alex_c

As the title says, inspired by another thread asking about dashcams, I decided to go ahead and order the newly released BlackVue D900 4K kit with dual cameras for front and back (back cam is just HD, not 4K) to install them on my Carrera T. I also ordered the 128 GB micro SD card and the hard-wire kit.

Since I didn't have the additional fuse tap that I needed (you need two taps, one for constant power and another one for switched power), I decided to finish the installation and just connect the whole thing to the 12V plug on the passenger footwell. The advantage of that 12V plug is that it remains active up to 30 minutes after you shut down the car, so you get up to 30 minutes of Parking mode recording. I will setup the full hard-wired kit later in the week as soon as I can go get the additional tap needed.


Buying.
At first I tried going directly to BlackVue.com to place an order, but according to their site they were sold out of the pre-orders. Bummer! But then I tried blackboxmycar.com and to my surprise, they actually showed the D900 in stock. And on top of their regular discount, they had an extra $20 off due to their 6 year celebration. Ordering was fast and easy, and I got my box two days later from Canada. No complaints whatsoever. Good prices, good follow-up emails with tracking info, etc. Would buy again from them.

Installation.
After reading the instructions, and watching the online video, it looked extremely easy to do. I've installed plenty of things on my cars before, but not a dash cam. This was way easier than expected. The videos from BlackVue are extremely clear and well made. Kudos to BlackVue for that.

In short, you just need to position the camera behind the rearview mirror (optimal position as you can get the camera perfectly centered), attach it with the double sided tape already included, and then route the power cable down to the passenger side footwell 12V power socket. Very easy to route the cable behind the mirror trim, then all along behind the headliner, down the A pilar between the cover and the glass, then between the dashboard and the A pillar, down the door frame behind the door rubber seal, and then behind the carpet on the passenger footwell. I took me around 10 to 15 minutes for the whole thing. The package also included a trim tool to help you push the cable behind the trim. Another thumbs up.

The camera itself is a real marvel. Besides being full 4K, it includes a built-in GPS and WiFi, so you can connect your phone to the camera via the camera's WiFi network! After downloading the BlackVue app and checking the settings (I left everything by default, just setup the car's hotspot so the camera can upload to the cloud) I tested with live view to my phone and everything seem to be working perfectly.

Then I installed the rearview camera, at the very top of the back glass, and centered the lens. You can use the visual "line" between the two rear seatbacks to center the camera if doing it by yourself.
I was dreading having to route the video cable all the way from the back camera to the front one, but it was way easier than expected. Just route the cable along the headliner to the C pillar, tuck it behind the trim and across to the B pillar, then down the trim between the rear glass, and then all the way down (or up) using the door rubber gasket until you reach the front of the door. Keep going up to the A pillar, and then move to the headliner, and all the way to the mirror. Then down to the camera. Easier done than trying to explain it. You can't see any cables anywhere!

After plugging the second camera, the video from both is perfectly sync, so you can swap between front and rear camera view in the app, along with a map and GPS location, including your speed if you want it to.

All in all, a great product, and very pleased with it so far.

Here are some pictures of the installed camera and a couple of videos, one from the front camera and one from the back. If interested, watch the full one minute video from the front, as it was twilight, very difficult lighting conditions, and there is a transition under a bridge and out to a sunset right in front of the camera. Very good light control from the camera, as it could have been under/over exposed very easy.

Go ahead and ask any questions. Hope this helps other forum members trying to decide on installing a dashcam!


Front camera right behind the V1:












Camera as seen from the outside:





Rear camera from the inside:




Rear cam from the outside:




Here's a link to the video. Unfortunately Youtube changed the resolution to 1080p from 4K... :

tgavem

whiteducktail

I keep resisting... but that does look good. This may be my next mod.

tstafford

Porsche_nuts

Hopefully will get my 900 on Friday. Upgrading from the DR650, so my wires are already set up. What is nice is that I can re-use the same wires, so no teardown and rewiring needed. I will have to replace the front camera mount, but the rear camera mount is the same, so all I have to do there is replace the camera, plug it in, and I am set.

tstafford

How secure is the camera? I track my C2S and don't want the thing to fall off the windshield or rear. Is the tape strong enough for track use?

alex_c

I can't imagine that it could come off at the track. It feels very sturdy and secure.

PTS-BRG

I am somewhat of a dash cam junkie and there are 3 top performers. Blackvue, Thinkware and the new iRoad. Blackboxmycar is the best place to buy not just because their prices are the lowest and they always have stock, but their customer service for troubleshooting is the best and they know their SH-T when it comes to every feature.

