New Dashcam Viewer Question

[Neilman]

No, that isn't how it works.

It records and keeps the last 60 mins while the car is powered up and stops recording shortly after you park and leave the car when it powers down.

It will begin recording again when you unlock and enter the car and at that moment it will delete any recordings over an hour old.

So if you want to review the last 60 mins of your drive just take the storage device with you when you leave the car.

If you don't do that and return 30 mins later to get it then you will only have 30 mins of video left...

Sentry mode is separate and stored in its own folder.

 

[Neilman]

Sounds like the only way to get a full journey dashcam footage would be to use a regular dashcam camera stuck to the screen and to treat the Tesla dashcam as principally the sentry camera recorder.

 

[brkaus]

No, that isn't how it works.

It records and keeps the last 60 mins while the car is powered up and stops recording shortly after you park and leave the car when it powers down.

It will begin recording again when you unlock and enter the car and at that moment it will delete any recordings over an hour old.

So if you want to review the last 60 mins of your drive just take the storage device with you when you leave the car.

If you don't do that and return 30 mins later to get it then you will only have 30 mins of video left...

Sentry mode is separate and stored in its own folder.

I believe the buffer gets overwritten if sentry mode is on. At least at one point.

 

[Louis0w]

I copied my drive before reformatting the other day. I had over 112 GB in the saved clips folder. I know I did not manually save or honk the horn more than a couple times max. I also do not remember pulling off the freeway, removing the drive and looking for the clip with the truck blowing its tire and I barely missing the shrapnel.

.

Like myself and others have said, Sentry mode events are automatically saved. Unless deleted, these will reduce available space on your device. Do you have Sentry mode enabled? If so, are you regularly reviewing and then deleting those events from your device that you don’t want to retain?

 

[Louis0w]

Sounds like the only way to get a full journey dashcam footage would be to use a regular dashcam camera stuck to the screen and to treat the Tesla dashcam as principally the sentry camera recorder.

That’s correct. Unless, of course, your journey is < 60mins and you remove your device after completing your journey.

 

[SDRick]

To answer your question yes I have sentry mode enabled. In addition to 112 GB In the saved clips folder, I also had a similar amount of sentry footage before the updating and reformatting.

 

[Louis0w]

To answer your question yes I have sentry mode enabled. In addition to 112 GB In the saved clips folder, I also had a similar amount of sentry footage before the updating and reformatting.

Your devices available storage will reduce over time if you’re not removing unwanted sentry mode footage that is auto saved to the Sentry Clips folder. The Saved Clips folder only contains footage you have manually saved to your device, by tapping the dashcam icon or using save on honk.

 

[davyjohns]

This morning I unlocked the car, input code and removed my ssd. Checked on a PC, nothing on the ssd. I had previously deleted 'saved' and 'sentry' footage and the 'recent' folder contained nothing. I agree that when you go back to the car after more than 60 mins all the 'recent' is deleted.

Does 'sentry' mode record whilst driving?

 

[Mark_T]

Does 'sentry' mode record whilst driving?

No, it can only record while parked.

The two modes are mutually exclusive.

 

[MrBadger]

Although I have seen what looked like dashcam ending up in sentry and/or sentry ending up in dashcam folders but cannot be 100% sure. It was if, if there was a drive->park or vice versa transition within a 10 minute block, the whole block was transferred to one or other folder. So sentry might have got part of dashcam footage, or vice versa.

Sorry its sounds vague, but I didn't actually pay much attention at the time other than thinking that the folder contained the wrong type of footage but a logical explanation was that it was the transition period from one type of view to the other.

 

[davyjohns]

Be aware that when deleting clips using a PC they can end up being stored in the 'recycle bin' thus eating up some of your storage. Only realised when I checked the capacity of the sdd and found 0 files but 13Gb used.

 

[NorfolkMustard]

Yes, make sure you empty the computer’s recycle bin before ejecting the usb stick

 

[Neilman]

With Windows PCs the delete function moves the data to a recycle-bin folder on the same drive it was originally located.
Normally this is to permit recovery in case the delete was not intended (or accidentally deleted more files than was expected).
However, if you really want to delete for good in one fell swoop, just press shift key together with the delete key - this bypasses the recycle bin but there is of course no easy recovery from this deletion (if it matters).

 

[Need]

That’s correct. Unless, of course, your journey is < 60mins and you remove your device after completing your journey.

Or if it is over 60 minutes, set a 10 minutes timer on the phone, when it rings, press the camera icon to save off the 10 min clips of dashcam, reset phone timer to start again. So you manually kept hitting the icon 6 times an hour....

 

[Artiste]

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.

 

[Mark_T]

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...

 

[Medved_77]

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

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.

 

[Louis0w]

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.

Agree with some of this - but I don’t feel it’s fair to compare against a standalone third party dashcam. We shouldn’t forget the primary use of the camera set up is to facilitate the vision needed for autopilot. Using those same cameras to then provide us, first with dashcam functionality, then sentry mode and now an in car viewer, is a welcome (and free) bonus. Of course, those that still require a standalone set up can purchase a dedicated dashcam, with the enhancement that offers.

 

[Cwmwd]

Was anyone else using ext4 formatting for the TeslaCam? After upgrading to 2020.12.5 this morning I get a message telling me the format is not supported and that DashCam nor Sentry will work. I can view the old saved clips on the new in-car viewer but it indeed does not record any new footage, but Sentry does tell me about trigger events (but does not record them).

Wondering if they've dropped support for ext4 (nothing in the release notes) or if the update has somehow borked the drive and I just need to fix it. Given the number of posts about FAT drives not working this ext4 drive has been flawless since I collected the car in November so I'm loath to have to change it to FAT now.

 

[dakaix]

There's been several reports on /r/teslamotors of ext4 support being broken in 2020.12, hopefully it'll be patched soon. I'm holding off upgrading from 2020.8.3 until it is.