- 2.5'' Big LCD Screen
- Video recording with sound,Photo taking
- High speed recording,Motion detect function,HDMI output
- Real Time & Date display on video/photo
- 3 file playback modes: On camera, on Computer, on HDTV
* Not 720p / JPEG encoding artifacts: -1 Star
The CCD in this camera is natively 640x480. If you choose the 720p recording mode, then the camera just does pixel-doubling in software.
This dashcam records to MJPEG files. You won't be able to read license plates or recognize most faces because of compression artifacts. The firmware lacks an option for changing JPEG quality.
* Stops Recording When SD Card Is Full: -1 Star
When the dashcam needs to rotate files on the SD card, it stops recording for up to two minutes, but an entire accident can happen in less than two minutes. The actual amount of offline time seems to depend on the speed of the SD card.
* Can't override poweroff: -1 Star
This dashcam always powers off when external power disconnects, even if the internal battery if fully charged. I want my dashcam to continue recording after an accident.
* Can't run from a USB Port / Can't be used as a webcam: -1 Star
Connecting the USB port puts the camera into disk mode, which means that you must power it from the 5v connector. You cannot power this dashcam from an in-vehicle USB port. You cannot use this dashcam as a webcam.
* Can't invert or rotate the video: Annoyance
The firmware doesn't have an option for changing the recording orientation.
* Can't change the recording overlays: Annoyance
The only overlay option is a timestamp.
* Nearly ideal form factor: +1 Star
The size and shape of this dashcam is nearly perfect, and it uses a standard threaded mount, like on a regular camera tripod. It is much smaller than the stock photography makes it seem. The built-in folding LCD is probably the best feature.
* Adequate performance in a variety of lighting conditions: +1
Sun flaring is minor. Quality is okay at night with street lights and head lights.
* Additional Notes
This camera records to MJPEG AVI with 8 kHz PCM mono audio. Audio quality is poor; you can't hear conversations over white noise while driving, and it is unlikely that you would get all of a conversation while stopped with a traffic cop.
Wake-up on motion detection is pretty good.
In standard quality, this camera uses 2GB per hour.
Power draw is less than 5 watts at 5 volts, so you can run this camera off of a car battery for a long time.
This camera seems to be running an embedded BSD. A firmware update could get me to add one or two stars to this review.
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I use this camera to protect myself from the lousy/agressive drivers in our area that seem to be growing by leaps and bounds. I have been using the camera for about a month now with an 8 GB card. Using the default video settings (mid range for capture) the 8 GB card stores about 3 hours of good quality video. The 120 degree field of view can capture the traffic lights even if you are at the stop line. Very Strong Sun Glare did not harm the camera although the objects were all darkened since they were all backlit. Night time capture is adequate based off of the headlights but don't expect daytime capture. (The IR cameras are described as not being able to go through the glass windshield so not much of an option.) The auto start/stop and auto rollover works as advertised. The products instructions are really poor. (I suspect that the unit is made in Russia since the only other instructions are in Russian, but so is the Mig-29!) If you want to change the defaults (e.g. I wanted a 15 min. capture window and setting the date.) You need to fumble with the buttons on the left first pressing MENU twice and then rec/snap to get the camera into the change mode and then use the buttons on the right to get the values to change. If you miss the right year you need to go past 2034 and then it rolls back to the start year. They need a definite rewrite.Read Best Reviews of Motion Detect Car Dash Video Camera Recorder DVR Here
I bought this camera to protect myself against reckless and aggressive drivers and liars in San Antonio, where most drivers don't have insurance and drunk wrong way drivers are # 1 on the list. This camera works great as described, very good video and sound recordings. Very recommended at this great price. The video was edited with Nero and lost some Quality, also if I cleaned my windschield before the view was much better, at the video you will see a vehicle turned to the right on red, and almost was hit by another driver. Just be prepared and protect yourself :-)
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I bought this Car DVR recorder with fairly low expectations, both given the very low price and the very mixed reviews at Amazon. After a thorough test and break-in, I am positively surprised. I would recommend this as a low cost way to record evidence for unexpected cases where it is useful to replay the past accurately.The DVR is produced by an unidentified Chinese company. It is surprisingly good for something that's made and designed in China. There is a flip-down LCD screen of decent quality that can be used for setup and instant playback. Opening up the small unit revealed a clean printed circuit board with just 2 chips: a Korean memory chip and a CPU chip of unknown origin. Control is through 6 buttons on either sides. Its not as convenient as a touch screen, but it does the job. The included suction mount was bulkier and less flexible than the one on the picture. This design does not allow mounting the using behind the rear-view mirror, so I need to look for some more compact suction mount.
