In-car camera.

[Ffoxy]

I bought one, got here before Xmas despite the departure point being China 25 days ago....

Anyhow, £37.50, its a 720p HD DVR.
On sale on fleabay for up to £200 from UK suppliers
I had to buy a 4Gbt PCHD card for it but it came with a good quality suction mount, PC lead & power lead (5vdc).

Took it out for a drive in the dark, frosty snow-bound night & you know what?

It works great! Its tiny, much smaller than a Sat-nav & fits nicely on the windscreen behind the interior mirror on the i30, so out of sight from the drivers seat. Its got motion detection, delivers HD pictures to the TV if required via HDMI input. You set it up on its own display screen & forget all about it, but if some divvy does you bad & clouts your car (front only obviously unless you buy one for rear end monitoring too).... you have evidence! Plus, it makes you drive with ever more caution... dont wanna be "Caught on my OWN camera" now do I....?

I know Sludgey has his own version, anyone else been tempted & any useful tales to tell from its use, good or bad?

 

[ChrisUK]

Got some samples of the quality? May buy one for a track cam :slayer:

 

[Ffoxy]

Got some samples of the quality? May buy one for a track cam :slayer:

I'll post some daylight ones up Chris, my screen was a bit crappy tonight but the drive convinced me its good enough. There is a slight "fish-eye" effect as the camera sees through 120 degrees. See what you think but for £37.50 plus £5 - £10 for the Memory card it cant be bad, records in-car sound too!, lots of options for set up & I'm using 30fpm, can double that!

Heres a You Tube demo vid.

 

[The Black Box]

have you got a link might buy one for the parcel shelf to catch tailgaiters out.

 

[Ffoxy]

have you got a link might buy one for the parcel shelf to catch tailgaiters out.

This one is £15 but has no HDMI port or SD card, Ive seen this for over £40!
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HD-Car-Vehicl...ultDomain_0&hash=item3f05a8b3e5#ht_2365wt_905

E-Bay can be your friend

 

[ben]

You sure it's this one?

He says it's only a 640x480 camera....

 

[JustAndy]

Im wanting an in-car camera for all the times ive nearly been hit by people cutting in front of me and also for when i go out for a nice drive but i cant seem to find one that you dont have to charge at the same time for quite cheap, the ones that ive seen are about £100 and im not willing to pay that tbh. Id want it to be quite small so i can either put it behind my rear view mirror or on the passenger side of the dash and also Id like it to be HD and have an SD card slot so i can put a big SD card in there for more memory and when i type anything into ebay it comes up with mainly reversing cameras which are no good for me. Can anyone help me with this one?

 

[Ffoxy]

Im wanting an in-car camera for all the times ive nearly been hit by people cutting in front of me and also for when i go out for a nice drive but i cant seem to find one that you dont have to charge at the same time for quite cheap, the ones that ive seen are about £100 and im not willing to pay that tbh. Id want it to be quite small so i can either put it behind my rear view mirror or on the passenger side of the dash and also Id like it to be HD and have an SD card slot so i can put a big SD card in there for more memory and when i type anything into ebay it comes up with mainly reversing cameras which are no good for me. Can anyone help me with this one?

That sounds like what I bought for £37 from the manufacturer in China... You can charge it off your lap-top / PC, but using it off the provided PSU lead it can be left on Auto, so switches on when you start up. Found mine on E-bay... they are there, just a couple of different types in the same case, some with HD some without, the more expensive versions usually come with an SD card mine didnt, an 8Gbt one is fine.

 

[sludgeguts]

Anyone who wants to spend a bit more...
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HD1080P-Car-D...342?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3f0785613e

Almost identical features as my T-eye cam (but not the second, internal, lens) - however, it's got the GPS built in & displays the speed on screen plus it's a far higher resolution AND it looks to be a lot smaller - so can be hidden right at the top of the screen?

There's a few others much cheaper (no gps or speed display) such as...
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Car-HD-DVR-DV...80655024161?pt=UK_Gadgets&hash=item415857d021

I tended to notice that the bullet cams seemed to have a 'wobble' on their picture - possibly interference from the engine?

 

[jip0]

iv really got to get one of these sorted and in time one for rear as well, my money situation just does not allow for it at the moment

is it possible to mount these permanently and just remove the card every now and then to save the footage to a computer?

i would imagine one in the rear to be quite easy to do and hidden quite well as well

 

[sludgeguts]

is it possible to mount these permanently and just remove the card every now and then to save the footage to a computer?

That's how they work.

TBH, a better system would be like they use for taxis - a black box data storage device mounted remotely and connected to a couple of miniature cameras hidden in a corner.
Although the dearer one is good, the cheaper one can be carried with you for filming other things. I actually used mine to record an important meeting, over 2 hours of video footage of the ceiling but the audio was well worth keeping. (And I discovered that my video editing software is happy to rip the audio from a video track).
I'll be upgrading my cameras in the very near future, neither are that good at night so I'll be looking for something with low light capability.

 

[sludgeguts]

Today I decided I definitely need to upgrade my camera.
Some dozy mare in an 04 plate mini mated with my towbar (and mangled my cycle carrier bracket (fairly meaty metal). As I pulled over to swap details, she drove around me and sped off. I tried to catch up but as I was about to pull out another car overtook me & went on a go-slow. The woman in the mini took a few risks to get well ahead. The cam caught my voice as I called out the first half of the plate but the camera didn't pick up any of the plate at all.

Later on the same journey, I came up behind a car on a dual carriageway that was overtaking another, both cars were doing less than 60 so I was forced to slow right down - to make matters worse, the car ahead (doing the overtaking was being driven by a right nob) started touching his brakes - WTF?!?!
Fortunately, I wasn't right up his tail so wasn't too affected by this action.
Again, the camera didn't pick up the number plate.
Useless piece of junk.

 

[ben]

I'm looking to get one of these for the van, seeing as it's running on TPFT insurance...

I take it TEye are the best? Needs to have GPS, speed logging, inertia saving etc etc...

 

[Freebo]

Im also interested in getting one of these.

 

[Kier]

Wonder if its possible to get a group discount? Hint hint Ben

 

[RuSZ]

another solution is to use a suction mounted universal phone holder, and a long length recording device, camera/camcorder/phone. I use a Kodak MV camera, only records in VGA but can read number plates. and i sometimes use my HTC Desire phone which records in 720p High Def.

 

[sludgeguts]

I'm looking to get one of these for the van, seeing as it's running on TPFT insurance...

I take it TEye are the best? Needs to have GPS, speed logging, inertia saving etc etc...

Mine is the T eye model - it only records in 340 x 480 h30fps which I think is too low a resolution.

There are a few options on ebay which record in hi-def, there is even one which is advertising the same features as the Teye but hi-def recording http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Car-DVR-Camera-GPS-Tracking-Dash-Cam-G-SENSOR-HD1080P-/130533905980?_trksid=p5197.m7&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D5%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D1108850348406621919&_qi=RTM742990

And it also looks small enough to tuck up out of the way behind the mirror.

When mine comes I'll let you all know what it's like.

 

[Andy Monty]

you got yours wound up to High quality images sludgeguts?

 

[sludgeguts]

you got yours wound up to High quality images sludgeguts?

Sadly, the teye doesn't have much in the way of settings, it films at a max resolution equivalent to a cheapo £1 spy cam.
prolly ok 5 years ago but way behind the times now.

 

[Andy Monty]

Mine keeps throwing up SD Err on a regular basis ever since the last firmware update :bang: