[RoverRevival]

Getting a bit bored of the wife’s nightmare journeys to and from work so looking for a good dash cam.

From what I’ve been reading some only record for like 20 mins. Which is obviously no good.

I’m looking for front and rear be it single or two camera system.

What you got?

[Johnny 216GSi]

Getting a bit bored of the wife’s nightmare journeys to and from work so looking for a good dash cam.

From what I’ve been reading some only record for like 20 mins. Which is obviously no good.

I’m looking for front and rear be it single or two camera system.

What you got?

It's memory card and format dependent. Even the basic Motorola MDC150 available from Argos for £40 will record several hours of footage before overwriting/looping - depending on whether you're recording 1080 or 720 vertical resolution and the size of the card (32GB max).

You can get rear view mirrors with built in dash cameras from China. One advantage might be that they're in disguise, so nobody is going to be breaking into your car to pinch your dash camera, which is entirely possible.

Some are motion-activated, so the recording should start when the car starts to move, then switch off soon after the car stops moving. Some just switch on when there's power to the charging port - which comes from a car adapter plugged into the cigarette lighter. Several hours of recording time, so you just have to remember to take the memory card out after there's been an "incident" and copy the relevant file to a PC for safekeeping, as it will be overwritten by the dash camera when the card space is all used up and it has to start again by overwriting the oldest recordings. I would guess the files are date-stamped so you know what's what - you might even be able to mark a recording as "read only" so the camera doesn't overwrite it, but I don't know for sure and I wouldn't rely on that if it was valuable footage for an insurance claim or a report of dangerous driving to the police...

You can get front cameras with rear camera slave units, but if you can get a deal you could just buy two of the same type and fit one front, one rear. Most have a viewing angle of 130 degrees - some go to 150 degrees, so should capture most events. You could go for side cameras as well, but that's starting to get expensive and would prevent you winding down the windows!

This from the MDC150 owner's manual:

[Kriss707]

I've got the cam in mirror, they are really good, I've been using them for years.

I've got a Gen2 4.3“ screen in my Cabbie it has a record cycle of 3min front & rear cams & just keeps overwriting unless you lock the file. It also has movement detection so if your car is hit when stationary it records front & rear for 20secs. The rear camera connects to your reverse light & shows in the mirror as a reversing cam when you engage reverse.

I've got a Gen3 in our daily drive Espace, it does all the Gen2 does but is touchscreen.

I personally wouldn't be without them now & highly recommend them to anyone.

I want to upgrade the Espace one o a Gen4 which has built in Sat-nav & runs on Android OS. They are around £80 at the mo.

Check them out on ebay search for 4.3" mirror cam.

[ROVER Cabby]

Let me know what you end up getting Dist.

[RoverRevival]

#bulk discount
I need 4/5 of them

[Johnny 216GSi]

#bulk discount
I need 4/5 of them

Might be something you could raise as a potential bulk buy amongst club members, if everyone can agree on a fairly inexpensive model that a lot of people might go for? Need access to a wholesaler who can do discounts...

[Kriss707]

174048608511

This item no.on ebay offers a multi buy discount.

[RoverRevival]

I have a merc with the auto dim rear mirror so not looking for the mirror replacement type.

But thanks for the link.

[ROVER Cabby]

Any more progress on this?

I forgot to add earlier, that 20 min recording time is quite common, it is closer to an hour or two to be honest as it
will record a 20 min block, save it and record another, I think they record about 4 20 min blocks before recording
over the first one unless you 'Save it', quite nifty and that is my old 2012 China ebay special for £12.

[Astraeus]

They are well worth getting. My friend had a recent minor bump when another driver parked indicated and pulled straight out without looking. Right into him. The other driver than said your fault I was indicating. Dash cam footage clear and so at least a no fault claim. Without that one word against another and a likely knock for knock insurance claim.

Got one fitted last weekend to my MG3 as it is the first new car I have ever bought. Had a very close thing courtesy of some idiot not looking where they were going on way home after picking car up. Nearly the shortest lived MG3 ever!

After much previous thinking about one it persuaded me to get one.
At least a bit of protection from claims against you when not your fault.

Chris