I put together this video to help get ready for the dashcam functionality. I hope it helps!

 

Nice one I like it

 

 

In preparation for v9 dash cam functionality, I ordered a SanDisk wireless flash drive* and small USB hub so I can connect phone, and one flash drive for cam and my existing USB stick for music.

Release notes state that dash cam can't use same drive as music drive. I hope that is resolved some day, but another drive plus hub isn't expensive.
I thought the wireless drive would be useful so that in case of accident etc, files could easily and immediately be downloaded to phone. This is why my existing dash cams have wifi. *Note that only the 32GB version of this model is FAT32 formatted according to reviews, larger sizes may or may not work.

 

I like that drive. Being able to get to the footage wirelessly would be nice. I might buy the same drive.

 

Editing this as I'm not certain it is the case that we're allowed to discuss this yet. First rule of fight club...

My apologies if I jumped the gun!

 

looking at the videos, there is a time stamp but, the date modified time stamp is off by 5 hours. first video was taken at 12:42

 

seeing the word "front" in the file name is a good sign for future enhancements.

 

New text indicates any video clip older than 1 hour will be deleted regardless of how much space you have on your drive. So it sounds like it can never use any more than 1.8 GB plus ~300 MB for each 10 min clip you choose to save. This makes it super important to remember to hit the save button within 10 minutes of anything interesting happening.

 

New text indicates any video clip older than 1 hour will be deleted regardless of how much space you have on your drive. So it sounds like it can never use any more than 1.8 GB plus ~300 MB for each 10 min clip you choose to save. This makes it super important to remember to hit the save button within 10 minutes of anything interesting happening.

View attachment 15561

My first take reading that line was that any 10 minute clips you have saved, need to be downloaded off the drive within an hour, not that it clears out any data more than 1 hr old. could be worded a little better, whichever the case is.

 

Remember, it can't delete a file if you unplug it from the car. You can then keep as long as you like.

 

What I haven't seen is if there's a safe way to unplug from the car (similar to hitting eject from your computer) to transfer the files to your computer?

 

Since it is not writing or reading when the car is in park there shouldn't be an issue with removing the usb.

 

Ok, I guess I'm free to discuss this now that many people are receiving V9!

So, I am still wondering about viewing the saved files from the USB drive. I just took it out of the car and I see my TeslaCam folder with all of the looped .mp4 files inside the folder. These open and play back fine, though 4x3 kills me in this 16x9 age. ;-) (Cameras must be 4x3)

The files I saved (from pressing the on-screen DashCam button) are outside of that folder on the root level and have a .REC extension which will not open in anything. I tried changing them to .mov or .mp4 but they won't open. Anyone have ideas on this or get them to work yet? I'm on a Mac, btw.

Thanks.

 

if you google .rec to .mp4 or .rec to .avi you will get quite a few options on converting these.

 

What's Google? ;-) Just kidding...I am in video production business and have already done the searches.

My question stands: I have already tried changing extensions, using VLC (does not work), MPEG Streamclip (does not work), etc.

Again, I'm on a Mac. Maybe PC people are getting these to work, but wondering if anyone has been able to view them on a Mac?

(I'm wondering if Tesla won't update this soon. It's odd that the written files are .mp4 but the recorded/saved files are different. Doesn't make sense, so my guess is they'll update this...hopefully soon so we can EASILY see the saved files.)

Thanks!

 

I don't have V9 yet, but can convert a .rec to .m4v using VLC on OSX without any issues.

 

Just downloaded the latest VLC to make sure I'm up to date. It won't even open the .REC files...nothing to even view, transcode, export, etc.

 

Very interested to see how this gets sorted. The 10 minute clips are the important ones that contain something that happened.
How big are the .REC files? About equal to 10 of the .mp4?

 

The .REC files vary in size...a few that I tested are a couple MB, but several are 10 MB.

I'd actually say the ones you push "save" for are the ones that are more important. The others get recorded over/deleted as the drive fills up. The .REC are the ones you are saying are worthy of saving.

Hopefully we get more info on these soon.

 

The .RED files vary in size...a few that I tested are a couple MB, but several are 10 MB.

wait, .red or .rec? .red is typically a CAD markup file, not a video file

 

Sorry...typo. We shoot on RED cameras all the time so hit the wrong key. ;-) (I edited my previous post.)