The unit runs on it built-in battery power for at least an hour. This allows the camera to be used in the same was a a flip camera. Its small and light enough for use as a spy cam or on board of a model airplane. Plugged into the cigarette lighter adapter, the DV starts recording automatically when the car starts, and stops about 30 seconds after the ignition is cut. This is the desired behavior for a 'black box'.
The included manual is terrible, as expected. Special highlight is the final section "Small tip to save you big headache" which describes the many blessings of the reset button. The manual is not adapted for the different versions on the product, describing features that do not exist (such as HDMI output, frame rate selection, audio on/off) and omitting some useful options that are supported. Using some trial and error, however, its not too hard to find your way.
Video quality is indeed nowhere near HD standard. I could not see any difference in resolution between the 'XVGA' and 'VGA', so its best to stick with basic VGA which results in a 30% smaller files and a higher frame refresh rate. The camera sensor is likely the culprit. The lens is wide angle, producing a decent panoramic view with the usual distortion around the corners. Color reproduction is weak. Given the 'black box' application we don't care too much about that. Low light performance is passable. Though not HD, the quality is still better than the standard resolution camcorders of only a few years ago. Sound quality is poor, with lots of hissing, but conversations in the car are easy to understand.
The DVR performs decent image stabilization, which causes the movies to be quite smooth, even on bumpy roads. That is a very useful undocumented feature. Other undocumented features include digital zoom and a few image viewing options. The picture includes a date and time stamp for record keeping. The built-in clock turns out to be stable and accurate.
The DVR records .avi movies in segments of up to 15 minutes. There is only a short 1 second gap between the segments. The gap was a major complaint in most other reviews, but its pretty good on my unit. Apparently the new firmware improved this. Each 15-minute .avi file is about 720Mb which should yield about 11 hours of total recording on a 32G SD card before old files are overwritten. The LCD display shows the estimated remaining recording time, though the value is on the optimistic side.
Playback on the built-in LCD screen is decent. This feature could save your day, for instance instantly proving to a cop that you are not on the cell phone while driving. There is no fast forward, unfortunately, which makes it a pain to find the proper scene. Plugging in the unit in a computer mounts the SD card as a hard drive. The USB data transfer rate cannot keep up with the video bit rate in my experience. I am not sure whether this is caused by the SD card I am using or whether its due to the USB interface. Its not a big problem, as files can be copied to the PC for smooth playback. Playback on using video signal on a TV possible, but its just not very useful.
Overal, this DVR does the job for very little money. Compared to the other options (such as Itronics), it does nearly the same job and sports a built-in screen at a fraction of the price. It lacks HD and GPS, but neither of those are really essential for a car 'black box'.
Update May 2013 (1.5 year later): The dashcam is still working flawlessly, faithfully recording whenever my car drives. Same product now costs even less.
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I have been using this for a few days now. First, it took them till the end of the 3rd day to ship it which caused total delivery time to be around 9-10 days. I received it and it is one of those Chinese drop ship items. It has a surprising range of features for the price, such as auto on/off and auto record triggered by power from the cigarette lighter adapter. When the sd card is full it will loop the record and overwrite the oldest files first. The built in battery allows it to properly close out the files when the power from the adapter is cut so, in an accident, losing power will not cause you to lose the current file; which may be the most important one. The unit I received did not have a hdmi port like the photo but the opening is still cut into the casing; found this after the inspection sticker fell off after the 2nd day of use. Playback is not possible on this device. I have used 2 sdhc cards which says on the box are supported; one Kingston class 6 4gb card and one transcend class 10 16gb card. Trying to initiate playback with either card results in "one moment" appearing on the screen followed by the word "one" disappearing leaving half of the "o" yet, nothing else happens(waited up to 5min). Occasionally it will indicate "fwd 1x" but still not play, pressing the up button sometimes causes it to display "bwd 1x" but nothing plays. In the whole playback attempt process it will randomly give 2-3mm wide vertical lines of distorted picture over the still image of the first video frame. Another thing to note is the video format of the files it creates are AVI. A 4gb card will give 2:20 hr:min of record in VGA format and 1:22 hr:min in D1 and SXGA. 16gb card increased the VGA to over 9 hours. When transferring the video files to your computer you better use a sd card adapter because the maximum transfer speed that this thing can handle is apparently 1 mb/s. The video seems clear enough to see what is going on in a wide angle area in front of you but is not sharp enough to read the license plate off of the car in front of you sitting at a traffic light. I have not used when fully dark but twilight recordings are good in detail except oncoming headlights cause moments where the camera is basically blinded. The video displays on the lcd so it is right side up when the unit is mounted with the lcd folding down when opened, with no option that allows you to change this if you choose to mount it in any other orientation; like mounting it to your dash with the lcd folding up when opened. Conclusion, it's much better than nothing at all in providing piece of mind, but you get what you pay for in the quality of the video and craftsmanship.
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