recording video in car??

[Me__2001]

one of my mates has asked me to help him out on a little project of his

he had an accident where someone pulled out in front of him and it ended up dragging on for about 3 months as the other guy denied it being his fault so his idea is to fit cameras in his car to prevent this from happening in the future

his initial idea was 4 camera's that all connect to one main recording device that will record all 4 angles simultaneously, so after an accident he can push a button which will save the last 1 or 2 mins of film, now i know thats gonna mean it needs a buffer of some sort?? i'm not really sure how to do that? any one got some ideas?? solid state memory is gonna be needed i'm thinking to survive a crash, something like a SDHC flash card?

i've had a look round and found a couple of systems that are far too expensive so i'm hoping that i can either make some sort of hardware recording device that can take 2 or 4 feeds constantly or recording devices for each camera?

i'm gonna have another look around for some home made recorders but any help or ideas is more than welcome

EDIt: forgot to mention the price, he's wanting to keep this as cheap as possible so under £200 would be good

 

[Electronics & Photo Fan]

Errr... before you carry on with this project (and it is a great idea) I must point out that filming in a public place is, without sending the Data Protection Commissioner a nice long letter and complying with all the conditions, is illegal. Now I'm not saying that I agree with the law, or that it's good (I enjoyed watching Flops' Travels earlier this month ) . But the fact remains that if he produces the footage as evidence in a court of law, questions are going to be asked

and it would be disallowed.

Ref: http://www.fife.police.uk/default.aspx?page=1745

I doubt he will want large signs on the side of his car warning the public that they care being filmed, even if they do give permission for cameras to operate!!

 

[floppybootstomp]

Odd, I've had policemen ask me what the camera's for when I've been parked up before (it was actually at Sandwich, Kent, last summer) and I said 'It's to take movies of our roads to host on a web site for our American friends to look at, they like seeing part of old England'.

He didn't object.

Again, whilst driving around London, I've been observed by police in police vehicles, none have ever stopped me. The police themselves have many vehicles equipped with movie cameras but I suppose they have good reason.

You can actually buy camcorders to be mounted externally, on motorcycles for instance, to give a unique POV just a few cm's from the ground - are these illegal to sell?

Film companies also film road driving scenes all the times for their feature films so are they breaking the law as well? Or perhaps they seek permission.

I think the law, for road movies, is a little hazy. And if it is illegal then I'd wager that technically the papparazzi photographers are constantly breaking the law but they're never prosecuted, are they?

ME_2001: Your friend is never going to install a satisfactory system for £200.00, forget it.

Equipment does exist for such a thing and at the heart of it is a hard disk recorder that operates from twelve volts.

Depending on the size of the disk and the resolution chosen you can store up to two weeks' worth of images but one week is the normal time span chosen. When the recorder reaches seven days it starts recording over the first day. Of course within a vehicle you'd only need at the most two days' worth as the vehicle isn't in use 24 hours a day.

You'll also likely need a small monitor for the car, four cameras and the cabling.

The cameras price will also depend on quality and whether or not they can record in poor light.

Decent CCTV costs money, cheap CCTV gives you poor imaging.

Sorry, but that's the way it is.

 

[Electronics & Photo Fan]

Odd, I've had policemen ask me what the camera's for when I've been parked up before (it was actually at Sandwich, Kent, last summer) and I said 'It's to take movies of our roads to host on a web site for our American friends to look at, they like seeing part of old England'.

He didn't object.

Good sense ------ that officer

Me technically being a new driver and all that I guess I'm just over-cautious.

I think the law, for road movies, is a little hazy. And if it is illegal then I'd wager that technically the papparazzi photographers are constantly breaking the law but they're never prosecuted, are they?

Now, surely that would upset the natural balance of things too much?

 

[Me__2001]

i knew that you needed peoples permission to film them but it hadnt come to mind with this

Flopps, thanks for your input, i've said to him that its gonna be hard if not impossible to do for under £200 but was hoping that there might have been a way to do it, i had a chat with him today and we've agreed that just one camera mnounted properly will give a decent view of the front of the car which should be good enough to show road position if hit from the side on a roundabout or when someone pulls out infront of him

i saw a website where somebody had done pretty much exactly what he wants using a wireless 'spy camera' one of my other friends actually sells them so i know what the video quality is like and its good enough to do what he wants although i'd rather use a wired version but cant find them

anyway this guy had used one of these to record the feed and a small monitor to view what was going on, which is an extra cost and too much faffing about

i've also seen those bullet cams flopps and will probably encourage him to get one of those its just the recording side thats the tricky bit?

 

[Abarbarian]

Really you only need a unit that will film half an hour at the most . Any investigators will only be interested in the minutes before the accident , during and imediatly after .