Car Camera Rear
Oct/090
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How can I put a camera in my car to tape police who pull me over?
I've had a few run ins with corrupt cops pulling me over and harrassing me (I often visit my hometown, which has higher crime rates than Compton and is very small, so unless you live there, you have no idea what the cops are like, so please dont lecture me about how I must be a criminal). I would like to put a camera in my car that is inexpensive (possibly a web cam for example), that can start recording somehow when I hit a button. Something small and not very noticeable, but that records audio well, especially outside the car towards the rear (since they often make me stand to the rear of the car). Can somebody suggest something thats either inexpensive, or at least compact and not very noticeable, and explain how I would be able to record it to something. I would rather not keep a laptop in my car all the time, so I would like to use something cheaper as a database box to hold any recordings. Thanks
Being that I ride a motorcycle a lot, I recently invested about $500 in getting a decent recording setup for my bike. I constantly get people pulling in front of me or cops harassing me, so it comes in handy. Once I found out how well it worked, I decided to put a similar setup in my car. I now have 2 setups in the car... One forward view of my dash (including instrument panel) and out the windshield, and one rear view including exterior sound.
Both setups are identical, and cost around $500 each. They give you TV-quality image with decent sound, and can record about 30 hours at a time. I have a Cowon D2 Personal Media Device as my recorder, and at 30 GB storage, it's not bad. If an officer were to stop me, I could get full sound from both of us whether I was inside my car or even behind my car, as well as video to prove my speed, actions (including signals and driving techniques), etc.
As far as the installation, it's pretty simple using the included hardware to mount it upside-down from the roof of the vehicle, or (like I have mine) on the corner of your seat. My rear view cam is mounted in the rear window, with the microphone line ran into the trunk, out through the bottom of the trunk, and mounted inside the bumper. It gives surprisingly good sound. All components are waterproof, since they're made for motorcycles, and fairly resilient when it comes to vibration. The only downfall was the poor video quality at night...
So, to fix that, i added some IR LED's to the mix, and wired them to be turned on by a switch inside the car. Mounting them in the rear window was easy, and they're hardly noticeable. I also added a few to the dome-light enclosure, and some inside the drink holders and cubbies in the car. This lights up the interior like Christmas, but doesn't give a direct glare on the camera lens. It also, being that they're infared, allows the camera to see much better without creating any light visible to the human eye.
To be honest, you can probably go much cheaper. I've seen some recorders that only save about an hour of video/audio for under $50 on ebay. I've also seen some lower-quality cams, still built for motorcycles with all the same resiliency and waterproof enclosures, for under $100 each. The LED's are about $0.75 each, and the wires you will need will cost about $5 or so. You could get away with about $400 to give decent results with front and rear view recording with audio.
To sum it up... MOTORCYCLE CAMS AND PVR'S FTW!!!
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