DVR Dashcam OTE £250 off great big Lisa Riley

[Tetleysmooth]

I wonder how long it will be before insurance companies insist on dashcams.

[dave21478]

I'm still searching for one that's got a remote recording box that I can hookup down on the dash somewhere and a tiny little camera that I can totally hide in the windscreen.

Occasionally I will drive with severe enthusiasm on some empty country lanes or down the bypass at 2am or something and a few times over the years I've been pulled over afterwards and the copper has basically said "you were driving like a cock but I can't really prove anything so think yourself lucky, take this as a warning and slow down" 

 

Anyway nowadays if I were to hypothetically do the same thing (obviously I won't because I've been warned) he would just look up and see the camera on the windscreen and I would have to just take the SD card out and chomp it into a load of pieces then swallow it which would look suspicious.

 

 

Let us know if you find a decent one.

I bought a dose of G1Ws for my fleet and while they are ok, they are showing their age with wobbly mounts and occasional freeze-ups. The internal batteries only last a matter of seconds too.

I wouldnt mind replacing them with something more discreet. With my G1Ws I masked off the lenses and gave the fronts a blast with a satin black aerosol which toned them down a bit, but something smaller would be nice.

[Pillock]

This Transcend has a blingy chrome lens surround which is deffo gonna get a slapping with the black tape once I know it works and doesn't have to go back. Apart from that quite discreet, but you can see it once you see it, if you get me.

 

Cobblers, something involving a RaspPi and a generic webcam sounds like well in your scope, you can a ups-like thing which keeps it going for a minute running off a capacitor when the power goes, and also sends a shutdown signal. You can then add WiFi and GPS if needed plus whatever size storage you need. 1TB HDD should give you about six weeks

[mat_the_cat]

I wonder how long it will be before insurance companies insist on dashcams.

 

I can't say I'd blame them if they did. I'm in the middle of a 'my word against theirs' claim at the moment, and a guy at work has had a similar situation dragging on for over a year.

 

It's an excuse to post up this again, filmed with the dashcam linked to at the start of the thread:

 

 

She reported it to the Police who said they could charge them with careless driving, but she didn't want to. It seems like the preferred option of going round and giving them a warning wasn't possible any more...

[stillOrange]

I bought this some time ago.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hard-Wire-16G-Mini-0805-0803-Upgraded-1296P-Ambarella-A7-Car-DVR-Dash-Camera-GPS-/371205071508

 

It's easily hidden behind the mirror, has internal memory plus minicard slot. 3M pad on the mount. GPS does add the speed layer in case someone says you're speeding

[Pillock]

I did wonder about GPS but then thought if I was doing 71 on the M1 when a lorry drives over me, they'll just throw me in jail. I've got a GPS logger on my phone for work mileage returns so it's nicely separate. Plus the Transcend with GPS was about £120 and I'm a brand whore.

[chaseracer]

I've just bought this...

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00MYHOD5A/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2QLXGV5OMDD1L&tag=acleint-20

 

User report to follow.

[Station]

So what's the best one to get?

I just want decent quality, doesn't break, and small enough to leave in the car so it doesn't get nicked, or easy enough to remove/unclip.

 

Pillock, Auto Express rated that Transcend #1 in a test, although they are probably paid off by the company.

 

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/accessories-tyres/85714/in-car-camera-reviews-dash-cam-test-2015

[PhillipM]

How are you lot finding the cheaper camera's with lens glare/flare? Say if you turn off a tight, dark street head on into the sun?

Thinking about getting one to do in car recording in the buggy, but the combination of constant shock loads and being in dark forest one minute and straight into the sun the next makes me wonder if they'll be up to it - I'd like to just buy a gopro and be done with it but at 3-400 now by the time yer done with extras, they can bugger off

[UltraWomble]

I bought a cheap shitty one off eBay - dont bother. Really. Pay a bit more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ILuuvNRdzs

 

Even worse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUtZF1PwvMI

[PhillipM]

Yeah, I had a micro one that went on a keyring that give similar footage, but then it cost £7 so I let it off

[dave21478]

How are you lot finding the cheaper camera's with lens glare/flare? Say if you turn off a tight, dark street head on into the sun?

 

Thinking about getting one to do in car recording in the buggy, but the combination of constant shock loads and being in dark forest one minute and straight into the sun the next makes me wonder if they'll be up to it - I'd like to just buy a gopro and be done with it but at 3-400 now by the time yer done with extras, they can bugger off

 

 

Pretty shit, TBH.

 

I wanted to put some stuff on youtube last week where I had been driving through a forest in bright sunshine and when I looked at the video on the laptop screen it was like staring into a strobe light, flashing bright and dark as it went from light to shade and showing a massive reflection of the dashboard.

 

(Thats with a G1W by the way)

[PhillipM]

Yeah, I've seen that on a few, hoping someone might have one that's a bit better, can't really justify the price of a gopro tbh - that's a years tyres!