Yes. all files outside of the TeslaCam folder that get saved are .REC files and will not play for me. I have not heard anyone on this or other forums saying they have gotten them to play, so we wait...

 

I'm worried how USB flash drives are going to perform in winter. The few drives that actually mention operating temperature in the specs, usually say its 0 to 35 (Celsius). Even the drives that are rugged by design, like Corsair Flash Survivor Stealth, don't mention any subzero temperature capability. I'm worried that the dashcam USB drive will be powered on when i get into the car in winter at -20, and that might ruin it. On the other hand, i've heard some people use regular cheap USB sticks for music in the cars and have no problems with it. Of course, writing data is trickier than reading it.

 

I chose a Samsung 128 GB stick USB 3.1 from Amazon because it says "Withstands -25°C to 85°C operating, -40°C to 85°C non-operating."

 

I've been doing some testing today and first observation with the dashcam is upon writing a new file it skips a bunch of frames in the next clip. By my count its 6 frames however there seems to be more missing when I review the footage. Not sure if it's the crummy USB key I'm using but I'm trying to edit a video of my test and it's proving very difficult to line up the clips.

I'll have more to say soon

 

The files I saved (from pressing the on-screen DashCam button) are outside of that folder on the root level and have a .REC extension which will not open in anything. I tried changing them to .mov or .mp4 but they won't open. Anyone have ideas on this or get them to work yet? I'm on a Mac, btw.

Thanks.

I use HandBrake for file conversions, and the product's documentation implies that it works for .REC files. The associated community forum confirms this, though I have no .REC source files to try at this point. I'm using an iMac with Mojave.

 

looking at the videos, there is a time stamp but, the date modified time stamp is off by 5 hours. first video was taken at 12:42

View attachment 15549

UTC vs local time?

 

It was discovered that you can remotely activate the dash cam when parked by turning on your climate control

 

I tried a high quality USB stick and I'm still seeing dropped frames at the start of each saved clip so I think it's just related to the speed of the CPU in this case and can't handle all the extra load or it has a really small buffer.

Compared to my BlackVue the video quality is not that great, lots of compression artifacts, dull colour, struggles with white balance etc.. . A lot of people are asking me if you can read license plates and yes you can but only if the cars close by (no more than 2 car lengths ahead) and don't have smoked plate covers.

No time stamps embedded into the clips, no embedded GPS data. It's all very basic.

It's great that Tesla has done this for us but it's obvious to me that the cameras on board the car are just good enough for the AI to detect and catalog objects for EAP and eventually FSD but not really good enough as a dashcam compared to what you can buy aftermarket. At this time I'll say I'm disappointed.

 

It's great that Tesla has done this for us but it's obvious to me that the cameras on board the car are just good enough for the AI to detect and catalog objects for EPA and eventually FSD but not really good enough as a dashcam compared to what you can buy aftermarket. At this time I'll say I'm disappointed.

what I've been saying since the first hint this feature would be worked on.
I'm sure once most everyone is on V9, the amount of complaining about the quality will be thru the roof.

 

Trevor, thanks for running these two tests and sharing the videos.

One observation and one request regarding the daylight test (may be related):

- Despite there being no apparent change in the brightness of the sky (as seen through your driver-side window), the onboard Tesla camera video kept getting darker and lighter .

- It would be informative to see how the onboard Tesla camera responded when driving into, and out of direct sunlight.

 

I did a test after just downloading the Version 9 update.

I confirmed that I can play music on one USB port, while using the Tesla Cam on the other port simultaneously.

FYI.

 

It looks like the dash cam file saving is fixed (39.6). There's no .REC file, it just renames the past 10 minutes worth of clips from "recent" to "saved" and doesn't overwrite them (as far as I can tell)

 

It looks like the dash cam file saving is fixed (39.6). There's no .REC file, it just renames the past 10 minutes worth of clips from "recent" to "saved" and doesn't overwrite them (as far as I can tell)
View attachment 15754

@Rich M, on the file names saved from your screen shot, I see dates but what is the "...02-20.mp4, ...02-21.mp4...etc..."? did you hit "save" multiple times on the touchscreen?

 

Here are some details on the camera clips:

1280 x 960 resolution
36 FPS
Each clip is 60 seconds long