Dash cam saves your ass (no Roundabout stuff please :)

Access · 19-04-2012 11:32am

kceire wrote: »

Also, i didnt actually use the mount that came with it, i had a lower one i bought on ebay for €3 or something that fits more discretely.

Would you have a linky for the smaller mount on ebay please kceire?

Gumbo · 19-04-2012 1:50pm

Access wrote: »

Would you have a linky for the smaller mount on ebay please kceire?

Cant access my ebay account from work but going by the eBay app, it was from a seller called 1st.foto

Heres the one i bought, albeit from a different seller : http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Camera-Suction-Mount-Tripod-Car-Wind-screen-Window-/320717615495

21-04-2012 5:50pm

CiniO wrote: »

I liked the review so much, that I just purchased this camera.
I'll let you all know how it works whenever I get it.

I just looked up this thread again and after seeing that review, bought the 720p one too. Should be delivered in a few days

vibe666 · 21-04-2012 7:01pm

even as someone who was previously arguing the case for phone based dash cams only a few pages back, it's hard to argue with a proper dedicated 720p dash cam at that price. i'd be buying one too if it wasn't for my current lack of funds.

i might eve get one for the back too as i have a cig lighter socket in the boot too and if i ever get rear ended by someone it would be worth having it just to see the expression on their face!

gurramok · 22-04-2012 12:19am

CiniO wrote: »

I went for 720p.
Picture quality is quite good I must say. Great on sunny day, and even during the night where street lighting is present quality is good.

Its not quite discreet is it? From watching the video, its quite obvious with the way it hangs down from the windscreen it reveals itself to anyone who looks at the windscreen!

Tallon · 22-04-2012 12:23am

You don't notice it unless you know it's there tbh

The Black Oil · 29-04-2012 12:59pm

CiniO wrote: »

€62.22

Is it this one?

23 quid for postage from the UK? :eek:

eqwjewoiujqorj · 29-04-2012 1:08pm

The Black Oil wrote: »

Is it this one?

28 € (23 quid) for postage from the UK? :eek:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SmartCam-HD-Car-DVR-720P-Dashcam-Driving-Recorder-HDMI-2-0-LCD-UK-SELLER-/200745123135?pt=UK_In_Car_Technology&hash=item2ebd577d3f

About 9 euro postage to Ireland; about 65 in total.

eqwjewoiujqorj · 29-04-2012 1:09pm

CiniO wrote: »

I went for 720p.
Picture quality is quite good I must say. Great on sunny day, and even during the night where street lighting is present quality is good.
On dark roads, when you have headlights on, you can see some distance in front of the car on the video, but it's less than you really see while driving.
There is only this one mount.
But except from it overall I'm very happy with the camera.
I just thought you could turn the camera 90 degrees, and then it wouldn't obstruct a view neither was close to passenger, but then you would need to use software to rotate movies by 90 degrees if you wanted to watch them on computer or tv.
Or maybe there is some other way to mount it which I haven't thought about yet. Also every car is different so it might obstruct more or less.

Here's sample video quality during the sunny day. Switch it to 720p to get full view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFRY-ZW5KhY

The seller is using your footage !

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SmartCam-HD-Car-DVR-720P-Dashcam-Driving-Recorder-HDMI-2-0-LCD-UK-SELLER-/200745123135?pt=UK_In_Car_Technology&hash=item2ebd577d3f

CiniO · 29-04-2012 6:56pm

eqwjewoiujqorj wrote: »

The seller is using your footage !

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SmartCam-HD-Car-DVR-720P-Dashcam-Driving-Recorder-HDMI-2-0-LCD-UK-SELLER-/200745123135?pt=UK_In_Car_Technology&hash=item2ebd577d3f

I know that.
He contacted me and I agreed.

PS. That reminds me of a case I've seen last month where some guy selling some car fault readers on auction service like ebay, used someone's picture (linking it directly from someone's website) without owners permission. Picture owner realized what happened, and he exchanged a picture into different JPG containing printed text: "Today special promotion - buy one get two fault readers"...
As picture was linked from website, it changes as well on auction, and seller was in big trouble.

vibe666 · 30-04-2012 3:26pm

i had a problem with the indo stealing some footage i shot of the snow earlier in the year.

they contacted me and asked to use it but i said no because it was filmed at my work looking out over their car park so it wasn't mine to use as it was filmed on private property, but the feckers used it anyway on the website and i had to contact them and get them to take it down.

Sterling Archer · 03-05-2012 1:48am

Here's a question has anyone thought about fitting IR lights to there car to improve night time recording?

robbie_998 · 03-05-2012 2:12am

Just dropped the price of the RH2 on my advert to 250

really need it gone but that is the absolute lowest i can take sadly.

hope it works

cormie · 03-05-2012 9:16am

Have any of you successfully got an SD card bigger than 4gb working on your device? I see in some places it says 16GB max, but others says 4GB max... One of my SD cards packed in so I wouldn't mind getting a 16gb, but not if it won't work

Harcrid · 03-05-2012 6:49pm

I bought one of the HD smart cams after reading the good reviews from here. Video quality is very good indeed. I struggled to find a good place to locate it and when I used the included windscreen mount it just looked awkward and clumsy. So I ended up velcroing it to the bottom of the dash. Very happy with it here and the field of view is good.

