New Dashcam Viewer Question

[SDRick]

The Saved Clips folder only contains footage you have manually saved to your device, by tapping the dashcam icon or using save on honk.

Apparently and unfortunately, that is how it works now.

I am not convinced that is how it worked before. Otherwise, why would I have 122 GB in my "SavedClips" folder (in addition to the 112 GB I have in my SentryClips folder) when I do not remember ever manually saving or honking the horn?

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[MrBadger]

To me the dashcam viewer seem typical of Tesla - a half baked product with plenty of room for improvement. It's only unique feature is the ability to view from four angles.

... and it is free...

It's the agile software development methodology.

There's certainly a lot to be improved but better to get an initial version in the users hands and iterate with future fixes and improvements based on feedback than sit on it until it's feature complete.

The car is the product, the TeslaCam viewer is just another use case/story/...

That certainly does not make the TeslaCam viewer free. Its all wrapped up in the base price of the product/car.

 

[Mark_T]

The car is the product, the TeslaCam viewer is just another use case/story/...

That certainly does not make the TeslaCam viewer free. Its all wrapped up in the base price of the product/car.

Sure feels free from where I’m standing.

it was never promised or advertised when I bought the car and yet here it is...

 

[Lx2m3]

Mine behaves just the same, jerky video and jumping forwards, backwards quite regularly.
I wondered if it was my SD card causing the problem so I tried it the old way in a PC - the video was smooth and didn’t jump!
Looking forward to the next update!

Have to say I'm a little underwhelmed by the dashcam viewer. On a very basic level the resolution isn't brilliant. I don't know what spec the cameras are but it can be very difficult to make out a number plate unless it's very close. Lack of audio is a major omission, though I'm sure this could be added with a software update.

I find the on screen playback to be a little jerky. Also, it keeps missing out segments of my journey. The timer might be at, say, 2min 50 secs then it suddenly jumps to 4 min 20 secs.

I really don't see why clips are automatically deleted if there's space on the storage device. Why not just keep everything and overwrite the oldest when space is needed? And anything that can be viewed on a PC should also be available in the car.

I won't be getting rid of my Nextbase 612GW anytime soon. The 4k resolution is vastly superior to the M3, and the accompanying app means it's very easy to view clips on a tablet and share them with others in seconds.

To me the dashcam viewer seem typical of Tesla - a half baked product with plenty of room for improvement. It's only unique feature is the ability to view from four angles.

 

[Need]

I just tested mine. It was not jerky. It won't play at all when I first got the update. I had to do the 2 button reboot and then it started working.

 

[Bob Denny]

@SDRick only 60 minutes of buffer is saved to the drive no matter how large the drive.

Seriously? Every dirt cheap Chinese dashcam out there saves video in chunks (a few per hour depending) in a silo fashion: saving till memory is full then deleting the oldest to make room for the newest. They have a "lock" button which will prevent the current chunk from ever being deleted to make room. How simple is that? So I guess, thinking that the Tesla dashcam would work this way, I bought a 128Gb uSD so I could keep a week or two's footage? I wondered what was going on...

 

[SDRick]

Seriously? Every dirt cheap Chinese dashcam out there saves video in chunks (a few per hour depending) in a silo fashion: saving till memory is full then deleting the oldest to make room for the newest. They have a "lock" button which will prevent the current chunk from ever being deleted to make room...

I am pretty sure mine used to work that way until one of the recent updates. Others here have said it has never worked that way but that has not been my experience.

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[Artiste]

... and it is free...

True, but I’d rather pay for something that works rather than have a freebie that’s barely fit for purpose.

 

[Louis0w]

I am pretty sure mine used to work that way until one of the recent updates. Others here have said it has never worked that way but that has not been my experience.

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Here’s Tesla’s introduction to their V9 software release of October 2018. The was when dashcam only, pre Sentry Mode. Please view the section covering dashcam: Discover Software Version 9.0

 

[Mark_T]

True, but I’d rather pay for something that works rather than have a freebie that’s barely fit for purpose.

Fortunately we can both get what we want here, I'm happy with the free version that keeps on getting better, you can spend as much as you want on something else.

Win win...

 

[Artiste]

Fortunately we can both get what we want here, I'm happy with the free version that keeps on getting better, you can spend as much as you want on something else.

Win win...

I wouldn't say I've quite got what I want - I'd like the Tesla dashcam viewer to be good enough for me to be able to get rid of the Nextbase altogether, and at the moment it's nowhere near. I'm also not convinced it will improve much anytime soon. Despite numerous software updates my windscreen wipers are still crap, especially at night, and TACC/NOA still feel like a particularly nervous learner driver is behind the wheel. The joys of owning a Tesla - it promises so much but often doesn't deliver.

