# Got a Vantrue N2 Pro - Now What?



## emaja (Dec 31, 2018)

Got it Black Friday weekend cheap but never set it up because I don’t have a PC to store or edit. 

What else do you guys use?

How long do you keep the video?

Do you edit and archive to an external hard drive?


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## FLKeys (Dec 27, 2018)

I have a laptop and a 2 TB external drive to save the files onto. I look at my trip logs and find the files that actually had PAX and only save those files based on time stamps. If something bothered me with a particular trip I save that file in a different folder. Eventually older files will be deleted.

I keep 2 memory cards and can am always rotating them to save footage.


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## PlayLoud (Jan 11, 2019)

I've only been at this about 3 weeks or so. I haven't deleted any video yet. I plan to keep all my footage for no less than a month, but I have enough storage at home that I can probably keep 3-6 months without breaking a sweat. I wouldn't bother editing. When you can buy a 4TB HDD for $100, it's not worth the time to edit. I just plug the camera into my computer and transfer the files overnight. If I were really in a hurry, I have a USB 3.0 Micro SD card reader, which transfers the data about 5x faster, but it's easier to just leave the Micro SD card in the camera and transfer it slowly. It's done by the time I wake up. After it's transferred, I format the card in the camera (might as well clear it to avoid transferring duplicate files next time), and put it back in my car.


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## KenLV (Jun 23, 2017)

PlayLoud said:


> I've only been at this about 3 weeks or so. I haven't deleted any video yet. I plan to keep all my footage for no less than a month, but I have enough storage at home that I can probably keep 3-6 months without breaking a sweat. I wouldn't bother editing. When you can buy a 4TB HDD for $100, it's not worth the time to edit. I just plug the camera into my computer and transfer the files overnight. If I were really in a hurry, I have a USB 3.0 Micro SD card reader, which transfers the data about 5x faster, but it's easier to just leave the Micro SD card in the camera and transfer it slowly. It's done by the time I wake up. After it's transferred, I format the card in the camera (might as well clear it to avoid transferring duplicate files next time), and put it back in my car.


Just get a second, or third, SD card. Swap them out and download.

Easy peasy.


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## PlayLoud (Jan 11, 2019)

KenLV said:


> Just get a second, or third, SD card. Swap them out and download.
> 
> Easy peasy.


I'm driving enough that my 256GB card doesn't last me a week. It's easier (and cheaper) to just transfer the data off overnight. I have about 15 TB free space at home, so storage isn't an issue.


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## FLKeys (Dec 27, 2018)

With the two cards I have I can place card in Saturday morning and be good for the weekend. Swap it out Monday morning and be good for the week until weekend swap. Pulled the card out last night because I thought I screwed up my trip log. Nope trip log was good, Lyft shorted me 2.3 miles and 5 minutes on one of my trips. Sent them screen shot of Google maps and told them I had video of the ride if they needed it. They made good on it within 2 hours.


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## PlayLoud (Jan 11, 2019)

Nothing wrong with that. I thought about buying a second card to swap out. But I just think it's easier to plug the camera into the computer. I'm less likely to get a fingerprint on one of the camera lenses than I would be if I were taking out the card. I might buy a second card just in case I forgot to offload a nearly full card, and I wanted to start driving right away. So far, it hasn't been an issue though.


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## FLKeys (Dec 27, 2018)

I mainly wanted to first see how quick I fill up a card and I know me, I won't pay attention to it if I don't keep a set schedule. Next thing I know the footage I want has been over written.


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## PlayLoud (Jan 11, 2019)

A 256GB card should fill up in about 18-19 hours in dual 1080p mode.


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## KenLV (Jun 23, 2017)

PlayLoud said:


> I'm driving enough that my 256GB card doesn't last me a week. It's easier (and cheaper) to just transfer the data off overnight. I have about 15 TB free space at home, so storage isn't an issue.


Having multiple SD cards provides...

Convenience and security.

Convenience...as you noted, you can DL far faster from a card reader and you don't have to take the camera down/put it up. I run my cameras whenever I or my wife is driving, not just when doing RS. So I want as little "downtime" as possible.

Security...these cards die, no matter what brand. Swapping them out and reading from them as they fill up ensures that never more than a day or two's footage is at risk/lost.

I actually have a 3rd spare that sits in my console that gets put in if I ever have ANYTHING wonky happen. I lock the footage on the card in and pull it to be safe.

Lastly, you'd be surprised how quickly that space on your computer will go bye bye.

As you said, you go through over 256 GB a week (depending on how much you drive, how much action is going on, lighting, etc... you can fill it up 3 or even 4 times in a week).

So over 3 terabytes a month, maybe even 4.

I'm not worried about having footage to defend against the false accusation I get tonight that I learn about tomorrow, I'm worried about the ones months from now. Or some down the road lawsuit from some "creative" lawyer. I'm worried about the unknown.

So I keep it all.

*It's the cheapest insurance policy you'll ever get.*

With as cheap as storage is now, get yourself something like one of these external hot swap dock...

https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/CB542538-32B6-4E14-AE52-A77994212C48 (just a quick example, you can get them for low $20s)

And large capacity HDs can be gotten for sub $20/TB.

