Dash Cams

[Dieselman]

Who's we?

Adrian Flux.

 

[Pitts Pilot]

May upgrade to a gopro though.

GoPro's are very good, as are Contour's, (I have two on my Pitts).

But does the GoPro have the "circular recording" feature, where it fills the micro SD card up and then starts overwriting new video on to the oldest files?

This is a great 'Fix and Forget' feature, and you won't miss any recent important action or accident.

I'm not keen on suction mounts. They leave rings if you routinely remove the device, or if you keep it on the windscreen, it advertises that there's £££'s of camera in the car.

I've got a V1000GS (1080p & good image at night) that I have installed on the back of the driver's mirror with industrial strength Velcro. Works well, and can be removed when needed.

I took off the GPS block on the top, for a flush mounting and reduced physical size. Frankly I don't need to know where I was, and if I ever need the footage for an accident claim, I don't want my speed imprinted on the video!

The latter can work both ways, I admit; but knowing the way I drive, I'll probably be a few mph over the limit, and that could render an insurance claim void. I.e. I couldn't use the footage.... waste of time and money then.

I've also given the camera a light dusting of grey primer spray paint to help camouflage it.

Cheers

.

 

[Pitts Pilot]

I have found that there are certain issues with some types of camera, in the way they are mounted. Most cameras are mounted on the windscreen which are deemed illegal and cannot be used as court evidence!
Look here.
vCam; the EU / UK legal Car Camera

The law: UK / EU Car / Vehicle Event Camera Law

"It ain't necessarily so".

vCam are purposely misleading people, for financial gain, by not explaining the law fully.

The legal issue is about obscuring the driver's view of the road.

So if you mount your suction pad somewhere which is outside the swept area of the windscreen wipers you won't be obscuring the road.

Exact positioning (& availability) obviously varies from car to car, but behind the driver's mirror could be OK.

Personally, I don't like suction mounts because of the 'advertising' they give to potential thieves.

I've mounted my dvr (also sprayed grey) on the back of the driver's mirror with industrial Velcro. No blind spots of the road created there!
It's 100% legal, so two fingers to vCam's claims! :fail
Cheers

.

 

[sinewave]

I've had a BlackVUE DR400 HD unit in my car for the last 8 months or so.

Fit and forget! It mounts behind the rear view mirror and U can't even see it from the inside unless you go looking for it.

It records all journeys in HD picture and full sound along with a Google maps window on the right in playback mode on ya PC.

Shove a micro SD card in and let it carry on, it'll over write the oldest files with new when it's full which is no probs as generally you'll know if ya need a specific journey file within a day or so.

BlackVUE DR400G HD II - In-car Full HD Camcorder - GPS Version - Taxi Security Camera - Vehicle Security Camera

Bought mine direct from Malaysia or where ever they're made from an ebay trader fro £130 or so.

 

[DITTRICH]

Some day I will get around to having my bullet camera and recorder installed. Bought 2 years ago! I suspect I will just have the camera connected up to my AUX video input on the multimedia headunit and mount the camera on the passenger side so that I can overtake on the continent without compromising my driving position.

 

[stereophoney]

GoPro's are very good, as are Contour's, (I have two on my Pitts).

But does the GoPro have the "circular recording" feature, where it fills the micro SD card up and then starts overwriting new video on to the oldest files?

This is a great 'Fix and Forget' feature, and you won't miss any recent important action or accident.

I'm not keen on suction mounts. They leave rings if you routinely remove the device, or if you keep it on the windscreen, it advertises that there's £££'s of camera in the car.

I've got a V1000GS (1080p & good image at night) that I have installed on the back of the driver's mirror with industrial strength Velcro. Works well, and can be removed when needed.

I took off the GPS block on the top, for a flush mounting and reduced physical size. Frankly I don't need to know where I was, and if I ever need the footage for an accident claim, I don't want my speed imprinted on the video!

The latter can work both ways, I admit; but knowing the way I drive, I'll probably be a few mph over the limit, and that could render an insurance claim void. I.e. I couldn't use the footage.... waste of time and money then.

I've also given the camera a light dusting of grey primer spray paint to help camouflage it.

Cheers

.

I've got a GoPro Hero 2HD and it's a fantastic camera. The picture quality is superb. Use it on every journey i do. I used to have to drive through the City of London, and the amount of near-misses was scary!

I've got a 32gb card which, depending on the quality settings, records about 7hrs before being full. It doesn't overwrite files when full, but it has never been a problem.

Picture quality is good enough to get a screen capture of a number plate of a car driving in the opposite direction.

It comes with a few different mounts, some of which can be fixed. I attatched mine to one of those alloy tax disc holders mounted behind the rear-view mirror. Only issue with the fixed mounts is there is some picture shake which the microphone picks up, so switched to the suction cup.

 

[theiC]

I don't want my speed imprinted on the video!

The latter can work both ways, I admit; but knowing the way I drive, I'll probably be a few mph over the limit, and that could render an insurance claim void. I.e. I couldn't use the footage....

I'd be slightly cautious about that train of thought. I'm not a photogrammetrist, but I have worked with some very good ones, and I know that while it may be time-consuming, there will be no difficulty in calculating your speed from that video, with considerable precision. Just something to bear in mind perhaps. The availability of recorded data has made huge differences in the world of aviation accident and incident investigation, but that world revolves (or should revolve) around the notion that human behaviour is 'normal', even when it is at odds with what others might, in retrospect, consider 'sensible'. Motor insurance isn't like that...

 

[Pagnobito]

I just bought a itronics ITB-100HD direct from Korea, 1080p GPS and so on, small size so fits behind the mirror, also can be wired in with a UPC so it detects shocks and records the event when parked.
The instructions are all in Korean, but the details (and lots of dash cam info) is on dashcamtalk.com
Cheaper direct from Korea (about 118GBP) rather than ebay at 150GBP. Itronics clamped down on unauthorised ebay sellers but if you do a bit of research you can find a seller that undercuts the authorised outlets. Probably means no warranty though.