Best practices for recording, viewing, and recording 360 video

niftyken

Hello, I'm wondering if anyone has done much with the recorded video from the 360 cameras. I've attached a screenshot of what the videos (in .TS format) look like:

So basically it is small images of each angle (front, back, left, right), in the original ultrawide / fisheye format. I can understand why it records like this for the sake of simplicity and efficiency. But I have a few questions about this:

Can I save it at a higher resolution? Right now the entire 4-up video is 1920x1080. However, each camera should be capable of 1920x1080 on its own, so the recordings have lost a lot of the potential resolution. I was hoping the final output files would be at least 4K resolution. When I zoom into the individual camera angles in the recorded video, they are very grainy and probably not as useful in the event of a real accident.
Does the software allow me to adjust what angles are recorded, such as only recording the front camera and the back camera (like the standard dashcam angles)? The current format of 4 angles of video combined into a single video file doesn't seem that useful to me, unless they can be recorded as separate files, or if anyone can recommend software that can take those 4 angles and reconstruct a 3D/VR version of the footage or something.
Even if I manage to extract only a single angle out at a time, I expect that it will have an extreme fisheye look. Does anyone have a favorite plugin or preset to restore it to a more linear/flattened look? I know that software from GoPro and Insta360 is designed to help you reframe ultra-wide-angle footage into a more standard look, but they are designed to work with their own cameras, and I doubt they will recognize these .TS files produced by the DUDU7.

Thanks in advance for any tips! I'd hate to think that after all this effort to install 360 cameras, I'll still have to install a dashcam to get higher-quality footage of my drives. If anyone has samples of video you've recorded from the 360 system that you'd like to share, I'd love to see them and learn!

DUDU-Meng

niftyken No, currently only four images can be combined together, and even then the recorded video file is already quite large.

toasterquark

I just enabled the recording of 360 camera and was really disappointed that there is no useful functionality. I think a main point of recording is to get incident video, such as an accident, much like front and rear facing dash cams. Is there future plans to have better functions? perhaps recording individual cameras so that the full resolution is used?

niftyken

I would also definitely like to see significant improvements in the recording software. Right now the 360-view is of course the main feature, but the recording capabilities just feel like an afterthought. I would definitely like to see 4 separate streams of footage recorded. I'm very willing to deal with larger filesizes in order to get better quality, and I'd bet that anybody who turns on the recording feature would feel the same way. The point is that if there is actually an incident, the resolution of the footage needs to be much higher to be useful. The 4-up fisheye view really doesn't meet my needs. I'll put up a poll to get a better idea what other people would want.

Altair571

niftyken Although the ideas you mentioned are good things to have, it won’t be implemented unless FYT decides to make these changes. Even if FYT wanted to do this they would have to modify the 360 AVM SDK which is provided by a third party company.

This is why the same issues persist on other non-FYT units as well since they all use the same SDK.

niftyken

Altair571 I'd love to hear more about this. I don't know what FYT is, but after a quick Google search, I'm guessing you mean Fang Yi Tong? Can you elaborate on how FYT is related to DUDUAUTO?

I can definitely understand that each hardware / software package has its limitations. What was really hard during the research process was figuring out which models actually had the features I wanted, so I could pick the right solution. Here were my priorities:

Compatibility with 2025 Toyota Sienna (physically and CAN BUS).
360 bird's eye view (ideally full-time, meaning it can be viewed anytime while driving).
Full-time dashcam: high-resolution video recording of at least 1080P per camera angle (ideally 4K).

So what you seem to be suggesting is that the 360 AVM SDK used by DUDUAUTO just doesn't support the 3rd feature. If I'm thinking of upgrading another vehicle with these features, is there some other aftermarket solution that I could've tried instead? I guess in a world full of Teslas, it's hard to understand why full-time high-resolution dashcam recording from multiple cameras around the car is so difficult to find. Thanks for any insights!

Dudu-il-cane-di-Berlusconi

If I understand correctly, FYT is the manufacturer of the motherboard with a soldered CPU used by Mekede (and other manufacturers). This applies to both the 7862s CPUs (Dudu6) and the new 7870 CPUs of Dudu7, but I think also to the Dudu3/4/5 units.