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

vibe666

looks like it's available from their website shop, but you'dneed to confirm they ship outsde of the UK.

http://www.roadhawk.co.uk/roadhawk-black-box-video-recording-systems/cat_2.html

interesting note on their website that says:

"Crash for cash" incidents where fraudsters commit staged accidents to claim on other motorists insurance are at an all-time high. The Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) estimates more than 30,000 accidents were staged last year costing insurance companies around £350 million. All of these costs are passed back to the policy holder increasing their premiums on average by up to £44.00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NqXGtvI9MQ

This lorry driver was going about his daily driving when the car in front brakes hard causing him to collide in to his rear. On later inspection the insurance company involved deemed the video to be suspect and passed it on to the Police.

After a lengthy investigation the police have busted what they believe to be a possible crash for cash ring involving over 120 staged accidents in the last year, potentially totalling more than £3m of insurance fraud.

"We believe this to be a decoy rear end shunt in which two cars are involved. When the lorry driver pulls in to the left hand lane the Mercedes closes the gap between itself and the car in front. The VW Golf makes a sudden turn causing the Merc to brake hard. We think the Golf is used as a decoy to give the Merc the excuse of having to stop quickly".

This clearly demonstrates the advantage of having a RoadHawk forward facing GPS black box video camera to your vehicle.

Nissan doctor

One I caught yesterday, Taxi nearly causes a pile up:rolleyes:

The car behind me very nearly rear ended me so it could have been good evidence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyCtaU6B5zQ&list=UUf2FXl96khtO_Jl43BrAzuA&index=1&feature=plcp

Tallon

There's an Irish site!!!

http://www.roadhawk.ie/

working fool

I got mine yesterday
Done a quick dry run thismorning
I'm using a 2g memory card , it's recording at 2 mins stages . Looks good

randy hickey

Can I take it from the number of new converts to the dash cam brotherhood, that we'll be seeing some Irish footage on http://dashcamcrash.com/ soon?

robbie_998

Tallon wrote: »

There's an Irish site!!!

http://www.roadhawk.ie/

I'm selling my RH2 that i very rarely used for about €70 less than them

weirdly enough i bought it for €350, less than the guys themselves.

anyway.

great system and all sorts - really does the biz very well.

randy hickey

robbie_998 wrote: »

I'm selling my RH2 that i very rarely used for about €70 less than them

weirdly enough i bought it for €350, less than the guys themselves.

anyway.

great system and all sorts - really does the biz very well.

So you're only knocking €50 off what you paid?:eek:

eqwjewoiujqorj

randy hickey wrote: »

So you're only knocking €50 off what you paid?:eek:

Well, it 'stands' him 350€:D

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056528260

robbie_998

randy hickey wrote: »

So you're only knocking €50 off what you paid?:eek:

for something i used about 3 times. yeah. and your saving €70 for nothing and getting the exact same product.

eqwjewoiujqorj wrote: »

Well, it 'stands' him 350€:D

eh ?

anyway its not about my pricing or my advert .... its about the fact these things are actually worth it !

Tallon

robbie_998 wrote: »

for something i used about 3 times. yeah. and your saving €70 for nothing and getting the exact same product.



eh ?

anyway its not about my pricing or my advert .... its about the fact these things are actually worth it !

You don't get any warranty though

robbie_998

Tallon wrote: »

You don't get any warranty though

I have the receipt with it. will gladly give that too.

dont see why i wouldnt

freestyla

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

I'd be much more in favour of making them put bluetooth in as standard. Much more important safety feature.

Come on.. car makers want to earn money money money! Greedy bastards you know.

There are very expensive options (hundreds if not thousands of euros!) on some new cars to get BT, GPS, HDD players etc..

Not a rocket science at all to have few tiny components and antennas + ie ARM processor + ie Android interface + few inch screen.. and I believe that overall cost shouldn't exceed ~100-200€ in reality. Well take Android tablets for example!

So yeah.. imagine having dash cam from the factory.. it would be called smthg like "SuperEYE road safety cam" with price tag of 500€ :mad:

freestyla

vibe666 wrote: »

could be a good man to know if i ever get my car pc project off the ground.

Any thread about this yet? how is it going?

rolion

cormie wrote: »

Well for me the main things are:

Continuous recording - continuously loops the recording over older footage.
Emergency footage - instantly saves important footage such as a shock to the car (detected by G sensor), or when emergency button manually pressed, where it saves the previous and following footage before the incident to a file that will not be recorded over in the continuous loops process.
G Sensor - Detects motion in the camera and allows the emergency saves
GPS - Shows where you are
Speed - Shows your speed (I'm not sure if this is possible with all models equipped with GPS ability?)
12v connection - Will fit right into your car cigarette adaptor or can of course be hard-wired
Discreet - Won't stick out to would be thieves

These to me are the most important features and I wouldn't buy anything without any of the above.

The DRS1100/Roadhawk meets all the above, but the quality could be a lot better.