Still, it's a freebie so it would be churlish to complain

 

[Pagemakers]

I’m glad I’ve found this post because I too have just spent a couple of hours trying to work out why I couldn’t view my recent drive in the car. It just wasn’t there.

In the viewer app there are 2 tabs: “Sentry” and “Dashcam”. Why call the Dashcam tab this name instead of “Saved Files”? By calling it Dashcam one would assume it would show your dashcam videos. If Tesla re-named this folder there would be less confusion.

I have an iPhone app called “Dash View” and it can show, saved clips, Sentry clips and recent recordings. Recent recordings don’t have to be saved first - it’s just an hour or so of your last drives. If an iPhone app can do this why can’t Tesla’s viewer?

 

[Cyborg68]

I, for one, welcome the new dashcam viewer although have to agree that playback is glitchy. I've noticed that it doesn't seem to want to play to the end of the footage, jumping back to the start when it gets to about 90% playback (also seen it jump around a bit during playback). It's a great start though

One thing I'd like to see is some sort of 'flag' around the sentry mode event trigger, so you can jump to that part. Some of the saved clips are 15 minutes long and, because you can only currently review at normal speed, I just can't see me sitting through an entire clip. Granted most of the triggers are when someone walks close by in a car park and I'm sure I'd want to inspect the footage properly if there actually had been an issue worthy of reporting.

Btw... has anyone else seen sentry mode clips of the middle of car journeys? What's that all about?

 

[Cyborg68]

It saves its 10 minute buffer when triggered, so the trigger event will always be within the 10th minute of video

As per my previous post, seems the player won't actually play the last part of the footage at the moment (skips back to the beginning when it gets to around 90% playback), maybe that's why I can't see what's triggered the event

 

[Bob Denny]

As per my previous post, seems the player won't actually play the last part of the footage at the moment (skips back to the beginning when it gets to around 90% playback), maybe that's why I can't see what's triggered the event

At the risk of being repetitive same here. I tried to conduct a test by erasing everything, plugging the uSD back in and going an out-and-back drive. I haven't seen a consistent design here. The video is passable (low frame rate but that's semi-forgiveable). Still my Aukey dual front/rear dashcam puts the built-in Tesla one to shame in all respects except for the lack of side cameras. I'm thinking of just removing the Aukey from my old car and installing it into the Tesla.

Also does anyone else keep getting the "repair?" popup when plugging it into Windows USB? I even tried powering off the car before pulling the uSD.

 

[jdw]

I have an iPhone app called “Dash View” and it can show, saved clips, Sentry clips and recent recordings. Recent recordings don’t have to be saved first - it’s just an hour or so of your last drives. If an iPhone app can do this why can’t Tesla’s viewer?

Mostly because when you are viewing recent drive files on your phone, you have removed the drive from the car and it is no longer writing files. Think about it ... you decide to view a file and the dashcam decides to remove it. The Sentry and Saved files are copies that will not be written to or deleted unless you choose to.

 

[SDRick]

Here’s Tesla’s introduction to their V9 software release of October 2018. The was when dashcam only, pre Sentry Mode. Please view the section covering dashcam: Discover Software Version 9.0

Thanks for the link. The important sentence in that update was "Recordings not downloaded after an hour will be deleted."

That makes it difficult for me to explain how I ended up with 122 GB in my SavedClips folder (and 112 GB in the SentryClips folder) having never manually saved any files.

 

[SDRick]

At the risk of being repetitive same here. I tried to conduct a test by erasing everything, plugging the uSD back in and going an out-and-back drive. I haven't seen a consistent design here. The video is passable (low frame rate but that's semi-forgiveable). Still my Aukey dual front/rear dashcam puts the built-in Tesla one to shame in all respects except for the lack of side cameras. I'm thinking of just removing the Aukey from my old car and installing it into the Tesla.

Also does anyone else keep getting the "repair?" popup when plugging it into Windows USB? I even tried powering off the car before pulling the uSD.

View attachment 532828

I also get this repair pop up.

 

[Pagemakers]

Mostly because when you are viewing recent drive files on your phone, you have removed the drive from the car and it is no longer writing files. Think about it ... you decide to view a file and the dashcam decides to remove it. The Sentry and Saved files are copies that will not be written to or deleted unless you choose to.

I get that. It couldn’t be hard for Telsa to stop all recording when the viewer is launched (it does anyway). So with recording stopped there is no reason the Tesla viewer can’t work the same way as if the drive was removed from the car.

 

[Durzel]

I think it's in keeping with features being released and then iterated upon.

I too was surprised to find that regular dashcam footage wasn't viewable. I was hoping to watch a mundane trip to the supermarket, but according to the viewer it's not there.

I'm sure it'll be rectified in due course.