That's the G1W out then anyway, any more?

[strangeangel]

I

 

it's coming from china and probably has poor QC, but luckily it's off ebay and you paid through paypal so you could probably twist their arm and get them to send you another out if yours turned up DOA, but if not it would probably cost you more than the purchase price to send it back.

 

That looks pretty good for the money!

 

If anyone does buy one that turns up DOA then open a case straight off. I've just been through this with a duff Chinese no-name smartphone. Even if the seller insists you have to pay return postage, eBay will insist that they issue a return label. If the seller refuses eBay will over-rule them & issue a refund on their behalf.

[Pillock]

Purple trees normally means the IR filter is missing, or crap.

It's actually a mod you can do on webcams to get cool effects, but not really what you want to see all the time.

 

My Transcend is still going strong, I've had to whack the exposure down a shade because everything was washed out but it seems fine now. The G-shock thingie calmed down, maybe it has to calibrate but I turned it back on to "low sensitivity" and now it triggers about once a week, when I'm rushing home on a friday and it turns out if you fling it round a roundabout at 50mph you pull enough lateral G to trip it. Same roundabout every time.

 

Still wasn't cheap, but it was from a high street store so if it goes tits up I'll get it swapped and most of the cheap ones in this thread seem to have been false economy. Unfortunately I had a 20% Currys discount for dashcams but it's ended (which is annoying as that's where mine was from, but I bought mine before the offer)

[cobblers]

Yeah, I've seen that on a few, hoping someone might have one that's a bit better, can't really justify the price of a gopro tbh - that's a years tyres!

 

That's the G1W out then anyway, any more?

At work we have a few G1Ws working no problems still, well over a year later. I thought mine had packed in (it froze) but I dug it out a while back and putting a new SD card in fixed it. It's attached to the bottom of my quadcopter now.

[PhillipM]

And you have no issues with lens flare, etc, coming from dark to into the sun with yours?

edit:
This sort of thing, where you're in a shadow through the forest and the next minute the sun is glaring into the lens - this is a GoPro and they cope quite happily, but I imagine there must be plenty of cheaper camera's around by now that are just as good.

[cobblers]

It reacts fairly quickly to that sort of thing, I've never watched a video back and really moaned about it but it still only has a limited dynamic range so it has to adjust as best it can. IMO it does a fantastic job especially for the price, but it isn't perfect. IMO it is arguably better than my £450 Nikon DSLR in low/changeable light though.

 

 

This video paints it quite realistically - watch as the camera pans up and down and the amount of "sky" increases and it dims the rest of the image to try and keep a decent average:

 

[Eddie Honda]

I'm still searching for one that's got a remote recording box that I can hookup down on the dash somewhere and a tiny little camera that I can totally hide in the windscreen.

 

Let us know if you find a decent one.

 

I've got my eyes on a Koonlung K1S as I really can't be arsed dealing with contrary crap. In the last twelve months I've had to deal with two incidents. Mrs got rear-ended turning right and I had some plum pull out on top of me. Fortunately in both cases liability was accepted straight away and I had the moolah in a couple of weeks. However I do have a very long outstanding one which could have been put to bed ages ago if there was a cam in the car.

 

I know the K1S is quite dear, but now I think I'd rather drop the money on a half-decent discrete cam rather than all the fannying around with insurers that can drag on for aeons. I'll let you know if I get an itchy e-shopper's finger and get one.

[Stanky]

OMG thread resurrection KAOS

 

So, being the follower of cutting edge motoring trends that my friends* and family know me for, I have splashed out almost TWENTY POUNDS on a dashcam for each car. I trawled ebay for all of 20 minutes til I found a likely candidate - 1080p, fisheye lens, on-board battery - all for £9.79 delivered.

 

They arrived today, and I spent 15 minutes furkling in the car park installing one in the Nissan at lunchtime. It was surprisingly good actually - plugs in the cigar socket, has a cable long enough to go behind the glovebox, up the edge of the dash, up the a-pillar, across the top of the screen and plugs into the cam attached to its suction cup thingy behind the rear-view mirror. I tested it out on the way home and got some spectacularly dull footage of the A3, M27 and A32.

 

First impressions:

1. the image quality isn't actually that bad

2. 60mph looks like 6mph in footage

3. The Nissan vibrates a lot

4. I need a new windsceen because the current one - 19 years and counting - is very scratched.

 

I'm quite pleased with it. I shall seek out some RAODKAOS and post it up for the amusement of others now. Sadly, no-one did anything stupid in front of me on the way home from work tonight. Still, there is always tomorrow. I stuck a 16GB MicroSD card in the camera and it reckons thats a but under 2hrs continual footage in 3 minute sections and will overwrite old clips on a rolling cycle ad nauseam.

 

A bit like the shouty 'GET A TRACKER' post recently, this was so cheap it wasn't worth not getting one.

