Lexus Dash Cam

[rhaldankar]

Hello

I am considering having a Nextbase front and rear dash cams fitted to my RX450 by my local Lexus dealer. Has anybody suffered with any problems with these units; be it clarity of recordings or playback of recordings, etc?

I would be grateful for any feedback before i purchase one.

 Many thanks 

Raju

 

[stringbender]

Hello Raju,

I've had a Nextbase 412G for about 2 years now. Good quality crisp images and I'm glad it's there but I couldn't make  a DVD when I wanted to. The policeman with his mobile laser gun actually rubbed his hands with glee as I drove by him. I would have liked to have sent that footage in. It may be that my system hasn't got enough power to deal with the hefty files but for whatever reason no DVD of the incident. 

Alan

[rhaldankar]

Hi Alan

Many thanks for your comments. Would transferring the files to a USB work and giving it to the police?

Regards

Raju.

[stringbender]

15 hours ago, rhaldankar said:

 Would transferring the files to a USB work and giving it to the police?

I don't know about using a stick but it was over a year ago when that happened. Galling to see him rubbing has hands with glee following us as we drove by. I told the police who laughingly said it was probably because his hands were cold ! History now.

Alan

[GSLV6]

I've used one for two years with no problems.  Most problems occur due to corruptible SD cards as some won't work well for more than a few weeks without reformatting them.  I have used a Sandisk Ultra card in mine which has been fine.  No problem downloading or making a DVD. If you're etting problems then odds are it's the card and a change of card should sort them.  If you do a google search it should come up with a list of recommended cards for the Nextbase.

[Paul Brooksbank]

A lot of people go for a massive capacity memory card thinking it will record for longer, when the whole point is to have rewritable continuous loop files, after all, an incident only lasts for a matter of minutes at the most.

Think of the memory card as being a large house with hundreds of rooms. The pictures are broken up into colours and shades, then into reference points like a game of battle ships, these elements are put into separate rooms. Then the memory of where they go is put into the entrance hall. If you buy too many rooms, the system has too many rooms to search for the whole picture and rebuild it therefore recording fails. Go for 32G max with a high rewrite speed. 

[chris_fletcher]

1 hour ago, Paul Brooksbank said:

A lot of people go for a massive capacity memory card thinking it will record for longer, when the whole point is to have rewritable continuous loop files, after all, an incident only lasts for a matter of minutes at the most.

Think of the memory card as being a large house with hundreds of rooms. The pictures are broken up into colours and shades, then into reference points like a game of battle ships, these elements are put into separate rooms. Then the memory of where they go is put into the entrance hall. If you buy too many rooms, the system has too many rooms to search for the whole picture and rebuild it therefore recording fails. Go for 32G max with a high rewrite speed. 

Not sure I agree with you analogy. Size doesnt cause "corrupt" recordings. Fast write speeds certainly an advantage and buying decent brands as opposed to cheap ones is definitely the best option. Your rebuild comment is more about playback than recording but either way IMHO you are misinformed ....sorry

[Jimbo2107]

Having had cameras front and rear in my previous car I've now transferred them to our RX400h with no problems, for downloading the footage the best solution for me has been Nextbases own system which depending on where you live let's you send footage straight  to the police.

[Herbie]

There seems to be some misconception about dash cams here.

The first thing I must say to the OP, @rhaldankar is, why go to a Lexus dealer for this? They are way overpriced in both the cameras and the fitting.

Very easy to fit yourself - took me less than 20 minutes from getting my tools to taking the car for a test drive to make sure it was working (front only). Even if you don't want to DIY it, any good auto-electrician will do it for about £30 (again, front only, obviously more for rear cam as well).
 

On 3/14/2020 at 1:48 PM, stringbender said:

Hello Raju,

I've had a Nextbase 412G for about 2 years now. Good quality crisp images and I'm glad it's there but I couldn't make  a DVD when I wanted to. The policeman with his mobile laser gun actually rubbed his hands with glee as I drove by him. I would have liked to have sent that footage in. It may be that my system hasn't got enough power to deal with the hefty files but for whatever reason no DVD of the incident.

As long as the images are good then the problem most likely lay with your PC or the burning software on it (I use Ashampoo Burning Studio Free).

I have my camera set to record in 3min segments which creates MP4 files of about 450MB so there's nothing "hefty" about them at all.

Whilst I can appreciate the sentiment in wanting to send your footage in it would have made no difference whatsoever as your dashcam is not calibrated to the accuracy of their equipment and has no legal standing.
 

On 3/17/2020 at 3:41 PM, GSLV6 said:

Most problems occur due to corruptible SD cards as some won't work well for more than a few weeks without reformatting them

Getting the correct card is important but there should never be any need to manually reformat a card and I've never had to do that with any cam or card I've used. When the card is full the camera automatically starts to overwrite the earlier recordings and just repeats the process ad infinitum.

 

21 hours ago, Paul Brooksbank said:

Think of the memory card as being a large house with hundreds of rooms. The pictures are broken up into colours and shades, then into reference points like a game of battle ships, these elements are put into separate rooms. Then the memory of where they go is put into the entrance hall. If you buy too many rooms, the system has too many rooms to search for the whole picture and rebuild it therefore recording fails. Go for 32G max with a high rewrite speed.

Sorry, but that analogy just doesn't work. Early cams may have been limited to 32GB but my current cam (a Viofo 119S) uses a 128GB card without problems.

[royoftherovers]

Welcome back Herbie !!!!!!

[GSLV6]

Nextbase themselves included advice to regularly reformat SD cards.  If that has changed due to reliability improving, that's fine.  I just followed their advice when I purchased mine which was a few years ago and it has been working faultlessly since then.  Haven't re-formatted mine in a while though as it seems to have been working fine.  I had a glitch early on, reformatted it then and all has been fine since that time.

[Herbie]

42 minutes ago, royoftherovers said:

Welcome back Herbie !!!!!!

Haha, cheers John. Been decorating the whole house and the computer has been shuffled from room to room but it's now back in its proper place

[royoftherovers]

2 hours ago, Herbie said:

Haha, cheers John. Been decorating the whole house and the computer has been shuffled from room to room but it's now back in its proper place

You great big dozy Northern sod Herbs.You had me worried stiff by your silent absence.(we are in some kind of war, we are told)

Keep taking the tablets and keep helping us all out with your no-nonsense approach to electronics and computer wizardry (lol)

[stringbender]

As long as the images are good then the problem most likely lay with your PC or the burning software on it (I use Ashampoo Burning Studio Free).

I checked my SD card ( suddenly I don't seem very busy ! ) and it's a Sandisk 32 GB. I did use the NextBase replay 3 software and all I can remember is that when I came to view the file (created ( in Windows) is that the Windows operating system itself shut down immediately.  Had to restart like in the old DOS days so I didn't want to risk doing any damage so gave up. Obviously I hope to never have to do this again but if I do then the shampoo may do the trick ?

Alan