Amazon version not wide angle as claimed vs $70 eBay HD.

[rsilvers]

So I knew they were not being truthful about it being HD, but they also are incorrect about the lens being 120 degrees.

 

[rsilvers]

http://www.silencertalk.com/dashcam/all.jpg

 

[rsilvers]

The $70 one has a subtle blue blinking light when it records with the display closed. I could not see it during the day.

Also, it records after you shut off your car until the internal battery gets low - I want shopping and when I came back to the car, it was still recording. That is cool. The $24 one is supposed to do that, but it always shut off very soon. Maybe that was a configuration issue, but I don't think so, as I set it for 20 minutes.

 

[CheckYourLights]

Most DVR-027 cased cameras sold on Amazon are SD low quality hardware knock offs and the listings are untruthful about a lot of things.
From how wide the angle is to that it is HD or that it supports 64GB SD (Most only support 32GB)
The 70 dollar one on eBay is a real DVR-207 (newer version of 027).

Amazon Listing 1 Claims 120 deg View Angle
Amazon listing 2 Same claim
Amazon Listing 3 This one is all over the place. What is typed in the upper section is a little more truthful 90 degrees viewing angle VGA 640 X 480 pixels, 30fps (recommended) but then a little below that says Viewing angle: 120 degrees

Amazon listing 4 This one claims HD and the 120deg

All the above cameras from Amazon are knock off SD narrow view devices with different set time stamps (some yellow like yours some green and in different locations on the video)

and those are just the DVR-027 look a likes from the first four pages, there are also other DVR-007 look a likes as well.

The Best place to pick up a DVR-027 is off eBay from the FaQs recommended seller.

 

[rsilvers]

I got this one for $70:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/310585954574?ss ... 1497.l2649

And this one for $56 (price has since dropped to $50):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/260900800763?ss ... 1497.l2649

They both came by China Post by the same method (airmail) and in identical boxes and wrapping from the same town. The $70 one arrived 6 days faster, which I assume that means the shipper sent it sooner.

The plastic housings are identical.

The angle of the lenses are identical.

The menus are a little different.

The $70 one has more saturated color on the display.

Both are H.264 and make singular file sizes.

The $70 one has higher sharpness in the recording, but also more noise. I am not sure that it has higher resolving power. I would have to record a resolution target for both - which I guess I can do.

There is no obvious difference which is better.

 

[DashCamMan]

Thanks for sharing. Many of the Amazon cameras are the $17.50 SD versions sold for much higher. The $50 camera from sweetlife999 is interesting. If it is a legit DVR-027, the price is a bit more attractive.

 

[RSole]

I recently bought my 1st dash cam, a DVR207 from a fairly reputable seller that DashCamMan had referred to. That Chinese seller has a pos. feedback of 99.5 % which is high for a communist controlled vendor.

I lucked out by stumbling across this great site and reading the reviews before taking the plunge. I was one of the first adopter/buyers of the "207" and bought it before any reviews were in, it was that new. But the seller's rep seemed solid and the recommendation by DCM and others here prevented me from getting an inferior product.

 

[rsilvers]

I ordered another sweetlife999 027. I can't see evidence that the 207 is better after trying both.

I really want a feature to have less H.261 compression! Pretty surprising they lack that.

low/med/high compression - where the existing compression is high.

Maybe it is not possible to write the card that fast, I am not sure.

 

[RSole]

I would say that the biggest improvement in the "207" is the lack of gaps between recording segments, which the 027 definitely has. Imagine the video of Rodney King showing police fists and feet hovering over his prone quivering body, with no video frames actually showing connecting blows. Those precious missing seconds could change your life (or your insurance settlement).

 

[rsilvers]

I just looked at the time stamp in my files, and that does appear to be true.

I am going to minimize the risk of it occurring at the wrong time by changing the file length to more than a minute on the 027.

 

[dashcam.br]

So I knew they were not being truthful about it being HD, but they also are incorrect about the lens being 120 degrees.

When it says 120°, that's actually from opposite corners (diagonal), like when measuring display sizes, right?

 

[CheckYourLights]

I just looked at the time stamp in my files, and that does appear to be true.

I am going to minimize the risk of it occurring at the wrong time by changing the file length to more than a minute on the 027.

I have mine set to 5min segments and still notice about a one second gap.

I use a SanDisk 32GB Ultra Class 10 SD card and have formatted it with my PC I believe it is recommended to format at 64k allocation size, but someone may correct me on that.

So I knew they were not being truthful about it being HD, but they also are incorrect about the lens being 120 degrees.

When it says 120°, that's actually from opposite corners (diagonal), like when measuring display sizes, right?

I'm not good with all the number stuff but here is the Wiki Page on the subject.

 

[rsilvers]

I don't expect the number of minutes recorded to reduce the duration of the gap. I just mean that the gap will happen less often and so you will be less likely to miss something.

I still don't consider it that big deal - as you can miss something anyway when a crash crashes into you from behind.

But agreed that is a significant benefit of the 207.

My cards are all Class-10.

 

[CheckYourLights]

I don't expect the number of minutes recorded to reduce the duration of the gap. I just mean that the gap will happen less often and so you will be less likely to miss something.

Yea that's true. I never played around with it to much. I remember when i first got it i had it set to 15, and that made it a bit of a pain to find things i was looking for sometimes so i turned it down to 5.

It's nice to see more people from this side of the ocean getting into dash cams with more users from the States and Canada jumping on board. After seeing things like America's Worst Driver I know they may not be as bad as some other places in the world, but they are out there.

 

[dashcam.br]

I would say that the biggest improvement in the "207" is the lack of gaps between recording segments, which the 027 definitely has. (...)

It is important to check for gaps when the card is full. My fake SD camera creates very small gaps when the card is not full.

I don't expect the number of minutes recorded to reduce the duration of the gap.

With a class 4 card, full of files, and a fake SD camera, I notice bigger gaps with bigger files. But this may vary from model to model.

 

[dashcam.br]

So I knew they were not being truthful about it being HD, but they also are incorrect about the lens being 120 degrees.

When it says 120°, that's actually from opposite corners (diagonal), like when measuring display sizes, right?

I'm not good with all the number stuff but here is the Wiki Page on the subject.

When turning at an intersection, I expect a 120 degree camera to cover both lanes of that intersection, which usually are at an 90 degree angle. All cameras I saw seem to cover only about 90 degrees horizontally. This is what I mean:

A 120 degree field of view for a car turning right at an intersection, coming from the right. (Poorly and quickly drawn with Google Trimble SketchUp.)

 

[swolocz]

I HAVE DVR 027 AND JUST BOUGHT DVR 007 AS I LIKE THE SMALL DESIGN WITHOUT THE USELESS LEDS ON THE FRONT OF CAMERA AND I NOTICED STRAIGHT AWAY THAT THE DVR 007 HAS MUCH WIDER VIEW ANGLE THAN DVR 027 AND BOTH OF THESE CAMERAS ARE GENUINE NOT FAKES..SEE PICTURES I UPLOADED..SORRY FOR LOW QUALITY AT NIGHT.ON LEFT IS DVR 007 ON RIGHT DVR 027