dash cams

My company has recently decided to go with drivecam. I like it so far.

 

All light conditions (including night) example--> HERE.

Another with lots of night deliveries in the great white north example --> HERE.


Also, side-note. The free VLC Player (HERE) for Windows or Mac allows you lots of video tweaks, like brightness, colors, contrast, freeze-frame, slowmo, special effects, and dozens more.

 

Been looking for a program to edit these for situations that have happened.

 

For basic cutting/splicing windows movie maker works OK and is fairly intuitive. If you need to adjust brightness/contrast, VSDC (free) works well, but it isn't very intuitive so you'll pay for it in time spent watching youtube tutorials. It also installs 2 spammy programs that you'll want to remove right after install.

 

What would you recommend for editing and saving files if you need to email them?

 

I would just use windows movie maker (or whatever comes with Mac if you're on an apple) for cutting it down to just the clip you wanted to show and, unless both you and the recipient can receive large (20MB) email attachments, I would just put it on some web-based storage like dropbox. Youtube even works (you can set permissions so the video is only viewable to those with the link, or even to only those on your friends list)

 

I only played with it once. Used Movie Moments.

 

Here's some advice on that from my experience.

1. Sometimes you don't need to actually email them. Many email providers have single file limits that even if you break a 15 minute video into a 1 minute clip can prohibit. So an alternative is to upload them. You can get a free YouTube account and edit basically everything in a video that you upload. Add music, chop it down, slow-mo, whatever. Then you can designate that video as "public" or "private." In other words, if you want to share it with your friends/family who want to see some of the more interesting things you do, then set it public. If you want to send a clip of someone wacking into your mirror to your company or a lawyer, then set it as "private" and then send the private link of that one video to someone to access it or download it from wherever they are. No one can see it except those you have given the link.

2. Another "uploading method" would be to get a free Google Drive, Dropbox, or Skydrive account (for examples.) Upload to there and do the same as a private YouTube link. Each doc or video (or whatever you upload) can be set to private and generate a unique sharing link.

So, with the YouTube upload method you get the additional ability to edit. With the online storage methods you get the ability to store the entire thing in it's uncompressed format for retrieval elsewhere.

But, if you are looking to edit it onboard and not "online" then the cheapest way is to use the free Windows MovieMaker. If you have a Mac then maybe a Mac person can answer if OSX comes with a similar editor. If it is not on your machine, then just Google "moviemaker" and install it. As was said in a previous post, it is free and fairly full-featured. There is a bit of a learning curve (as with everything) but when you get the hang of it, you can edit down raw vids into bite-sized pretty easily.

There are also many "free" editors out there but most are not free for all of the features and be careful of viral activity in any software listed in the wild as "free." But there are a few. My best advice if you want to try them and get reviews would be the CNet video software download pages (HERE for Macs and HERE for Windows.) There are tons of them there. Most are free to try and some are just free. But if you are going to become a video editor in earnest, then that is where to do the checking.

Most drivers don't actually need to "email videos" with any regularity. So opting for a free storage account or YouTube account solves those rare occasions. But we are also seeing more and more drivers creating YouTube channels out there to share so much strange stuff that the normal mom and pop don't ever see. I know of quite a few who are members of this forum these days. Lots of closet "producers" on YouTube (grin.)

Hope that helps.