I’m not really sure if I was given my Blackvue camera as part of the grant program or because even without this camera I have been the worldwide top contributor to Mapilary.
I have had some issues and have resolved some of them.
The Blackvue takes a unique sd card, not sold in stores and even on Amazon they run about $125 each. The camera comes with just one 128 gig card. You need to remove the card from the camera to upload the data. If you record for between 13 and 15 hours, one long day of driving you have filled one card. The camera, as it comes to you is then unusable until you can upload that data. I explained this Mapillary and they sent me two additional 128 gig sd cards. I have one home uploading and two in the car, one in the camera and one in case I fill one. (On a longer trip I can fill more than a card per day.
Another issue is that these Blackvue sd cards have a way of getting tired. When they have been filled and reused for a while you wont be able to upload the data from them. If you look at the Blackvue folder on your laptop you will see the data is “read only”
I downloaded the Blackvue app. There is an option to format the disk there.
The formatting on the app will be unsuccessful. However, you can then reformat the sd card in the camera and the card will again work. I am not sure yet for how long.
With the inability to upload of the fly it seems that 3 sd cards is the minimum you can go with.
The unit only comes with one, less than 14 hours for recording.
The camera had a very wide angle of view. I can’t make it so I am not getting some of the car. If anyone has a workaround for the wide view I’m listening.
I (now) use the Mapillary firmware at 2FPS that yields about 4x the recording time. Each minute file is now about 50MBytes rather than 200MBytes. The bit rate is also lower (6848 kb/s vs 25867 kb/s) so this may allow the use of a lower rate SD card (I havent tried)
I actually WiFi transfer (adjacent laptop) the files concurrent to capture so I have no SD removal issues. After about 8 months use I dont have any read only tired issue. (Although I have seen that problem in a few other USB sticks)
I have no fix for the wide angle view. It does however yield better images in fog, smoke or rain! (grin)
Tell me more about this wifi trasfer.
I’d love to eliminate having to remove the cards and reinsert them, always in the dark
Of my 3 sd cards two of them played the read only game with me.
I posted it here;
http://mapillary.trydiscourse.com/t/using-blackvue-dr900-and-mapillary-tools/2523/4
and others made comments re their own method