My Transcend DrivePro 220 (TS16GDP220M) car video recorder

I have been thinking of getting a car video recorder for quite some times, but I just can't convince myself to get a simple camera for a few hundred ringgit just to record down what is in front of my car, until I found this Transcend DrivePro 220 (model no. TS16GDP220M).

I bought it from Rakuten online store at the promotional price of slightly less than RM400, after credit card special day discount, and conversion of some points to additional discount.

It comes with a 16GB microSDHC class 10 MLC memory card that can store up to 120 minutes of Full HD videos.

First of all, being a car video recorder, this Transcend DrivePro 220 has a 3 mega-pixel camera with low-light sensitivity CMOS sensor. The video quality is pretty good in all weather conditions including rainy day. Its night vision is good too.

The recorded video file is in MP4 format. There is option to choose to record in full HD format (1920x1080 30FPS) or HD format (1280x720 30FPS). It will be saved as new file every 3 minutes or longer. When the memory card is full, the oldest file will be replaced in FIFO queue manner. If we want to keep a file and protect it from deletion, it allows up to 15 files to be protected.

It has a 3-axis G-sensor which can detect unusual shaking especially during collision, and will automatically protect the recorded video file from being deleted by recording rotational replacement.

You can also take a snapshot JPG photo by pressing its right most button while it is in recording mode.

The Transcend DrivePro 220 has an internal Li-Po 470mAh battery, which keeps track of its date and time, as well as provide emergency power for emergency recording of up to 30 minutes.

If you enable Parking Mode which will start recording when its sensor detects a movement in front of the camera while it is sleeping, the battery provides the power to run this Parking Mode operation.

What made me finally decided to buy it is its additional functions which make it more than a normal car video recorder:

• Lane Departure Warning System (LDWS) - the DrivePro 220 can analyze the current camera recording and detect the lane line. When you drive at the speed above the preset km/h to start LDWS and your car about to gone off the lane, it will warn you both visually and with a beeping sound. This is useful when you are driving long distance on highway, and you gone off the lane due to sleepy condition.
• Forward Collision Warning System (FCWS) - the DrivePro 220 can analyse the current camera recording and detect any car in front of you which it found is too near to you. When you drive at the speed above the preset km/h to start FCWS, and it detects a car in front of you which is too near, it will warn you both visually and with a beeping sound different from the one of LDWS. However, I found that it is not so accurate in estimating the distance, sometimes the car in front is quite far away, but it will still warn out.
• Speed Limit Alert - the DrivePro 220 can detect your moving speed with its built-in GPS. You can set a speed limit so that it will warn you when you are over speed.

You can set to let its 2.4" screen automatically turn off after some times, so that you can concentrate on your driving and not distracted by its screen display. However, when the unit is functioning with screen off, the LDWS, FCWS and Speed Limit Alert will only beep to warn you, but won't show on the screen what's the trigger. You need to manually press the left most button to turn the screen on to see what happen.

The Transcend DrivePro 220 also has built-in WiFi, but not function to connect to the Internet. With WiFi on, it forms an AP with internal network for smartphone to connect to it with the Transcend DrivePro app to access to its videos, and also gain remote control to change its settings.

You can view the video below to have better understanding of what the Transcend DrivePro 220 can do.

Click here to read about the comparison among Transcend DrivePro 100, 200 and 220.

Malaysia year 2016 national and state public holidays announced

The official 2016 national and state public holidays in Malaysia has been announced by Cabinet, Constitution and Inter-Government Relation Division (BKPP), Prime Minister Department.

There are 14 days of national holiday, and 3 of them fall on Sunday and another 3 fall on Saturday. Most of the states will have around 4 state holidays in addition to the national holidays.

 

Chinese New Year falls on Monday and Tuesday (8th and 9th February 2016). Hari Raya Puasa falls on Wednesday and Thursday (6th and 7th July 2016). Deepavali falls on Saturday (29 October 2016).

 

Click here to download the table of Malaysia year 2016 gazetted national and state public holidays.

Solid state drive (SSD) will soon phase out the traditional hard disk drive (HDD)

Flash memory devices that store computer data using NAND memory chips is gradually dominating the data storage medium.

We have just seen how soon the USB thumb drives replaced the optical discs (CDR, DVDR, Blueray, ...) to become the major removable storage medium nowadays. I believe we will soon see the SSD phasing out the traditional HDD to become the major internal storage medium.

In fact, flash memory is already the data storage medium in mobile devices and slim ultrabook computers nowadays.

Traditional HDD stores data in spinning magnetic discs, and the data read/write is performed with a movable r/w head. Since there are moving parts, there will be wear and tear during operations, which limit down its lifespan. Also, it is fragile to drop or even large physical movement during operations, eg. if you shake your laptop with your hands while its HDD is busy operating, you'll probably cause  damage to the HDD, such as introducing some bad sectors.

The traditional HDD also access data much slower than SSD, which is its main disadvantage against SSD. However, HDD is cheaper to produce, and therefore carries a much cheaper price than SSD, and made available at generally higher storage capacity too.

So, the 2 main reasons why SSD hasn't replaced the HDD yet as of today, are:

• Price
• Available storage capacity

New NAND memory technology that evolves in 2014 will change the game plan. Now, manufacturers including Samsung, Toshiba, Intel, etc. have already come out with multi-layer 3D NAND memory chips, which stakes the flash memory cells vertically in 32 layers or even 48 layers, to achieve a 256 gigabits multilevel cell (MLC) and 384 gigabits triple-level cell (TLC) die that fit within a standard package.

It is said that this approach can greatly reduce the manufacturing cost, at the same time can make available higher storage capacity to SSD. With reduced price and comparable storage capacity with HDD, there is no more resistant for SSD to replace HDD as the major computer storage medium.

Advantages of SSD over HDD including:

• Can package in smaller size
• Less electricity consumption
• Less heat produced during operation
• High grade NAND can have a warranty period of 10 years, much longer than HDD
• Much faster data access speed
• More robust to drop or movement during operation

The diagram below is a Samsung 850 EVO SSD using the 3D V-NAND technology. You will soon find it inside the next generation of Apple MacBooks within the next couple of months.