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Things to keep in mind before picking a dashcam for your car

28th February 2025, 16:00 by R Patil

There are multiple benefits of installing a dash cam in your vehicle. Here are things you need to keep in mind before picking up the right dash cam

BHPian Kelly66 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Introduction

A Dashcam is a small addition to your vehicle that can bring many benefits:

• It's like an insurance for your car and for your family to protect you against road rage situations, catch mistakes of other drivers and proving your innocence against potential legal issues involving an incident on the road

• Dashcams can deter reckless driving and deter others from criminal activity

• Investing in one could potentially save you money not to mention peace of mind during those unexpected moments behind the wheel

• With a hardwire kit installed you could also capture hit and run incidents that happen when your car is parked

• An added bonus of having a dashcam is capturing pictures and videos for creating a travelogue

The Key Question: What video recording resolution and frame rate to choose when deciding on a dashcam? (this is based on my research from various articles on the Internet)

Actually, resolution and frame rate should be chosen based on your needs. The most common combinations you will find with dashcams are 4K(2160p)@30fps, 2.5K(1440p)@60fps and FHD(1080p)@30fps, but here's something to keep in mind:

• Higher the resolution, more the pixels, better the quality, BUT larger the video file size - On the F77, a 1 min video, based on HEVC (H.265) coding consumes 224MB at 4K/30 fps for Front and 174 MB at 4K/30 fps for Rear. H.264 coding will consume more space (see table below).

• Higher the frame rate, crisper the video, BUT again, a large video file size - On the F77, a 1 min video, based on HEVC (H.265) coding consumes 140 MB at 2.5K/60 fps for Front and the same 174 MB at 4K/30 fps for Rear (there is no 2.5K option for rear).

The real question is, for the file size, do you want more pixels or a crisper image? There are specific details you need to ask yourself before you jump in and choose your recording quality.

• 4K resolution offers better contrast and colour range, making it great for driving in city traffic with lots of cars and people around and is ideal for parking mode as well. You can zoom in without losing resolution, and it works better under lower-quality lighting.

• If there is a lot of motion in your video, you might benefit from choosing a higher frame rate over resolution. For example, if you often drive on highways, a higher frame rate is recommended because you can slow down the video to show the point of impact or details that the naked eye can’t see at full speed without compromising the crispness. However, high frame rates are not suited in low-light situations.

• If you do a lot of night driving, or if use parking mode, or if you prefer stunning visuals for your travelogues and social media uploads, go for 4K/30 fps preferably with a Starvis 2 sensor to capture number plates clearly at night. I am planning to use 4K/30 fps for city driving (~50%). On a 128 GB eMMC storage, usable storage is only 114.5 GB and I can get around 4.9 hours of recording for front and rear cameras put together, in this set-up.

• If you need to slow down frames without compromising the integrity, go with 2.5K/60 fps. I am planning to use this for highway driving, which is largely in daytime. I can get around 6.2 hours of recording for front and rear cameras put together, in this set-up.

Note: The size of a 4K video encoded in HEVC (H.265) is smaller than H.264, simply because HEVC codec saves nearly half by higher compression efficiency when compare to H.264, within the same graphic quality. That means we could benefit a whole lot from the compression. Redtiger F77 supports HEVC, hence the above file sizes are lower compared to the H.264 sizes shared in the table below.

H.264 recording space requirement: