car cameras

[fuzzy2308]

What do you guys do with the cams when you park in public like shopping centers? Do you leave them up or hide them

 

[Ghost]

I leave mine in the car mainly because I deadlock the doors activate the alarm and I'm in a rural area so nobody would have the balls to break in but if I'm in the city ill be locking it in the glove box until I have a new GPS tracking system wired up to my car to SMS me when te alarm is triggered

 

[Astranomical]

I bought a "GATOR" dash camera from Autobarn last Sunday. While I love the idea of it, and now feel at risk driving without it, I'm thinking of returning it, not only because the image quality is shite, but also because after 4 days, the windscreen suction cup no longer works. Now thinking of a new idea...lappy under the passenger seat + inverter (both of which I already have) + decent size HDD + webcam mounted on the dashboard somehow + some free/cheap DVR app that will record from a webcam = el cheapo dash cam on steroids

 

[Ghost]

Lol webcams are just as bad and yeah suction cups suck its either strong bonding tape or glue

 

[Astranomical]

Meh, I have a Microsoft Lifecam thing, and its really pretty good. And I've never had a problem with the suction cup for my GPS. I put it down to the GATOR being a cheap POS

 

[showbags]

As I mentioned before, I bought the iPhone app Witness. Obviously since the iPhone already has GPS, audio, a video camera and plenty of storage, the hardware needs are already covered with the phone. The application costs 99 cents, I wonder if a similar app is available on Android?


Of course I needed to buy a cradle for it as well, and it needs power. Apparently it uses a lot, so a power supply is necessary if you are going to use it all the time.It seems to me a dock might be easier, they are available with the same mounting systems etc, I might look at one later.

In the meantime, I went this way.

I bought a double USB plug, with 2 iPhone cables. for $12 shipped on fleabay. They have the same deal with one iPhone and one mini USB (android etc phones) cable instead. One is probably enough for me, but since it will stay permanently in its socket, cant hurt to have a double..

The phone cradle was $8.80 shipped, also from fleabay.

For the purpose of making it easier to download, the video file was converted from a 339MB .mov file to a 67MB .flv file then uploaded to youtube. This has cost a little quality, but not a huge lot.

Note that the original file, exported as high quality, is still not good at picking up number plates. There is however a snapshot function, which will take a photograph of much better quality (good enough for the number plate), but you have to remember to press it...

[video=youtube_share;1ErXlZpe48c]http://youtu.be/1ErXlZpe48c[/video]

I'll upload a video of it in place and in action when I can get a passenger to hold the camera

Daks, how do you stop your iPhone from overheating and shutting down? I use my iPhone and witness in my bus all the time.

 

[DAKSTER]

Daks, how do you stop your iPhone from overheating and shutting down? I use my iPhone and witness in my bus all the time.

I've noticed it gets pretty hot at times. It hasn't shut down though so far.

 

[showbags]

If I don't have air blowing around mine, it overheats and shuts down after about 10 minutes.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Car cameras, because you never know when a plane is about to crash into the highway in front of you.

 

[vicarious]

Car cameras, because you never know when a plane is about to crash into the highway in front of you.

fark me, that's crazy