The link Davy provided above shows a lot of products, some of the footage looks very good quality wise but I'm not sure if any of them have all of the above features?

I would add to the list,which otherwise is more than adequate for what we need:

-High Definition recording (720/1080)
-internal microphone ,optional ?
-car colour/number plate identification on playback (not sure how that works,but possible duable as if it has HD 1080)
-usb interface so it can be 'seen' directly from the PC
-user friendly software for playback and GPS mapping
-very wide,ultra wide front lens angle
-back lens for recording from sides/back while driving,also driver reaction/position
-built-in battery to keep it going for few hours
-auto start/pause/stop,based on voltage signal command coming from cigarette adaptor

-pric€ ?!!


So far,this one or this one does all the above !?

vibe666

freestyla wrote: »

Any thread about this yet? how is it going?

no, most likely won't be for a while now either. our baby was sick in the new year and my wife has decided to take extended (unpaid) time on maternity leave to spend more time with him as a result.

still, it's one of the joys of parenthood, sacrificing all your time, money and dreams in favour of looking after little people.

Vertakill

rolion wrote: »

So far,this one or this one does all the above !?

Hmm, interesting.
The one I bought that was mentioned on here is allegedly 720p but, while the resolution is correct, whatever way it's encoded (or not encoded if it's raw?) makes it look pretty sh!te imo.
Daytime.. it's ok but you can't make out reg's unless they're 1m in front of car.
Nighttime... absolutely hopeless.

But these looks pretty decent for 1080p.

vibe666

vibe666 wrote: »

if you have an android or iphone, there are apps you can get that will use your phone as a dash cam and combine the feed with audio, GPS and accelerometer info as well and record in whatever the highest video quality your phone will record in.

the best bit being that you already have the hardware, so you just need to buy the software which is a couple of quid, or you can usually get a trial or limited functionality version for free.

with my htc desire hd that means 720p recording with sound, and i can set it to only buffer the video and not save it unless the accelerometer detects i have an accident, or i press the manual save button which will save the previous 20 minutes of video and the next 5 minutes after the record button was pressed.

my only other purchase was a windscreen mount for my phone with a hole for the camera (which I guess you could even drill out yourself in a pinch) for about 3-4 quid off ebay.

so assuming you already have the phone, you can have a dash cam with up to HD recording (depending on the phone) for less than a tenner.

the one i use on android is called AutoGuard Blackbox if anyone is interested.

and that's the other thing, you can still turn off the screen with mine and even if you don't it looks like a phone or GPS (because it is). you can have the screen off or on and just have it recording in the background and leave the main phone desktop showing with a tiny icon up in the notification area.

I use DailyRoads Voyager.

It has all the features I need including looping, sound recording, gps/speed etc. Also has a great feature that if it detects a preset g-force it will automatically save the video. You can also set how long the looping will be. I have mine set to 5 minutes. As you said I got a nice small mount which is great (This is the mount, took less than 2 weeks to get to me!!). Only cost around 4 euro!

Vertakill

Deleted User wrote: »

I use DailyRoads Voyager.

It has all the features I need including looping, sound recording, gps/speed etc. Also has a great feature that if it detects a preset g-force it will automatically save the video. You can also set how lons the looping will be. I have mine set to 5 minutes. As you said I got a nice small mount which is great (This is the mount, took less than 2 weeks to get to me!!). Only cost around 4 euro!

Looks really nice!
Anything like that for iPhone? It's not in the app market as far as I can see.

Vertakill

Vertakill wrote: »

Looks really nice!
Anything like that for iPhone? It's not in the app market as far as I can see.

A quick google search came up with this: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dashcam/id396087757?mt=8

Have a search for "dashcam" in the market

Vertakill

Deleted User wrote: »

A quick google search came up with this: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dashcam/id396087757?mt=8

Have a search for "dashcam" in the market

Ahh fair play to you. I saw that but didn't realise it had GPS! D'oh!

Gareth2011

Deleted User wrote: »

I use DailyRoads Voyager.

It has all the features I need including looping, sound recording, gps/speed etc. Also has a great feature that if it detects a preset g-force it will automatically save the video. You can also set how long the looping will be. I have mine set to 5 minutes. As you said I got a nice small mount which is great (This is the mount, took less than 2 weeks to get to me!!). Only cost around 4 euro!

How does it work at night on dark roads with and without street lighting? It installs onto an IPhone does it or its an actual piece like a GPS?

cormie

rolion wrote: »

I would add to the list,which otherwise is more than adequate for what we need:

-High Definition recording (720/1080)
-internal microphone ,optional ?
-car colour/number plate identification on playback (not sure how that works,but possible duable as if it has HD 1080)
-usb interface so it can be 'seen' directly from the PC
-user friendly software for playback and GPS mapping
-very wide,ultra wide front lens angle
-back lens for recording from sides/back while driving,also driver reaction/position
-built-in battery to keep it going for few hours
-auto start/pause/stop,based on voltage signal command coming from cigarette adaptor

-pric€ ?!!


