Continuous recording (several questions)

The general information page for the Cam-Pan-V2 shows, " Continuously record 28 days of video with Wyze microSD Card." Then later in page, under the “24/7 Continuous Recording” section, it shows, “Capture and view up to 3 days of continuous video with a 32 GB microSD card (sold separately).” Which is it, 28 days or 3 days?

My goal is continuous recording (from any of the Wyze cameras) that can easily be backed up for permanent storage (either on a PC or in the cloud). Is there a way to do this? If so, then how is it done?

Thanks in advance,
Andrew

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The length of time you get onto the SD card depends on the quality of the video you are recording. If you record at the highest quality (HD), you are only going to get about 3 days, give or take a couple hours.

If you record at the lowest quality (360p), you will get much more video time on the card.

I record at SD and get around 7 days on 32GB High Endurance Cards.

Also note that the cams are no longer limited to 32GB cards. There are many here who are using larger cards.

To backup the files to a computer or the cloud, the card must be removed and read in a computer in order to transfer them. The cams are not designed to allow access to the SD file system while it is mounted.

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I get about 11.5 days of continuous recording in HD from the V3 camera using this SD card. You can read this long thread about using the 256 GB cards, (Still in Progress)

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Otherwise great response but this may need an “officially” in there, as I think one or two independent projects can now make that happen. (?)

I haven’t seen any posts yet of users being able to read, copy, or manipulate the card contents while it is mounted in the cam. But, you are correct. It is not designed or intended to be read while in the cam.

I don’t event understand the .mp4 files names from a V3 on the card when put in a PC :astonished: My Dash Cam has a file number/name with the date and the time that the 3 min video file ended so it is easy to find a video for a certain date and time.

I’m not going to be any help there. I don’t have any insight as to how the file naming convention was formulated… Or if there even is one.

I’m doing this by memory so I may have this backwards, but it is a very logical filename - just not overly human readable. The parts of the filename are the MAC address and the epoch time (I don’t remember the order right now). Epoch time is the standard linux time internally, but most devices translate that to a human readable form. The Wyze files do not. There are lots of on-line epoch time converters such as this one: https://www.epochconverter.com/

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Thanks for that information. I usually just make a play list on VLC and play a few video files to see what time/date they were recorded then go up or down the list a few at a time to find what I want. :rofl:

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It’s been noted that accessing a directory in VLC will treat the whole thing as one long seekable video if desired.

Sigh, I guess not. It sounded as if WyzeHacks and wz_mini_hacks did everything under the sun now so maybe I assumed.

Meanwhile, @appleguru had this working two years ago…

Wow, why are our pictures so different?

IMG_4002

Hmm, his has a “3” in a bucket/U shape, and yours has a “1”.

So apparently U1 = Class 10 at 10 MB/s while U3 has three times the throughput.

This one’s pretty sweet, a U3 (meaning it’s at least 30MB/s write speed and can sustain the write bandwidth needed to support 4K video at 120fps

My 128 card is a newer/different version that Samsung released earlier this year, They say good for 70,800 hours, a lot of :raccoon: videos :grin: The last one I got was $20.84.

They must still be working on the packaging for it. :slight_smile:

I have a new SanDisk high endurance U3 that claims “up to 100 MB/s read speed, 40 MB/s write speed”.

Interesting tip, I was just about to throw out the cardboard when I noticed this bonus inside. There was absolutely no indication on the outer packaging and I almost missed this. (This also has the tiniest fine print I have ever seen in real life. Those dense 3 lines at the bottom measure less than 1/8 inch high and 1 inch across in total.)

can someone please explain to me how continuous recording actually works? Like, under what condition does continuous recording kick it and when does it stop?

I would like to start continuous recording from 10pm~8am, regardless of a motion event or not. Is this possible? With my old Swann cameras, I could set continuous recording to start and end at a specific time and I presume it’s possible with Wyze as well.

Also, what happens when the memory card gets full? Does it delete the oldest footage (i.e cyclic recording)?

Continuous recording works 24 hours a day. You can turn the camera off, but otherwise the continuous recording selection records continuously, unless you de-select it in settings.

Once the SD card is full, the camera deletes old recordings as it adds new ones. So depending on your SD card size and the camera resolution selected, you always have at least several days of recording always available.

You can also select “Events Only” recording, which requires less space. Personally, I like the continuous coverage. :slight_smile:

Thanks for your reply.

I can see that my memory card is being used, as it’ll go from e.g. 8GB/32GB yesterday to e.g. 15GB/32GB today.

The problem is, when I click on Playback, I expect to see the green timeline for the past 24 hours at least, but I see a lot of gaps in between, which would suggest that continuous recording is not actually working as I presumed it would.