Mercedes Dash Cam
- Thread starter topdown
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Gazwould
MB Enthusiast
How many £millions ?
SpikyMikey
Hardcore MB Enthusiast
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- BMW F31 330i LCI M Sport Shadow Edition AMG Black Series Touring
£500 to £900
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- GLB 220D 4Matic P+
Does it come in a Gold Lined Box?£500 to £900
SpikyMikey
Hardcore MB Enthusiast
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2020
- Messages
- 10,235
- Location
- The Sunny South Coast
- Car
- BMW F31 330i LCI M Sport Shadow Edition AMG Black Series Touring
Bargain
fabes
MB Enthusiast
?
I just got this kit installed by Braybrooks, front & rear camera. Great installation job; only trouble is: the rear camera never records while in Driving mode. It does record in Parking mode, and I can see the live preview on my phone, but no combination of settings, reformatting, factory reset etc could get any recording from the rear camera in Driving mode to appear on the SD card.
The 'Sport' mode, which does work and records at double the frame rate but from the front camera only, is definitely off.
Has anyone had this problem? The firmware version is 1.01, which means that it could probably do with an update, but googling for "MB dashcam firmware update" is hopeless.
The 'Sport' mode, which does work and records at double the frame rate but from the front camera only, is definitely off.
Has anyone had this problem? The firmware version is 1.01, which means that it could probably do with an update, but googling for "MB dashcam firmware update" is hopeless.
Ask Braybooks to sort it ?
Yes, I've emailed them, waiting for a reply; I'll ring them soon.
It's funny that officially, according to Mercedes, their dash cam is not compatible with my car model, which is baffling: the system only needs power from the battery and a signal for ignition on. It's not integrated with the car's electronics or anything, as far as I know.
And indeed it works flawlessly, apart from this one odd missing element.
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- AMG Line Premier Plus Estate C220d
halfrauds do loads and fit..fraction of the price
Benz17
MB Enthusiast
I considered this when I was choosing a dashcam, but then opted for blackvue 900x 2ch at half the price, blackvue are also very highly rated. It’s a 4k camera, very high quality videos.
I had the very expensive Mercedes front and rear cameras expertly fitted by Neil at Braybrooks as shown in Topdown's initial post. The pair do look very 'factory' and work OK. They're not the best but do the job as a witness in the event of an incident.
You can connect your phone wirelessly and download (slowly) the video files and view the front or rear cameras on your phone.
However, for three years, I've been trying to find a way to download, save and use the rear camera video. What's the point of having a rear 'witness' if it can't be sent off as evidence if needed?
I've tried numerous movie players and movie editing software. I've contacted MB technical help, MB App support and my local dealer without success. Even Neil at Braybrooks couldn't help which is saying something!
I was just about to give up when I had another rummage in VLC Media Player and I found the solution which had been staring me in the face the whole time.
I've written the following short procedure which I hope will put an end to the frustration of spending over £800 on a dashcam pair, only to find that the rear cam is pointless!
The Mercedes dashcam combines (interlaces) both the front and rear camera video tracks into a single file which is then stored on the memory card in the ‘Driving’ folder.
If the file is downloaded to PC and played with a media player, only the front camera track can be played.
However, the rear camera footage can be viewed in VLC Media Player by opening the video file and when playing, select ‘Video’, ‘Video Track’, ‘Track 2’.
If the rear footage is required to be saved for later use, carry out the following:
Remove memory card from camera and using a holder, copy, paste and save to a known location on a PC. (Windows 11 in my case)
Open VLC. Click ‘Media’, ‘Convert/Save’
From the popup window, click 'Add’ and browse and open the previously saved video file. The file source and title will appear in the window.
In the popup, Click ‘Convert/Save’
From Settings, tick ‘Deinterlace’ and select required output format (MP4).
Enter the destination for the deinterlaced file by browsing.
Click ‘Start’. The conversion progress will appear at the bottom of the screen.
Note. This will strip and save the REAR camera footage which can then be used.