[EssDeeWon]

Nice one stanky, be interested to see how this performs for under a tenner.

 

I keep meaning to buy one.

[cobblers]

I've got my eyes on a Koonlung K1S as I really can't be arsed dealing with contrary crap. In the last twelve months I've had to deal with two incidents. Mrs got rear-ended turning right and I had some plum pull out on top of me. Fortunately in both cases liability was accepted straight away and I had the moolah in a couple of weeks. However I do have a very long outstanding one which could have been put to bed ages ago if there was a cam in the car.

 

I know the K1S is quite dear, but now I think I'd rather drop the money on a half-decent discrete cam rather than all the fannying around with insurers that can drag on for aeons. I'll let you know if I get an itchy e-shopper's finger and get one.

 

 

I finally bought a K1S to fit to the new Abarth a few weeks ago, mainly for the hiddenawayness of it, plus theres front and rear cams.

 

It works pretty well, image quality isn't quite as good as the other cameras I've used plus the sounds useless, but its overall very very usable. 

I'll put some sample videos up at some point.

[UltraWomble]

Just fitted a transcend 200 to the wifes car and shoved her old one in my car.

Her old one has decent enough pic quality but hangs for 30 seconds every 20 minutes or so as it over writes the memory card.

 

I'll bung some footage of each up in the next week or two.

[wuvvum]

OMG thread resurrection KAOS

 

So, being the follower of cutting edge motoring trends that my friends* and family know me for, I have splashed out almost TWENTY POUNDS on a dashcam for each car. I trawled ebay for all of 20 minutes til I found a likely candidate - 1080p, fisheye lens, on-board battery - all for £9.79 delivered.

 

Have u got a link m8?  I bought a cheap dashcam before Christmas and it didn't work at all - well, it wouldn't stay switched on for more than about 3 seconds anyway.

[MikeKnight]

I bought the one listed in the first post in this thread shortly after it was posted.

 

It's utter shit quality and broke within several weeks of use. Just stopped recording entirely after 10 minutes of recording.. then proceeded to wipe over that 10 minutes with another 10 minutes, over and over.

 

So I bought a Nextbase Dash Cam DUO from Halfords for £200 with a hardwire kit: http://www.halfords.com/technology/dash-cams/dash-cams/nextbase-dash-cam-duo

 

Superb quality and superb recording front and rear. Rear has a zoom so it looks out the rear window, not your face.

 

You get what you pay for. Cheap Aldi stereos and cheap eBay cameras are utterly shit. Not shite. Just shit.

[Kiltox]

Not so sure on the stereos - bought two Aldi Bluetooth stereos the last time they had them in and they're doing sterling work in a couple of my vehicles

[Stanky]

Have u got a link m8?  I bought a cheap dashcam before Christmas and it didn't work at all - well, it wouldn't stay switched on for more than about 3 seconds anyway.

 

I got two of these:

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Latest-1080P-Full-HD-2-4-LCD-Car-DVR-Camera-Dash-Cam-Video-Recorder-Night-Vision-/252328554000?hash=item3abff42e10:g:MZIAAOSwpIdW8P37

 

On the basis if it was utter tosh then I'd only wasted £9.75, if it broke I could buy another and not be badly out of pocket and if it did work then I'd be a happy boy.

 

The footage at motorway speeds isn't clear enough to read a numberplate as a car comes past, but you can make out most things - certainly if you had a crash you could easily identify who had done what. At low speeds numberplates are clear as day. I suspect the poor quality roads and tired suspension in the Nissan don't help the picture quality either. Its got a solid mounting, no damping, so if you have a shakey car then the footage will be similarly shakey.

 

Fitted the other one to the Saab this evening too - same story, the cable is plenty long enough and seems to work fine.

 

When I got them this morning the batteries were completely flat, it needed to be charged for 30 mins or so to be able to turn on and set the time and date and whatnot and set everything up but seems to hold charge ok and I've set it to auto power-on with the ignition (the cigar lighter only gets current when the ignition is on in both cars) then it powers off about 30 seconds after I've switched the ignition off. You can set it to motion sense too, but I didn't bother since it'll just drain the battery filming neighbourhood cats or whatever.

 

I'll update the thread in a few days when I've got some more footage and can compare the quality of video in the Saab to the Nissan.

 

Edit to add - it also has an optional microphone for recording profanity and/or road noise and the description in the ad has appalingly badly translated Chinese (I assume) which is what clinched the deal for me. I mean who here hasn't laid awake at night wondering to themselves:

 

Are you still worry about you never know the process and truth of an accident?

 

Exactly.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Stanky

[Stanky]

So here I am, almost 6 months to the day from my last post and I finally have dashcam footage worth sharing.

 

behold, 8:43 this morning on the A3 just by Butser Hill heading north I'm overtaken by a beavertail with a slightly accident damaged Mk6 (?) Fiesta on board

 

 

:shock: