Thread: Installing a Blackvue Dual Channel Dashcam into a D4

So I ended up buying a Blackvue DR650GW-2CH 2 channel dashcam and thought I'd put together a little install post for those considering similar in a D3 or D4.

The system comes with 2 cameras - front one is 1080P rear is 720P and everything is recorded on a micro SD card in the front Camera.

The box comes with everything you need to do the job:


So I started by finding a suitable position to mouth the front camera. Ideally, you would mount this exactly central to the car - unfortunately that's awkward in a D4 as I already have sensors for auto wipers and lights in the way, so central would put it below the mirror - too low for my liking.

As a result I put it behind the mirror on the passengers side:





Next to get the power cable from there.... down the left hand pillar to the fuse box behind the glovebox. A little yellow tongue made it pretty easy to feed up from the bottom.





Removing the left visor also made getting through the head lining a lot easier.



Next job was to position the rear camera and get the coax from one to the other...

Mounting was easy.... and you can barely see it from outside.


Working the coax through the headlining from front to back tool a little patience, but Blackvue gave me plenty of cable length, allowing me to come across and down the side of the vehicle.


Eventually it connected to the rear cam nice and neatly. I probably could have fed it through into the tailgate frame..but I got lazy. I might come back and do that later if it annoys me too much.


Now time to go back and finish connecting at the front. simply plugging the coax and power cables into the cam and putting the power into a cigarette lighter had it all running:



From outside: ( I'm going to black out the writing to make it a little less obvious)


Configuration to ensure the time etc was set right was dead easy with the Blackvue app connecting to the cameras WiFi exactly as the book said... it was a piece of cake.

Next week I will add a power magic module, that allows me to wire it into the fusebox - giving me access to the standby parking mode.

I'll also update this thread with my impressions of the cam once I've used it for a while and some samples of video.

So far very happy... couple of hours and all working perfectly.

So I am now officially ready for the next cyclist See my dashcam inspiration HERE

That's right Martyn,

It gives you the following options

Resolution:

Front: FHD @30fps + Rear HD @30fps

Front: FHD @15fps + Rear HD @15fps

Front: HD @30fps + Rear HD @30fps

Front: HD @15fps + Rear HD @15fps

Image Quality :

Highest High Normal

One thing I have noticed, is if the camera is getting too much light, the images get a bit pixelated.

I saw this on a review and the reviewer solved it my angling the camera down a little to get less sky.

However I noticed yesterday that when off road and pointing skywards, I see this issue quite significantly. I'm going to mess around with the brightness setting too and see if that helps.


I've read that there is a very good third party firmware available for these units, but I al loath to go that route while they are still under warranty.

Definitely still playing to find the best settings