Dash cam to a dedicated USB ??

[jack-s]

My 73 C class has 3 USB-c ports; I want to dedicate one of them to the in built dash Cam recordings as I use the other two ports for other stuff, like for instance media playback of pre recorded Albums.

But because of the silly MB 'auto dashcam recording not allowed' for inbuilt dash cams, I use the voice command 'Hey Mercedes start Dash Cam recording' when setting off rather than fiddling with the menus each time. But! if I have media plugged into one of the other USB ports, and with the dash cam recording being set to loop/overwrite and therefore the normally used USB is always full with old recordings and over-written. When I start a new DC recording at start of a new journey the system, finding that the normal USB is full, appears to look for alternative blank space before over-writing the old DC recordings. So if I have a USB stick with music Albums inserted into one of the other ports, it starts DC recordings on whatever free space there is on that music USB stick.

That in itself is annoying but if I don't remember that the Audio USB is plugged in, when that free space is filled it then starts over-writting the music albums which is a major pain in the butt.

I've tried converting a USB from Fat32 to NTFS so that I can make it 'read only' but the MB software can't then even see it when inserted. I then removed the the 'read only' with the idea of partitioning the NTFS volume and reducing the music partition so that it's full and therefore should be ignored by the dash cam writing software. To my surprise Mercedes could read NTFS but the files appear all over the place and not contained in there respective albums. Can't partition Fat32 of course even though there are many instructions on the net saying it can be done.

The ideal solution would be to dedicate dashcam recordings to one USB port/USB stick so that it doesn't look for alternative free space but I don't seem to be able to find anyway of doing that. Does anyboby know if it's possible or have a work around. (sorry it's a bit of a ramble but dif, to explain)

 

[Woodleigh]

The ideal solution would be to dedicate dashcam recordings to one USB port/USB stick so that it doesn't look for alternative free space but I don't seem to be able to find anyway of doing that. Does anyboby know if it's possible or have a work around. (sorry it's a bit of a ramble but dif, to explain)

I use a single USB port, (MBUX does not support data in more than one port) and a single USB Flash Drive formatted to ExFat.
I have created three separate folders on that flash drive; ‘Speed Cams’, ‘Music’ and ‘Recordings’. The dash cam always finds the folder Recordings and never overwrites the other folders.

 

[jack-s]

Thanks for that much appreciated. To be honest I didn't let the DC recording fill the empty space on the audio USB as I just assumed it would over write the albums but as they dispalay as folders maybe not. What I'll do is copy all the albums onto the USB I'm using for the DC but into a separate folder and give it a try your way. (it's 256Gb so really too big for loop DC recording as would be difficult finding the bit I want, better on a smaller space and I'll still have two free ports) Thanks again. Just out of interest do you think it's better using exFat ?? just a bigger sector size isn't it, but then if exFat works for you that's good enough for me.

Also going slightly of topic, does MBUX auomatically find the speed cam 'add on' in the folder each time you set off as I was intending giving that a try but thought I might be pushing my luck as had assumed it would have to be on a third USB stick.

 

[Woodleigh]

Hi Jack, I started off with some low capacity USB’s bur recently upgraded to a Kingston 512GB Data Traveler Max connected by this high speed cable...

UseBean Right Angle USB C Extension Cable 0.2m, 90 Degree USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 20Gbps Male to Female Type C 4K Video Extender Cord,for USB C ...from Amazon.​

Tried Fat32 but seem s to like ExFat better...No issues so far.

Speed Cams are a subscription from SCDB.info

Hope this helps

 

[jack-s]

Thanks, I'll just format to exFat and not worry about it, I was just curious.

I have the DC USB on a right angle cable with the USB tucked away in the phone charging compartment. My albums were/are on a Dual USB-A/USB-C stick on a right angle (downwards) adapter in the centre console but they can now go on the 256gb and I'll have the two in the centre console free which is much better.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Jack-L]

Hi. I have the same issue. I have one USB-C stick with 125 gb (named dashcam) which I wanted to dedicate to the dashcam recordings and one 500 gb USB-C extreme ssd (named music), 1/2 filled with music. They are both exFat formatted. I remarked that the dashcam recordings are stored in a folder named 'dashcam' on both USB-C stick and ssd, and they are (luckily) not overwriting the music folders on the ssd. However, I remarked that for some unknown reason, when activating the dashcam, it always starts by preference to write on my music ssd disk and not on the USB-C stick. Only when I plug out the ssd, then activate the dashcam, it will record on the remaining USD-C stick. Afterwards I plug-in again the ssd to play the music but immediately the dashcam will start writing on the sdd and forget the USB-C. I use both USB-C entries near the GSM loader and changing the entries of both USB-C stick and ssd does not make a difference. It is indeed very silly that having multiple USB-C entries, the MBux does not allow to reserve one source to use exclusively for the dashcam recording. But as explained above by Woodleigh, if only 1 USB-C entry can be used for data transfer at the time, I understand why this is happening. But so, why having 2 USB-C data entries, if only one can be used at the time ?

 

[pabx99]

I was put off activating the dashcam as other forum posts suggested you can't play music from the USB and use the recorder - you appear to have made that happen - yes?
One thing that may help = a double ended USB - this is only a 16gb one and other sizes are available but it avoids the need for cables/converters and you can plug it straight in to older usb for file transfer https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B5S2CVR1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[Jack-L]

@ pabx99 : interesting tool but I'm not sure this solution will work. The write speed of 30 MB/second is very low for the dashcam. And writing and reading simultaneously through the same USB port is looking for trouble with risk of ending in corrupted data, especially with this low writing speed. Also the disk will become very hot.

I found the following trick which works at least with me : When starting the car, I only have my USB Dashcam stick plugged in. Then I ask Hi Mercedes to start the dashcam and she answers that it is started on USB port Dashcam. Only afterwards I plug in the music ssd in the second USB-C port. By doing so, I remarked that despite the folder 'dashcam' is created on the ssd, this folder remains empty and dashcam videos are continued to be written on the Dashcam USB stick. When looking to the USB sources in media, I'll only see the USB Dashcam but from there I can get into the maps/artists folders from the ssd and choose the music while the dashcam image continues writing on USB Dashcam. Annoying thing is that before starting the car, each time, I must ensure that the ssd is unplugged at the moment that I instruct Hi Mercedes to start the dashcam. Otherwise it will record again on the music ssd. For long trips its not a problem but when listening to music for short trips, where I have to leave the car several times, it's very annoying to always restart this procedure and the choice must be made : recording dashcam or listening to my favorite recorded music offline.

 

[Woodleigh]

Hi Mercedes to start the dashcam.

She doesn't recognise that command in my car.

 

[georgebrooke]

In my B250e (2021), I play music via USB and simultaneously record the journey from the dashcam onto USB2, so it seems some problems have gone away. By putting the icon for camrecord in Favourites at the front of the list, the turn-on at each start is easy, once the dashcam software has loaded..which is not exactly instantaneous.
My problem comes when I want to replay the dashcam recordings..,Media always looks at its Media USB and finds nothing from the dashcam. If I remove the media USB then it finds all the recordings on the second USB. Anyone with any ideas about setting Media to use the same USB as Dashcam used for recording?

 

[Jack-L]

Indeed, when voice control doesn't work you can use favorites to activate the dashcam and afterwards, once dashcan is working on the dedicated USB, plug in the second USB with music. Afterwards, in order to see the dashcam image, better to unplug the 2nd USB with music first.