That being said.. I had the Blackvue and went to Thinkware. Both were great. For my new car I am going with the iRoad which BBMC doesn't sell yet but, they will start selling in June.
My only problem with the new BV 4k is that the files are so large that you eat up card space quickly and no matter how large a card you get, if you record at 4k you cannot save even one day of recording without overwriting so, that was the dealbreaker for me. Otherwise looks like another great camera from BV and saving at 1080p would eliminate my only gripe..

alex_c

I don't know about the file size... with the new compression algorithms a 1 minute 4K takes almost exactly as 1 minute at 1024 on the DR750S.

PTS-BRG

You saw that in a video just like I did. But, I spoke to the BBMC guys and they said thats BS. When you transfer the file recorded at 4k it is significantly larger even with the compression. And the cards get completely overwritten within 24 hours even with a 128gb card when recording at 4k. This is coming from their mouths with actual world usage so, I am repeating their findings.

I have other issues with the blackvue like terrible app, difficult file location and transfer (need a laptop), useless cloud feature, etc.. None of them are perfect but, the iRoad seems to be the best cam available today with all sorts of cool new useful features.

Please do some real world testing and report back. I for one would like to know how much memory rear 4k recording takes up on these SD cards.

tstafford

Urrg! I was within an inch of ordering the Blackview, now I'm hesitating again!!!

PTS-BRG

Call BBMC and ask them. They know more than anyone because thats all they do. They also sell all 3 brands and will help you pick based on what your needs are. NOTE: I have nothing to do with BBMC, I just think they are a great company.

StormRune

I'm on my fourth dash cam in the last several years and have some experience about what is practically useful. With a 128GB card you will easily capture more video than you need even with the 4K camera's additional data. Unless the compression is truly lossless I wouldn't care if it did take more space since too much compression would offset the benefits of the extra resolution.

My current Thinkware F800 has plenty of recording time at 1080p with a 64GB card at 60 fps (which it can do if you don't have a rear camera), which would theoretically generate about half the data of the 4k BlackVue at its 30 fps limit before any changes in compression. All you really need is enough recording space to take in whatever length of drive you'll likely do in a day's drive. If anything of great consequence happens you'll mark if for saving right away anyway. If you just want to go back and review something less urgent from your day's drive then you'll almost always pull it at the end of your drive that day. At least that's my experience. Remember that parking mode video isn't continuously stored so it doesn't generally add up to a lot of space unless you are using motion detection mode and are parked facing a busy place for a long time. (A nice thing with my F800 is it can be set to record only 1 frame per second when parked so it can record 30x to 60x more parking time for the same space).

The tape they use to mount these high end cameras is more than sturdy enough to hold up for track use. One thing to consider if you do use the D900 at the track is to record at the lesser 1080p resolution so you can get 60 fps. You will find the higher frame rate of more use at track speeds than the higher resolution.

Alex_c: Thank you for the nice writeup! Now I have a new top-choice on the radar for my next upgrade. It's not a big loss if I do since I trickle down my old cameras to my other vehicles and pass on the oldest ones to my sons.

As an aside... my son just recorded an incident at a 4-way stop last week. He wasn't directly involved other than stopping to help the possibly injured. He gave the police the video showing that the two other drivers at the intersection didn't come to a stop even though he had stopped there first... and then they just accelerated and rammed each other at a surprisingly high speed for a 4-way stop intersection. Full airbags deployed and the axle of the Q5 completely sheared off. Craziness!

alex_c

I just checked the file size on my computer: 1 minute file is 191MB. Which means that you can fit over 10 and a half hours in a 128 GB SD card, and that is already rounding up to 200 MB per minute due to file system overhead.

The rear view file is 80 MB. So if you are going dual channels, you can record around 7 hours 45 minutes in a 128 GB card.

Unless you are doing a very long, scenic drive where you want to keep every minute of it, 7 hours is way more than enough, specially if in most cases all you ever need is a couple of minutes of video to capture something relevant.

Again, there may be other uses, but nearly 8 hours of recording for both channels (4K front + 1080p back) seems more than adequate for a dash cam for me.

Worst case scenario, switch to 1080p on the front and you will nearly double your recording time to over 13 hours.

Regarding the upload/download I transferred directly from the camera to my iPhone using the camera's WiFi quite fast, and then moved the file to my computer and to you tube from the phone. So you really don't need a laptop to do that as you mention.


Again, if you think this is not correct, please let me know. I am actually looking a the file size on my computer.

Porsche_nuts

If overwriting is a big issue, there are ways around it, such as bringing extra cards and changing them out, or downloading some of the important vids before they get overwritten. For me, overwriting is not an issue, I just want the best clarity I can get from dashcam and I think the 900 quality is outstanding.