Night Owl Security CS-Mini-DVR-4GB Mini Video DVR with 4GB Micro SD Card

I bought this as a means to record while driving should I spot or get into an accident. As I describe below, sadly it won't charge while recording so you are limited solely by the battery life, that is if you have a big enough micro SD card. Below I have listed certain details about the camera as well as some specifications for the file format. Like many low priced DVRs, don't expect to be able to read the license plates of cars unless you are about 5 feet away. It has a nifty feature that places the time and date on the lower right side of the video, good for documentation (the manual gives understandable instructions on how to change it along with instructions on how to operate the other features the camera has). I noticed some waviness on some videos I recorded, but that didn't bother me much (could just be because of the bumpy roadways). Night time recording is overshadowed by the darkness, which is to be expected, but it does pick up on light semi-well. The color looks good, the video may look a bit blockish/pixeling for some people, but as long as I can distinguish a car from a pedestrian, I'm happy. It can also take pictures (although I just use it for video recording).

Memory Expansion: It is compatible with a 16 GB micro SD card. It came with a Sandish 4 GB size class 4. I bought a 16 GB Sandisk, also class 4.

Video specs: AVI format, MJPG (Motion JPEG) codec, Night time bit-rate: ~3,500 kbps, Day time bit-rate: ~4,200 kbps, 640x480, 30fps

Audio specs: 128 kbps constant bit-rate (CBR), mono (1 channel), 8kHz

File size: Records in 30 minute intervals. Within ~800 to ~900 MB for a 30 minute file. For one hour and 26 minutes, all three files total a size of 2.48 GB (ranging from ~26 to ~32 MB/min.)

Picture specs: JPG format, 1280x1024, 96 dpi, 24 bit depth, ~150 KB.

Battery Life: With the 16 GB card installed, I was able to get 3 hours of recording (~5.4 GB) before it shut off. It doesn't charge while recording, unfortunately. I contacted Night Owl and they said that it can't. If you try to connect it to a charger, it won't let you switch to recording mode. Attempting to first record, then connecting it to charge ended in the same result with about 3 hours of recording time, so it definitely wasn't charging.

I bought mine for 40 dollars and it came with a 10 dollar rebate. Overall, I'm happy with my purchase. I guess the alternative for this would be the Veho Muvi or the Veho Muvi Pro (according to some reviews that one can record while charging).

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