have had the need to check the footage twice in three years and both times the license plate was too blurry to read properly (maybe the hd version would be better?).

[dim]

here's some footage from my Virb Ultra 30 ... colour settings were wrong and the battery ran out after an hour (does not show on a phone as I copied music on there :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBtlhcnr47I

here's some footage from the virb showing some overlays:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVPuJwW_CK0

-------------------------------------------------------

here's footage from my cycliq Fly 6 rear camera:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA8exNorWsg

I'm still learning how to edit and what settings to use

[ElyDave]

Anyone tried oneof the cheaper clones like this

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01HPXH29Q/ref=s9_acsd_simh_hd_bw_b3MEvtX_c_x_w?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-4&pf_rd_r=XP9K1JK580D1DBD1RR2W&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=98a154e4-aea7-5dc6-a057-b59f848a11b0&pf_rd_i=3077037031

Or the one Dim mentions?

[Wobbly John]

I've had one a bit like that for a year.

I've never got the wifi to work properly, and have had troubles with batteries not charging in the camera. I use seperate batteries and charger now, but they can be difficult to get out.

Best results on 1076 pixel at 60 fps.

Used to film this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuANE8KCHPE

[grams]

Yeah, similar experience. The USB port failed and getting the battery out to charge it is a pain. The one I had also didn't have one touch power-on-and-record. The image quality tends to be very good, but I'd recommend them only if you want to do is occasional videos of special events.

[Polar Bear]

Used to film this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuANE8KCHPE

Is it just me or are the white-ish blobs on the rear quarter of that Type 95 Ha-Go light tank clips denoting that a rubbing strip has gone awol?   Wonder how he could have lost that?

[ElyDave]

here's some footage from my Virb Ultra 30 ... colour settings were wrong and the battery ran out after an hour (does not show on a phone as I copied music on there :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBtlhcnr47I

here's some footage from the virb showing some overlays:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVPuJwW_CK0

-------------------------------------------------------

here's footage from my cycliq Fly 6 rear camera:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA8exNorWsg

I'm still learning how to edit and what settings to use

Good footage, I rode some of those lanes around the Quy Mill hotel last week, the camera makes it look a lot narrower than it really is.  Quality is pretty good from any of them by the looks of it.

Are you based around cambridge by the way?

[dim]

here's some footage from my Virb Ultra 30 ... colour settings were wrong and the battery ran out after an hour (does not show on a phone as I copied music on there :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBtlhcnr47I

here's some footage from the virb showing some overlays:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVPuJwW_CK0

-------------------------------------------------------

here's footage from my cycliq Fly 6 rear camera:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA8exNorWsg

I'm still learning how to edit and what settings to use

Good footage, I rode some of those lanes around the Quy Mill hotel last week, the camera makes it look a lot narrower than it really is.  Quality is pretty good from any of them by the looks of it.

Are you based around cambridge by the way?

thanks .... I live in Great Shelford Cambs

[dim]

a day off sick (Aussie Flu), so I played around with some footage from a Sportive that I rode a few weeks ago. I'm still learning how to use the Sony Vegas software but I managed to combine footage from my front camera aswell as my back camera.

It won't be visible on an iphone or tablet (has to be on a pc), as I have copyright music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yxlUmFHnjY&feature=youtu.be