(Update) Geekiest Mod ever? Onboard Camera – Videos attached

[bimmerFanatic]

I rigged a tiny video camera and solid state DVR into my X5! My first attempt was with a cheap CMOS camera from Fry's mounted on the radar detector. The picture was below par so I upgraded. My second iteration is with a Sony Exview Bullet camera mounted behind the rearview mirror. If you sit anywhere near the driver side the bullet cam is out of sight. Not so on the passenger side...that's the only downside. The tiny DVR is in my glove box, records hours of full video and sound in a loop whenever the ignition is on. The attached videos are compressed because the attachment limit is 1MB. It's hard to tell in these example but the CCD video is much better than the CMOS, especially at night.

If you hit me you'd better not run.

I've this running for a few weeks now. The ONE day that I took the memory chip (SD 2gigs) out, this contractor pickup truck overboarding with stuff drops wood, paint buckets, and other crap in my lane at 70 mph. I had to dodge around the debris...wish I had taped it...grrrr....


Edit: For the folks that wanted more details. I'm using a Svat DVR ($200 on amazon). It needs 5V DC and can tape 320x240 @ 30fps or 704x496 @ 12fps at one of 3 compression levels. On full res and lowest compression I can fit 2.5 hours on a 2GB SD card. If you lower the res, fps, and compression it can quickly go into the double digits. Audio is also saved. The DVR can also run off AA batteries. the cool thing is that when it loses power (ignition is off), it automatically start recording again when power is applied (ignition is on). Also it will pause recording if there is no video signal and start again when the video signal is applied. It also has very smart hardware motion detection but I turned it off, I want it recording all the time, even when the car is stopped.

For night time recording, get a good CCD camera (Sony Exview HAD is the best)! The difference is night and day. You can see the difference in the attached videos. Don't get a "night" camera since those have infrared bulbs...they will reflect off the windshield and blind the sensor (image will be white).