I need a dashcam app that has the following features:
- Records with screen off (battery discharges fast enough even on wireless chargers with the screen off!)
- Starts recording to new video file periodically (e.g. every time minutes) with minimal gap and without forgetting current exposure settings
- Can record to an external USB3 attached micro SD card (internal storage isn't big enough for long trips, and I don't want to kill the flash rewriting it so much)
- 100% reliable (never stops recording as long as the phone doesn't die or run out of storage)
- has some kind of video stabilization to cancel out incessant dash/window vibration coupled into the device
- fixed focus at infinity (don't want it trying to focus on anything that gets on the windshield or confused by chip flares at night)
I'm currently using an app called "Quick Video Recorder". It won't focus at infinity using the Camera2 API, but if I don't use the Camera2 API, some times the video files it creates inexplicably are unplayable. It also doesn't seem to be reliably when recording to external storage - sometimes it just stops recording for no discernable reason (the card, reader, and USB interface are certainly fast enough!) I was able to get it to mostly work by keeping the screen on (it's supposed to work with the screen off!) when using the SD card, but after the first 10 minute recording was done (which I reviewed and was fine) it hung for over a minute before starting the second video, which inexplicably ends about 30 seconds before it should (the video is the correct length, but the player won't play closer than ~30second to the end).
I have also tried "DailyRoads Voyager". It has excessive gap between videos and for some reason seems to forgot white balance / exposure resulting in several "bad" frames at the start of each new video file. It will shoot at fixed focus, but the focus seems to be wherever it was last at, not infinity. I tried it with an external card and on my first attempt my phone apparently reboot after about 4 minutes but I didn't notice until I got to my destination. The video file was corrupt. I tried a second time and this app seems to inexplicably start and stop, making lots of noise while doing so, which necessitated me stopping at the side of the road to shut it off.
