in-car "black box" video cameras

On the news last week, there was a story about in-car video footage being used in a road rage court case. Supposedly the victim's car had 4 cameras (front, rear, left, right I presume). I wonder if it's like the shitty CCTV in my uncle's shop - it does a mosaic of the 4 cameras so you only get 288 lines resolution each picture (same as VHS tape). I doubt you could identify an armed robber off it. It should be HD only for this sort of thing.

Reply to
Nomen Nescio
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The video shown on TV was enough to identify the registration number and the actions, that was enough.

Turns out the perp was an unlicensed driver with a toddler in the back, I hope they throw the book at the idiot.

Reply to
Clocky

No idea, but I'd love to know the tech details.

It has been feasible for about a decade to just have a computer running a capture card storing pictures/video to a hard disk. Limitations were the quality of the cameras that you could afford and the size of the hard disk that you could afford, which implied the limit to the amount of recording(history).

Reply to
terryc

These days a dvr at 500 or 600 tvl per-cam and 20 to 25 fps is under 400$ it's getting very affordable

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Reply to
atec77

I saw such a system installed in a local bar in the early 2000's. Had 16 camera inputs which appeared to be 2x 8 input cards connected to a standard PC. The hard drive light was always flashing like crazy. Got no idea of the resolution or HDD size but at the time a 900mhz processor was about as fast as you could get. Video was B/W.

It turned out a good deal though, as one night there was an armed robbery there after closing, staff were tied up etc, but the entire thing was recorded, filming all through the building everywhere the crooks went,. it went on the local news, and one of the robbers quickly identified to be a former staff member who was promptly thrown in the slammer.

These HDD have been available for some years for taxis, buses etc. I would think now they would be cheap enough for almost anyone to put in their car. With the amount of law enforcement corruption - and also the ability of other parties in any accident etc to bare-faced lie about what really happened - potentially putting you in the shit, or copping great expense in either paying for damage and/or defending yourself in court, these systems might be worth considering. In the OP's case it turned out to be useful.

IIRC on these US real life "cop" shows, even 20 odd years back they seemed to have a camera in the cop car under the bonnet looking forward to record what was said and done when someone was pulled over. No doubt these early systems would have used a VCR of some kind in the boot.

Reply to
kreed

One has to wonder about what sort of person thinks it's necessary to fit 4 cameras to their vehicle.

Some possible 'justifications' include:

  1. Someone who's been a repeated target of abuse for their crappy driving, but hasn't figured out that THEY are the root cause of the incidents.
  2. Someone tin-foil hat wearing wacko looking to make money via vexacious legal claims.

Based on the limited info above, sounds like both a viable.

Reply to
The Raven

I have two cctv cams in my daily but then I got them for little and reversing is easier

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Reply to
atec77

I am not familiar with the case, but I have to be honest, based on what is posted here, the main focus shouldn't be punishing the unlicenced driver/road rager, but (and I'm serious about this) getting that child out of such(imo) danger. Any kind of a lunatic who would engage in shit like this at all, let alone with a young kid in the car, if that isn't moulding a future sociopath (at abolute best) and indicative of likely child abuse that goes on behind closed doors (i.e. they take out their frustrations on other motorists, imagine what they'd do to their own kids with no witnesses). God help the little one.

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Reply to
John McKenzie

Only if you don't drive with your eyes open. Look and learn, there are plenty of examples where you can be held responsible for some other person's reckless driving, e.g. the lane changer who suddenly shifts in front with very little gap and then jams on the brakes as they see a red light ahead.

Reply to
terryc

On Sun, 15 Aug 2010 14:50:12 +0200 (CEST), Nomen Nescio posited in:

Ok - my Tin Hat protects me from RoadRagers. In fact I've not even seriously considering outfitting any car with an array of cameras.

Now I'm getting to think that the driver of the POS Video equipped machine has to be well paranoid. WELL PARANOID, I mean.

It's even possible that the Video car was so equipped because its driver was extremely deserving of a touch-up. And knew it damm well, too.

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Reply to
Toby

I agree. He rammed the other car FFS, what a moron.

Anyway, this being WA where justice is a laughable farce at best, he will probably get a 6 month suspension and a $200 fine.

Reply to
Clocky

Lucky, as it'd be frightfully hypocritcal of you to do so in light of your view regarding the government doing the same thing to monitor people getting about town :)

There's a bit of that going around.

Maybe.

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Reply to
Noddy

Another suggestion to consider.

  1. The driver frequently sees other drivers doing really stupid things and wants to record these types of events to put on u-tube, etc.. :-)
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Reply to
Athol

There's not enough space for that on the whole Internet, Athol.

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Reply to
Bernd Felsche

There's probably an incident every ten minutes of driving. Most would have to be culled leaving only amusing and/or dangerous stuff. Here's one that left me amused a while ago. Guy is rushing to the roundabout on my right, thought best stop (even though I could get in first) and let him go through to avoid contact, weeks in hospital with discomfort etc. Anyway after the roundabout he takes the next right without an indicator. What's amusing about that you ask? It was single occupant vehicle, a driving instructor, with the word affordable (IIRC) in the name.

Al

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Reply to
Albm&ctd

4
,

The person had them fitted after they were held to blame for an accident that was not their fault.

JB

Reply to
Golden One

Wish I had them fitted when I was fined for driving carefully through a faulty red arrow after I waited 5 minutes for it to change (at 2AM and nothing else on the road except an unmarked cop car apparently :-( I would have at least enjoyed playing the footage in real time in court until THEY go tired of waiting! But whether such evidence would even be accepted is another matter of course.

MrT.

Reply to
Mr.T

If you stop in the wrong spot the metal detector loop might not 'see' your car. sometimes reversing a bit triggers the lights.

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Reply to
Jasen Betts

Wonder if it was Toowoomba Qld. Going back about 15 years ago, the lights never change late at night if you are on a motorcycle... sitting there and there is no other traffic for f*ck*ng kilometers. It would be one giant arseh*le of a cop that would book you for going through them.

Al

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Reply to
Albm&ctd

Indeed, but my point was that there is a rational explaination for doing so.

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Reply to
Athol

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