In Car Cameras

[Capitol]

Being a toy addict, I ordered one of these from Amazon around Xmas and it arrived today. It worked straight out of the box and looked very good. The low light performance indoors was excellent. However, the same could not be said for the instruction manual. It is printed in a

-10 type face and even under the double magnifier was a real challenge to read. The manual said, to select the language, simply push the menu button twice, another button once and a choice would appear. They were correct, but the choice was in Russian! I finally discovered that if you went down the Russian menu, the first option was to record in vga, the second one of the options was to select the language---Chinese logic. Once selected as English, all went well, so now I'll have to see if it works in the car. It claims to be capable of HD recording, but with a

1.3Mp camera, it hardly seems worthwhile. There is claimed to be a reset pin hole, I've yet to locate it and the manual doesn't point it out.

[Jim K]

Gorra link then?

Jim K

[Capitol]

Delivery took 8 days

[Nightjar]

Rather more expensive, but I have had one of these in the car for a while:

It has integral GPS, giving speed and position on a map, and will automatically store 10 seconds either side of any impact in a separate file.

However, the one you have linked to might be useful for adding rear and side views.

Colin Bignell

[Jethro_uk]

I must admit I saw one of these a while back. My thoughts then were "if this is as good as it says, why are there companies selling similar devices for hundreds of pounds"

I'd be keen to get one[1]. My main concern is once installed, is it a scrote-magnet ? I already have enough hassle removing the sat-nav every journey. Does it sit discreetly ?

Last year I was driving with the family to the supermarket. Being a nice day we decided to go a bit further afield. We came to a road narrowing where everyone had lined themselves up single file. Except the smart arse who whizzed past about 25 cars to try and cut in at the head - 2 cars in front of me. When that car moved to prevent him cutting in, he started a game of chicken. In the end the patient car gave in, and let the **** in. At which point said **** pulled his car across the road, and got out, clearly with no good intent. He took a couple of steps, looked up, and quickly got back in his car ... about 5 people had put their mobiles out of the window (including my son, unbeknown to me !!!!).

It was then I thought how useful dashcams might be ...

The funniest thing was because the traffic was slow, and single file, the

**** had to sit, going nowhere for 10 minutes, knowing there was quite a collection of footage which may (or may not) make it's way onto YouTube (other video sharing sites exist).

[1]Various dashcam forums have suggested that once you have one, you'd be as well having a second covering your rear. Invaluable when the rear-ender tries to claim "you reversed into me" ....

[Tim Watts]

On Wednesday 22 January 2014 15:57 Jethro_uk wrote in uk.d-i-y:

I added a dashcam app to my phone - as it is clipped to the dash running a GPS, it is already in a good position to do this - and it as GPS and accurate time info, so it's almost perfect - except it vibrates a bit.

[Graham.]

What strikes me is that your expensive one doesn't appear to have an LCD screen, and I can't see it needs one anyway, so the cheap one, if it was available without a screen would sell at well under £10, or alternatively the same approximate price with a better camera.

[Andrew May]

I don't get it.

Quote:

Dispatched from and sold by topwell. For Genuine Original Product, please ONLY purchase from UKDigitalBay - Digi4u

Are they saying don't buy from us or did they just rip off the description without proof-reading it?

[Jethro_uk]

When I got my new (work) phone, a Nokia Lumia 520, which came with maps and turn-by-turn, I thought I'd try it out as an alternative sat nav ... but the holder is useless. The vibration is silly....

[newshound]

Get a better holder, my 610 is fine with eBay cheapie holders. I find it more convenient to put half of one of these somewhere on the dash

and then stick one of the window sucker type on to that.

[larkim]

I always mount my phone in a cradle, and purely by chance last year I decid ed to record the video of a trip. As it happened, it was the day after som e horrendous snowfall, and one of the roads I went through had huge snow dr ifts to the side, which I was reluctant to drive through. After pressure f rom my 10 year old and 7 year old (!), I drove through.

Put the video on youtube for relatives to see, and by chance it was picked up by two TV companies who have since paid me £175 for the rights to use the clip!

So, you never know - buy the cameras, they might earn you a few quid!!

if you are intereseted - and no, I don't have adverts on the video so I'm not trying to scam views for c ash!!)