So far,this one or this one does all the above !?

I don't know, there's so many on the market now you wouldn't know what's actually a quality product and what's a cheap knock-off. As was mentioned above, one was said to be 720p but you can only make reg's out if they are right in front of you, this is the same as mine and mine is nowhere near 720 so I wouldn't be going on an upgrade binge unless I knew it was a quality replacement. Again to mark points mine already have against your list:

-High Definition recording (720/1080) (nope, but 720 doesn't seem to make any difference as posted above)
-internal microphone ,optional ? (yep, records your voice and any other sounds)
-car colour/number plate identification on playback (not sure how that works,but possible duable as if it has HD 1080) (I guess an ANPR type camera could scan the plate but this would probably cost thousands? Best way I can be sure of a recorded plate is to say it out loud a few times clearly so I know the audio recording catches it)
-usb interface so it can be 'seen' directly from the PC (SD is just the same really, plugs directly in)
-user friendly software for playback and GPS mapping has
-very wide,ultra wide front lens angle has
-back lens for recording from sides/back while driving,also driver reaction/position (only has the one lense but all the vehicles I have this fitted to you can't see out the back anyway, of course it would be nice getting all different angles)
-built-in battery to keep it going for few hours (can run off car battery no problem I'm told with a hardwire and wouldn't drain it for a long long time)
-auto start/pause/stop,based on voltage signal command coming from cigarette adaptor (don't see the use in this really, continuous recording would be best I think)


Until there's a big improvement I think I'll just stick with the DRS1100. Also a big reason I went for this is because I saw a video which appeared to have Chinese police using the same units in their patrol cars and presenting a video on it so I knew it must have been a tried and tested product.

freestyla

Gareth2011 wrote: »

How does it work at night on dark roads with and without street lighting? It installs onto an IPhone does it or its an actual piece like a GPS?

DailyRoads Voyager is application for Android phones, it's not separate GPS device if you asked that.. iPhone app is DashCam

Some night shots with Voyager but it's recorded with Asus A50 (=not so powerfull phone) and seems to be slow picture but in city lights good enough brightness i would say

Here with Samsung Galaxy looks faster/smoother recording

freestyla

vibe666 wrote: »

no, most likely won't be for a while now either. our baby was sick in the new year and my wife has decided to take extended (unpaid) time on maternity leave to spend more time with him as a result.

still, it's one of the joys of parenthood, sacrificing all your time, money and dreams in favour of looking after little people.

Yep first things first right.

If you doing something, give me a shout bud, i'm in Blanch too and interested to share ideas.

Alanstrainor

Is anyone using a go pro or similar for this? Not ideal, since they won't loop the recording. But the quality would be top notch, and with a large card you could get maybe 7/8 hours out of one. I have a Drift HD170, and I have a car mount on order. So I'll report back on how it looks. But the image quality is superb, when using it outdoors, so it should look good in the car too.

cormie

freestyla wrote: »

Here with Samsung Galaxy looks faster/smoother recording

that looks decent enough, can ALMOST make out the reg of the car on the right hand side at the lights too. I think there's going to be a compromise when using a wide lens too? It captures more but makes what it captures a little distorted, such as plates and thus hard to read.

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Is anyone using a go pro or similar for this? Not ideal, since they won't loop the recording. But the quality would be top notch, and with a large card you could get maybe 7/8 hours out of one. I have a Drift HD170, and I have a car mount on order. So I'll report back on how it looks. But the image quality is superb, when using it outdoors, so it should look good in the car too.

If GO Pro is the one used by bikers, snowboarders etc which I've seen before it looked brilliant, if there was something similar quality wise with the blackbox features of loop/GPS and those mentioned above I'd be interested.

Alanstrainor

cormie wrote: »

t

If GO Pro is the one used by bikers, snowboarders etc which I've seen before it looked brilliant, if there was something similar quality wise with the blackbox features of loop/GPS and those mentioned above I'd be interested.

Yeah GoPro are the ones used in action sports/helmet cams. The Drift HD170 is the same deal, i have it strapped to my helmet on the bike.

There's one similar to the GoPro with GPS, but i doubt it has loop back functionality. You'd just have to have a 32GB card, which would get a fair few 720p hours worth.

cormie

Yeah, guess I'll be waiting for a blackbox type go pro quality before considering spending money on an upgrade myself

johngalway

What kind of mount/holder would work best for a Samsung Galaxy S 2. I was impressed by the video above and downloaded the app.

CyberGhost

johngalway wrote: »

What kind of mount/holder would work best for a Samsung Galaxy S 2. I was impressed by the video above and downloaded the app.

Herbert Richter(See you at the party!). Made in Germany, high quality.

http://www.holdersandmounts.co.uk/samsung-galaxy-s2-galaxy-s-ii-windscreen-suction-swivel-mount-in-car-holder.html

http://www.holdersandmounts.co.uk/samsung-galaxy-sii-galaxy-s2-in-car-holder-herbert-richter-suction-mount-1767.html