It's possible to wirelessly download the interlaced video file to a smartphone but you'll need to transfer it to a PC and use VLC to process it.
You can connect your phone wirelessly and download (slowly) the video files and view the front or rear cameras on your phone.
However, for three years, I've been trying to find a way to download, save and use the rear camera video. What's the point of having a rear 'witness' if it can't be sent off as evidence if needed?
I've tried numerous movie players and movie editing software. I've contacted MB technical help, MB App support and my local dealer without success. Even Neil at Braybrooks couldn't help which is saying something!
I was just about to give up when I had another rummage in VLC Media Player and I found the solution which had been staring me in the face the whole time.
I've written the following short procedure which I hope will put an end to the frustration of spending over £800 on a dashcam pair, only to find that the rear cam is pointless!
The Mercedes dashcam combines (interlaces) both the front and rear camera video tracks into a single file which is then stored on the memory card in the ‘Driving’ folder.
If the file is downloaded to PC and played with a media player, only the front camera track can be played.
However, the rear camera footage can be viewed in VLC Media Player by opening the video file and when playing, select ‘Video’, ‘Video Track’, ‘Track 2’.
If the rear footage is required to be saved for later use, carry out the following:
Remove memory card from camera and using a holder, copy, paste and save to a known location on a PC. (Windows 11 in my case)
Open VLC. Click ‘Media’, ‘Convert/Save’
From the popup window, click 'Add’ and browse and open the previously saved video file. The file source and title will appear in the window.
In the popup, Click ‘Convert/Save’
From Settings, tick ‘Deinterlace’ and select required output format (MP4).
Enter the destination for the deinterlaced file by browsing.
Click ‘Start’. The conversion progress will appear at the bottom of the screen.
Note. This will strip and save the REAR camera footage which can then be used.
It's possible to wirelessly download the interlaced video file to a smartphone but you'll need to transfer it to a PC and use VLC to process it.
MAN YOU DESERVE AN AWARD!
Finally someone cracked the mystery! I was resigned to the idea that MB had made a woefully under-performing product that could not even record from the front and rear cameras at the same time, which beggared belief -- and indeed it wasn't the case.It's just that MB didn't think necessary to even mention in the user manual that the two video feeds are merged and saved into a single file; maybe they thought it was obvious since all customers are forensic experts in digital video processing, aren't they?
@Tighpr, do you have an iPhone, by any chance? I have an Android: when I had the dashcam installed, there was no MB Dashcam App for Android available for my phone model. I could only access the dashcam wirelessly using the web interface, and I never got to see a single recording from the rear camera, other than in parking mode, or still frames only. I suppose the iPhone app was already capable of playing the rear camera recordings as well as the front camera ones.
EDIT: Now I see that the MB Dashcam App for Android has finally been updated, and I can install it on my phone too. It was about time MB!
EDIT: Now I see that the MB Dashcam App for Android has finally been updated, and I can install it on my phone too. It was about time MB!
Thanks Deeday! Yep, mine's an Android.
I've tried the method suggested by Tighpr but it didn't work. I basically ended up with a copy of the original file, with both video tracks still in it.
After further digging around and experimenting, I've managed to do it using ffmpeg, although it's a bit fiddly, from command line. Here's how I dd it (the original file on the SD card is 20230818_181442D.MP4 in this example):
After further digging around and experimenting, I've managed to do it using ffmpeg, although it's a bit fiddly, from command line. Here's how I dd it (the original file on the SD card is 20230818_181442D.MP4 in this example):
- Extract the rear camera's video stream (track No. 2, which has index 1) into a temporary MP4 file, using the same codec as the source. The resulting video will have no audio:
Code:ffmpeg -i 20230818_181442D.MP4 -map 0:v:1 -codec copy rear_no_audio.mp4 - Extract the audio stream into a temporary M4A file:
Code:ffmpeg -i 20230818_181442D.MP4 -map 0:a:0 -codec copy audio.m4a - Merge the two streams into the final MP4 file:
Code:ffmpeg -i rear_no_audio.mp4 -i audio.m4a -codec copy rear_with_audio.mp4
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