Matt

[Tim Watts]

On Wednesday 22 January 2014 17:02 Jethro_uk wrote in uk.d-i-y:

The iBolt range are pretty sturdy. My vibration is only noticeable on the dashcam recordings - they moslty come from th efact that I stuck the suction disc onto the lid of a small compartment in th edash, being the only smooth surface available.

However, I do not see one for the Lumia 520 - but you might find something decent here:

I've had a couple of car holders from them and they've both been good.

My advice is either use the windscreen or stick a disc ot the dash and use one with a suction cup.

[Bill]

I bought one of those on ebay for the same price ages ago, and it is excellent. The instructions are almost utterly useless, but can help a bit when you understand how the translation misfired.

My Skoda has it stuck permanently to the windscreen behind the mirror, and powered off the stupidly-placed cig lighter. It runs permanently if the power is permanent, which it is in this car. If the power goes off with the ignition, the camera runs on using its battery for a short time, then closes down cleanly. It starts up again when power is restored.

If someone knocks the power socket in the car and puts the power on and off a few times, it can freeze, and needs to be reset by taking the battery out for a minute or so. If SWMBO gets a handbag caught in the plug, a deft yank to make the power-down permanent means you don't have to reset it.

The screen is good for seeing that it is working and checking how much the date and time has drifted. I've had one SD card fail, no other faults.

The quality is adequate, I think the HD is some trickery and conversion, and seems to overload the processor, so mine is on a lesser setting. I haven't told SWMBO that it records everything spoken in the car as well. I think the IR LED's on mine are useless or broken, but they were never going to light up the countryside anyway.

The video at

seems to show them amongst the devices being made.

I wish I'd had mine when the idiot zoomed past us down the outside lane of the motorway, wasn't let in, couldn't stop and rode up on one of the cones, losing all steering. We watched him sliding along the galvanised crash barrier as we passed.

[Nightjar]

I don't see a need for a screen on the camera. Roadhawk do offer one, but I believe it is intended for instant reviews in a driver training environment. I also don't really see much value in the IR LEDs, unless it is intended for use in countries where you might be driving without either street light or headlights. However, it is cheap and you might end up with something worth uploading to YouTube.

Colin Bignell

[Another John]

Bloody excellent video all round, Daddy! (Brought back happy memories for me of having two little boys, as well!)

Well done, on all fronts!

John

[Tim Watts]

Here's a short sample from AG Dashcam App on my Galaxy Note 3.

You need to turn it up to 720 or better - it's not perfect and probably not as good as a dedicate dashcam fixed to the rearview mirror (with some separation from vibration) but as it is "almost free" based on happening to have the phone and mount, it's not bad...

The video looks better on my phone, natively, so I think something about the Youtube upload nadgered it a bit too. I need to play with the settings.

[Simon Cee]

It's certainly cheap but I suspect it's only VGA resolution i.e. 640 by 480 and the higher resolutions are simply upscale version of the original image with no extra definition. I have a true 1080 camera in my car and I wouldn't settle for anything with less resolution - there's a reason why almost all CCTV camera footage is rubbish. Without HD you'll struggle to read number plates.

Check out the techmoan website. He has loads of reviews, very well done. He reckons the cheapest true HD dashcam worth getting is about £32.00.

[Simon Cee]

On Wed, 22 Jan 2014 09:18:10 -0800 (PST), larkim

old (!), I drove through.

Nice one, and a great reminder for your boys of treasured childhood adventures.

[Dave Liquorice]

Aye, I bet they do remember it as well. Decent drifts and I understand the nervousness about driving into the white out. Had similar up here the other year, except I knew something was coming the other way. I'd seen the snow plough along the other side of the beck gully that the road looped around. I got out of it's way:

Would you have gone through if the car coming the other way hadn't said it was fine?

[Harry Bloomfield]

Capitol used his keyboard to write :

I think you will find it, like one I bought, is not really HD. The saved video was HD, but the camera was at best poor VGA. So I returned it.

I also didn't like the bulk and untidiness of that type with the drop down screen.

I more recently bought a much better one, like a cigarette packet which sticks flat to the screen, lens on one side display on the rear. Its almost invisible form both inside and outside the car, unless you know where to look. It includes two cams, genuine HD on the front camera and VGA on the rear image and extremely good audio recording. If you cannot read number plates at a reasonable distance, they are next to useless. The audio is worth having on, should you need to record a registration number which is out of range of the camera.

The only thing which lets it down a little, is the front facing camera is just barely usable on unlit roads. It cost me around £35 and has worked fine for the past 5 months.