In-car cameras, any opinions/experience?

greenMachine · Postby **greenMachine** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 8:16 pm

FWIW, these things are banned in cars in France (I think, or was it Italy?).

Have no idea why, and not saying you should not use one.

:mrgreen:

Trackphotos · Postby **Trackphotos** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 8:30 pm

Banned outright? I know that in Germany, the footage from dashcams is inadmissible in court. Purely because they caused an increase in the number of cases brought before court, and they can't keep up.

Steampunk · Postby **Steampunk** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 9:26 pm

Lokiel wrote:"The G1W-C dashboard camera is another upgrade to the G1W model. A big thing upgraded in G1W-C is the use of capacitor rather than batteries as alternate means of power.

Furthermore, as time passes, the charge retaining capacity of a battery reduces and sooner or later it becomes useless.

On the other hand, capacitors are proven to resist heat and overheating in a much better way than batteries and they tend to have a much longer lifespan. Hence it’s always good to buy a dash cam that uses capacitor rather than batteries as alternate means of power."

The battery/capacitor debate is neglible IMO as I have it always plugged into the cigarette lighter as the the big selling point for these dash-cams is that it automatically (when plugged into the cigarette lighter) turns on and off when you turn the car on and off, otherwise just use a Gopro style camera, your compact digital camera in video mode etc.
The only debate that wins is re heat resistance.

NZMiata put me onto the G1WH which is regarded as one of the best budget cam around at the moment, and I've been using it for almost a year.
It performs as described, and they are (pleasantly) smaller than what they appear in listings.

The only fault it has is that it very seldom doesn't turn on when the car starts (plugged into cigarette lighter of course), but simply unplug it and plug it back and it starts normally.

Night capture is average at best, but you expect it for $60.

If anyone is interested in the G1WH, be careful in that you buy the "correct" one as there are many out there that are named exactly the same, with what appears to be the same specs, but are crappier, eg. video quality not as good, or viewing angle not as wide.

DO NOT buy the ones that have silver buttons or a silver lens bezel. These are the crappier ones.

These are the ones I bought: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Novatak-96650-2-7-LCD-1080P-G1WH-Full-HD-Car-DVR-Camera-Recorder-G-sensor-HDMI/1742948961.html