Heck, if you didn't toss your HDs with your computers, you probably have a ton of available space now (I'm using my old 1, 2, 3, and 6TB drives and haven't had to buy ANY additional storage and have 2 years of footage).

You don't want to use all your computer's storage for this. It'll only bog it down.

I don't save the non-RS footage since I'm not worried about my wife submitting a report to Uber/Lyft that I hit on her.

I do go through the RS footage quickly to pull the files where there was no pax.

It takes literally just a few minutes to fly through an entire SD cards worth of footage - you're not watching the clips, just seeing if pax are in the car. Time well spent vs. the cost of even cheap storage.

Anyway, just some thoughts.


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## FLKeys (Dec 27, 2018)

I use the Uber/Lyft trip time stamps to narrow down what files to dump. No Pax, Dump it.


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## PlayLoud (Jan 11, 2019)

98% of my driving is for rideshare, so I don't get much recorded time when I'm off-app. I just don't think it's worth my time to go through and edit out the blocks where I don't have a pax. Time spent doing that is time I could have spent driving (or sleeping). With how cheap HDD storage is, it's more profitable to buy another drive, and spend the saved time driving.


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## FLKeys (Dec 27, 2018)

If you updated the firmware on the camera be aware of a couple things. The settings all go back to the default settings, this I expected. The IR light settings option is no longer in the settings menu and defaults to off. To turn it on go to the home screen showing the camera view and not recording. Touch the power button real quick, it will toggle you thru the IR light settings as indicated in the upper right corner of the display. Also touching another button (yet to be determined) changes the sound recording option.

If I was not swapping memory cards and saving footage to remote storage I would not have noticed these things changed. Sucks because the last two days my IR lights were off and the last one day the sound was off.


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## KenLV (Jun 23, 2017)

PlayLoud said:


> 98% of my driving is for rideshare, so I don't get much recorded time when I'm off-app. I just don't think it's worth my time to go through and edit out the blocks where I don't have a pax. Time spent doing that is time I could have spent driving (or sleeping). With how cheap HDD storage is, it's more profitable to buy another drive, and spend the saved time driving.


Almost all of my driving is also RS, but sadly, there is a ton of time where there is no pax in the car - on the way to most pickups or when I'm staging for example.

And while HDDs are cheap, the ~10 minutes it takes per TB to dump empty videos, "pays" me better than any time driving since I don't earn $100+/hr driving. 

I'm not sure how sleep deprived you are that you think doing this will make it worse so, but we're talking ~10 minutes per week to do this.

But as they say, to each their own.


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## CarpeNoctem (Sep 12, 2018)

I just take the camera out and download the clips with PAXes to an external drive via my workstation. Then dump the rest. I don't like fumbling with those tiny sd cards.

As to editing (if needed), I use Vegas. Sometimes you can get it for dirt cheap from Humble.


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## PlayLoud (Jan 11, 2019)

KenLV said:


> I'm not sure how sleep deprived you are that you think doing this will make it worse so, but we're talking ~10 minutes per week to do this.
> 
> But as they say, to each their own.


I work 45 hr/wk in my day job. I drive... 25-30 hr/wk probably. When I'm done driving, I'm usually pretty tired and ready to go straight to bed. For me, it's enough to just hook up the camera and let it transfer overnight. I'd want to make sure I didn't get rid of any pax footage. Sure, my 10 minute drive to work in the morning would be easy to locate. But that's so little space that it's not a big deal. For everything else, I'd want to make sure there isn't a pax in the 5 min segment. With how many 5 minute clips I'd have to go through, I'm positive it would take me a lot more than 10 minutes. And how much room could I save? Let's say I managed to cut out 40GB per week. If you held 3 months worth of footage, that's only 520GB in that days of very inexpensive multi-TB HDDs.

In addition to all this, it COULD be advantageous to hold on to ALL footage. If you're ever accused of driving a pax while impaired, having hours of continuous footage (not that Uber would watch it) before the reported ride COULD help prove that you had not had a drink or did any drugs in the previous X number of hours since you started driving that day. I mean, the trick is to get Uber to watch it, but I'd still rather have the footage and not need it, than need it and not have it.

Obviously, you don't find it a pain to find and delete your dead clips, and that's fine. As you said, to each their own.


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## FLKeys (Dec 27, 2018)

PlayLoud said:


> ......In addition to all this, it COULD be advantageous to hold on to ALL footage. If you're ever accused of driving a pax while impaired, having hours of continuous footage (not that Uber would watch it) before the reported ride COULD help prove that you had not had a drink or did any drugs in the previous X number of hours since you started driving that day. I mean, the trick is to get Uber to watch it, but I'd still rather have the footage and not need it, than need it and not have it.
> 
> Obviously, you don't find it a pain to find and delete your dead clips, and that's fine. As you said, to each their own.


Very good point. While Uber may not watch it it could become evidence in small claims court if one decided to go that route against a PAX that lied.


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## PlayLoud (Jan 11, 2019)

Good deal on storage right now. 8TB for $139.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D5V2ZXD/?tag=ubne0c-20
The 10TB was on sale for $159.99 last night. I picked one up. That sale is over though.

Lots of room to store dash cam video.


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