Dash Cam

Oct 8, 2012 | 09:22 AM

mfkl2

Thread Starter

Senior Member

Joined: Dec 2011

Posts: 252

Likes: 1

2012 c250

Dash Cam

Hello MBworld,

I'm in the midst of looking for a good dash cam/black box for my car. In the past 2 months, my car has been vandalized 3 times in our employee garage. Management seems too busy to do anything about this matter so I plan to take it into my own hands.

And, I park on the street in front of my house in an ungated community.

I'm looking for something that will record 24 hours whether the car is on or not. Of course I would have to hard wire it but I dont mind. So far, all I've come up with are dash cams with 32GB SD Card slots which I dont think can record for 24 hours. I've been looking for systems that law enforcement uses that have a seperate hard drive that can record and capter like 100GB or more worth of video/audio and pictures.

If not record 24 hours, then maybe something that can record using motion detectors?

I really dont know too much about these. I've just started looking into these after work when I found a bunch of hand prints all over my car which I just waxed 2 days ago.

If anyone can help point me in the right direction then please.

Thanks in advance!!

Oct 8, 2012 | 05:00 PM

otakki

MBWorld Fanatic!

Joined: Nov 2010

Posts: 3,462

Likes: 54

FF. W212 E63 M156 non-pano 18" P2 ParkT NightV (gone but will be missed).

Of course, recording at lower resolution would allow you to record for 24 hours, but sacrificing image quality. I would suggest you get one with the motion activated feature. I have just set up one up yesterday inside my car overlooking the hood. However, you will probably need at least the front and the back.

I was reading about dash cam thread and I ended up getting this one from ebay since someone ("ambit") on those mbworld tdash cam threads bought it and used it with good result:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/160713174147...84.m1423.l2649
Here are links to the forum member's youtube videos from this camera:
http://www.youtube.com/user/AmberTuber
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UClR22CTWwn-eX_JyNiEnB1w
I received it in 13 days shipped from China to me near Chicago. I popped in a 16gig microSD and it looks like it can record more than 4 hours in HD. I haven't tried the motion detector function but this unit has it. It also overwrites the old data once the memory is full. It writes about 170mb every 2 minutes in the HD setting. By the way, per "ambit," don't use Sandisk cards for this camera; so I got Kingston instead from newegg.com.

The other brand is Blackvue and Finevue distributed by this company in Canada. Those cameras are from Korea but appeared to be well built per comments here on the forum. It's a little bit more pricey. I have heard the owner, Alex, is really helpful and can help you with what you intend to do. So give him a call/e-mail. Here is the link to his online site:
http://www.blackboxmycar.com/

Last edited by otakki; Oct 8, 2012 at 05:22 PM.

Oct 8, 2012 | 11:55 PM

jbondox

MBWorld Fanatic!

Joined: Apr 2007

Posts: 2,430

Likes: 12

From: Cleveland Ohio

beater with a heater

I just hooked up 2 Fisker Karma's for streaming live during the Fireball Run. Though it was expensive, it had great results.

I ran 2 Contour cameras, 1 inside and 1 outside, each hooked up to a Cerevo streamer to Ustream via HDMI. And each Cerevo was hooked up to an AT&T Elevate wireless modem to stream live. EXPENSIVE as hell, but the results were great.

Now, the crazy thing is, that is about $1k per unit with buying a modem out of contract, we did 2 units per both vehicles. The only thing different I would do is add external microphone instead of using the onboard mic.

I'll see if I can find a video of it live so you can see...

Oct 9, 2012 | 12:14 AM

jbondox

MBWorld Fanatic!

Joined: Apr 2007

Posts: 2,430

Likes: 12

From: Cleveland Ohio

beater with a heater

inside
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/25645798
outside... sorry about the music... it has some f bombs going off...
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/25493464

Oct 9, 2012 | 05:25 AM

mfkl2

Thread Starter

Senior Member

Joined: Dec 2011

Posts: 252

Likes: 1

2012 c250

I'm not looking to spend 1000 for a camera...I was looking into the blackvue DR300? I think that's what it was. Prices were around 260 and it has motion detector function which I believe requires it to be hard wired to the fuse box. I'll be doing more research when I get home. I need HD quality so I can catch these immature *******s.