CiniO · 03-05-2012 7:07pm

Celtxx wrote: »

I bought one of the HD smart cams after reading the good reviews from here. Video quality is very good indeed. I struggled to find a good place to locate it and when I used the included windscreen mount it just looked awkward and clumsy. So I ended up velcroing it to the bottom of the dash. Very happy with it here and the field of view is good.

Hmm interesting idea...
Only what I'm wondering is won't it block your demister and cause windows too fog up??

Harcrid · 03-05-2012 7:14pm

Because of where the power cable is run? I didnt think of that to be honest. I'll see how it goes!

Tallon · 03-05-2012 9:12pm

CiniO wrote: »

Hmm interesting idea...
Only what I'm wondering is won't it block your demister and cause windows too fog up??

I've never seen a car with only one 10cm demister right in the centre of the windscreen

CiniO · 03-05-2012 9:30pm

Tallon wrote: »

I've never seen a car with only one 10cm demister right in the centre of the windscreen

Yes.
That's why only middle 10cm part of windscreen might fog up.
It's still more than one would want.

Mycroft H · 03-05-2012 9:39pm

CiniO wrote: »

Yes.
That's why only middle 10cm part of windscreen might fog up.
It's still more than one would want.

FYI - I've had my phone used as a dashcam since november last and I cannot ever remember thinking that the demister was slowing down the demisting. On 3 separate cars.

Tallon · 03-05-2012 9:41pm

CiniO wrote: »

Yes.
That's why only middle 10cm part of windscreen might fog up.
It's still more than one would want.

I'd say even if that happened, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world

Voodoomelon · 03-05-2012 10:26pm

Anyone recommend a video capture program for recording the Roadhawk software on-screen? Free or paid for, thanks!

Tallon · 03-05-2012 10:43pm

Voodoomelon wrote: »

Anyone recommend a video capture program for recording the Roadhawk software on-screen? Free or paid for, thanks!

Do you mean from the PC?

My first option would be FRAPS, use it everyday!
Second would be Microsoft Essentials Recorder
And third Camtasia

Voodoomelon · 03-05-2012 10:46pm

Cheers!

Nissan doctor · 05-05-2012 12:08am

Another driver paying attention to the road:rolleyes::

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOXd7UgWtec&list=UUf2FXl96khtO_Jl43BrAzuA&index=1&feature=plcp

Excuse the ramblings....was on the phone to the wife:o

CiniO · 07-05-2012 11:03pm

Most likely it won't be any help to most of you here, but I'll put it here just in case someone needs it.
Over last year I collected few most interesting recordings from my dashcams on my harddrive (interesting road situation, places i've been to, etc). I just realised it's nearly 100GB data, which is quite a lot.
It's so much mostly due to cheap dashcams don't use any advanced compression methods - they just use most basic and very little hardware demanding codecs and unfortunately their result files are big. I've been writing some time ago, that Smartcam which I bought uses about 16kbit/s bitrate for it's 720p video which is unneceserily way too much. My other older camera is not much better.
So generally I decided I'll convert them all to H264 codec with 3600 kbit/s bitrate which after few tries I tested that it's enough without really any quality loss.
Unfortunately it was over 300 files spread in nice tidy way into directory tree, so it would be hell lot's of work to convert each separately.
That's why I wrote a little bash script for linux which using mencoder did all the job for me. It took long (nearly 2 days for all files) but was full automatic.
This script finds all files in all subdirectories of directory it was run, and converts all files with AVI extension, writing result file with additional S on begining of filename, with option to erase original file.
It can be very easily adjusted with few options in script file on top.
If anyone wants to make use of it, I attached it below, but I don't take any responsibility if it's going to work correctly for everyone.
It's just something I wrote anyway to solve my own problem, so I decided maybe someone here might need the same.

As a result I shrinked size of those recording from about 100GB to less than 25GB so I could fit all of them into single BD-R.

carbon nanotube · 08-05-2012 12:08am

might get the road hawk

DC -1

like the size and quality of it, but a bit pricey.

http://www.roadhawk.co.uk/roadhawk-dc-1-car-black-box-camera/prod_18.html

Sterling Archer · 08-05-2012 12:39am

carbon nanotube wrote: »

might get the road hawk

DC -1

like the size and quality of it, but a bit pricey.

http://www.roadhawk.co.uk/roadhawk-dc-1-car-black-box-camera/prod_18.html

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Roadhawk-DC-1-Car-Black-Box-GPS-CCTV-System-/170835667003?pt=UK_In_Car_Technology&hash=item27c699683b

Tallon · 08-05-2012 2:02pm

A man lays down in front of an oncoming car to commit suicide, however he completely misjudges the driver’s speed and gives him plenty of time to brake. After stopping, the driver responds with a vengeance that most people would only carry out in our minds…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKRpdN6ZOMU

franksm · 08-05-2012 2:18pm

Driving very slowly through the car park at Tesco, Maynooth (14kph), this tool in a BMW lunges out in front of me. He has the cheek to give me the "slow down" wave despite being completely in the wrong by not stopping at the Yield sign and making me emergency-stop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtwuC3ABdP0

BTW I am selling one of my Roadhawk RH-1s having downsized my car collection. Open to offers around EUR120. I'll be placing it on Adverts.ie, Ebay etc for EUR140 later this week. http://www.adverts.ie/1627291

Dash cam saves your ass (no Roundabout stuff please :)

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