tweak'e

a crude way.....why not an auto tinting lens from sunglasses ?

salesman.....shoot me please....quick ! ! ! serious side....is it the camera or the persons eyes ? you will be surprised how many people can't tell dark blue from black, or even green from blue. of course UV factors in, especially as clothes often have UV brighteners in it.

sounds like ground loops or possibly noise getting into the cable (ie to close to power cables etc).

maybe a more simpler explanation..... black dye for fabric is often a dark blue compared to paint which is typically full black. its just the pigments are made from different compounds.

why not use mini pinhole cams inside the pillars?

on a serious side which is their downfall. here the owner of the vehicle must tell police who was driving otherwise they get done.

how many stand alone DVR's even have the ability to defrag ??? for pc DVR the only part that would really need defragging is the OS drive. i would say that the data part is fairly continuous anyway. DVR writes from start to finish then back to start of the drive again. its not like a pc that writes in different places due different files in use.

with alloy try to have them in a sheltered spot. as long as the corrosion doesn't get washed/blown off it will protect the unit. another crazy thought, take a steel case down to galv place and get it hot dipped galved. they will last 10-20 years in beach front conditions. note- it has to be hot dipped galv not plated galv. plated is a lot thinner and only last as few years.

usually put it up high otherwise front of vehicle obscures the view. also either centre of vehicle for over all view or drivers side so camera sees what drivers sees (and is in centre of road where most of the action takes place).

any chance of a pic? have you put the screen directly on the end of the camera to rule out that its a faulty camera not cable ??? is it an exact double image? could possibly be be leakage ie signal from one camera cable radiating into the other. sometimes cables can get a fault where braid finishes/restarts overlapping inside the cable. gets a bad connection and do a few strange things. a simple test with muiti meter should tell you if cable is faulty.

only problem with bullet cameras is how to mount them. maybe ok under the vehicle, under spoiler or on top of dash. the square cameras are not to bad, mine front just velcro'ed to the windscreen. it cops a fair bit of reflection off the screen so that another mod at a later date. i wonder who supplies the police cameras, some i've seen where fixed hard up against the glass.

i think the one i did a bit with many years ago was speaker craft part of their remote control audio/video setup. basically a programmable IR sender (tech it the tv remote commands) usually with touch pad inputs but also switched inputs. otherwise any of the home automation crowds will have a similar thing.

http://www.ktncusa.com/english/viewtopic.php?t=645 http://www.ktncusa.com/english/viewtopic.php?t=653 if you can afford them. just thinking the WDR would be great for mobile. one problem you certainly do get is fast changing light conditions and lots of shaded spots. WDR should help with that.

scart, depends on the tv a bit here. not all implement the switch on feature scart has. scart fairly rare here so the more common way of doing this is by programmable IR control. ie doorbell tell IR controller to send tv on/channel signal to tv. or poor mans way is just to change the channel on the tv yourself you can wire it direct to AV in on tv (scart etc) or convert it to RF and feed it around the house.

how about a mobile DVR section? keep all the mobile posts all together.

the white nissan navara D40 is actually 4-5m, i can tell via the blind spot in my mirrors. the pics always seam to look like its a lot further away than it is. thats only a no name 420 line camera with 8mm board lens. i would have to dig through the footage to find one at 10-15m, but number plate starts becoming hard to read at that distance. granted a better camera will see it but size of number plate gets really small in the pic. but a wider angle lens will make it worse. so bit of a trade off.

~3-4m range ie one car length. around 1m at a guess. pics off my cheap camera setup. (hope the pics work as photobucket is down at the mo) 3-4 car lengths starts getting tricky unless you have a really good camera.

what effect would a reasonably bright IR light do in the daytime to picture quality (on a cheapish analog) ? reason for this is i removed the built in IR in the rear camera of my mobile setup. quality is a bit better, i think it was switching on to early and fogging the lens a bit. however i can remote install the IR (backing lamps are a bit weak so it may help when used as reversing camera). but really would like to see if it will improve capture of license plates at night. the IR can run off the vehicle lights. however that means at times the IR can be running during the day as well. i don't really want the IR to upset the daylight pics.

bright headlights pointed straight at the camera can turn the IR off. night time is not a problem because IR will be on with the vehicle lights. the problem comes in when vehicle lights are on in the day (which means IR is also on). i might just have to make some up and do some testing.

there is not much point getting high res cameras as the recorder only records at D1 (704x576) anyway. the recorder is the limiting factor rather than the cameras. your better to use higher quality cameras but even then its not going to get a plate at much longer range but it may handle changing light conditions better (which can be a big problem with car dvr's). also getting high quality products out of china can be very hit and miss. the size of cameras makes little difference, you usually just pay more. side cameras would be ok with pinhole lenses tho not sure on mounting. i have seen some but they where mounted on the other side and viewed through the car (mainly to catch thieves). to get number plates you need to get a camera with narrow angle lens.

there are a few on this forum who have car dvr's, mostly avermedia ones. 25fps per camera is very good. most i've seen are 25fps divided between the cameras (ie 2x cameras = 12fps). unit mounting, unless you using SSD drives you need to mount them flat as hardrives can't handle the bumps very well when the unit is on edge. some drives are not bad with shock/vibration but other are hopeless. one common place to mount is top of parcel tray or trunk. ie hanging down. also check under rear seats, often theres a space there but you may have to get creative on the cooling side if things. cameras. to get license plate you really need 6mm lens minimum. the standard ~3mm, as you have found, is not good for plates. fine for overview which is what i generally use the front camera for. rear camera, i use a modified CCD reversing camera. its only a cheap camera but with 8mm lens it will (on a good day) ID a plate at around 15m. downside is you tend to miss things out to the side more (ie vehicle overtaking). the good thing with a reversing camera, is it looks just like a reversing camera! however you do need to keep the lens clean. if you want one mounted on the inside of the window a few places make them. an 80gig hardrive, you will probably find it to small, especially with mpeg2 @ 25fps per camera. you really need a 250+gig unless you plan on downloading the vids every day.

mobile DVR have their own built in regulators to run the unit and gives regulated 12v output for the cameras which you really need to use as it gives better picture. just watch you don't go over the max current limit especially when the IR turns on.

well it seams to have fixed it ! ! ! it didn't cut out ANY footage today and certainly didn't turn the drive off. now i just have to modify the vehicle a bit to actually be able to mount it properly.

an update.... been fault finding some more. cradle was a bit loose opened up the DVR and re did the tension on the 'fingers' that hold the cradle. also lined up the connection better. cleaned a bit of dirt out of the connection. hard drive was turning off fairly constantly, which i thought was due to vibration. however what little vid i did get showed it wasn't turning off on some of the big bumps. found a camera cable had broken (my fault with all the moving around of the DVR and wires). by chance i found that removing power feed to the cameras caused the drive to completely stop. seams to be touchy with sudden changes in power. removed IR out of the camera (not really needed and works fine without it. it was on the list to do anyway) to reduce any sudden volt drop as the LED's turned on/off. still no change. anyway tonight i happened to kick the floor a bit with my boot and the drive stopped. tried it again, and finally narrowed it down. the main earth screw had come loose ! in all this the DVR had never turned off or even flickered. only the drive stopped recording. so after kicking myself for an apprentices mistake, i've redone the earth lines to a good solid bolt. basic test and it seams ok. fingers crossed for full test tomorrow. the weird thing about it tho, i had dual earth lines on it. one straight off the DVR body. so their can't be a very good connection between main board earth and chassi.

that location looks like a mounting screw location. note the T1 on the other mounting screw. a little hard to see what in it, if they mounted a pot on the other side.