The best Blackvue dash cam settings?

Contributing and equipment
1

I have recently been using a Blackvue dash cam (not from Mapillary) and therefore hasn’t got all the ‘right’ settings.
What are the best settings to use for my dash cam
Also, is there a way to stop recording when my car is stationary as I currently use the desktop uploader to upload my footage and therefore have a lot of duplicates

2

A few things

  • It may be worth getting a hold of the Mapillary firmware if you haven’t already. A smaller filesize results (50 vs 200MB) and the extracted jpeg images end up with less mpeg artefacts. I run mine at 2 FPS but the default is 5. These parameters have to be set with a text editor. The phone app no longer works with the Mapillary firmware.
  • The original Mapillary instructions for the standard BlackVue was;
    Sync with GPS time. on
    Resolution 4K UHD 30fps (extreme)
    Codec H.264 (AVC)
    Enhanced night vision - on always
    Normal recording on
    Parking mode recording and G sensors all off, voice recording off, date/time/speed display off.

At one stage I used park recording to reduce the large number of “still” movies but it takes time to go back to normal again, meaning you lose some. The same kind of problem happens if event recording (like collisions) are turned on. I am not sure that the Mapillary server can extract GPS data from “non normal” recordings either. It was a problem a couple of years ago with the command line tools.

3

Thank you for the useful info Bob.
Do you know where I would be able to get hold of the Mapillary firmware and how to download it onto my Blackvue?

I wish I could use the command line tools instead of the Desktop Uploader but I don’t have a clue how to use them :joy:

4

You should be able to get it from support@mapillary.com. Just give them some time to answer as they get busy. That will include some instructions how to do all the steps needed.

For interest/info though the firmware is loaded onto the SD card with (say) a PC, plugged back into the BlackVue, the unit powered up, then power down after maybe a minute, then the ini file on the SD card is modified if you want to change the defaults. The package was however made to include the most common settings, so you may not have to extract the SD card again until you want to unload the movies.

Please check with support that you have the right BlackVue model first.

I actually unload/download my daily 10-20GBytes of movies over the WiFi to a laptop. The SD card use to fall on the floor on removal and get lost before that!

If you are taking imagery daily it’s worth looking at the tools. I have that relatively well automated by leaving my last 500GBytes of data at a remote server site every few months and letting it take a week plus to upload.

5

Hello.

Am I right in the assumpion that the biggest change in the Mapillary firmware is en reduction in frames pr. second from 30 to 5?

6

Yes, and a much smaller filesize, meaning longer capture time between pulling the SD card out to transfer.

7

and i can guess you don’t see much difference? thanks for recommending

8

There is a substantial increase in image quality. There are always compression artefacts in an mpeg stream and since a) there is one index frame per second and b) the bit rate is now higher per frame, there is less glug per frame than at 30fps.

It is still not as good as a jpg only camera though