Thanks for the replies and the nice welcome.
Hello and welcome to the forum.
The dashcams you see with IR LED's are often just a gimmick, the light off the LED's will reflect in window glass and blind camera.
And if they dont the LED's are very weak with little range to them, no longer than to the front of your car at best.
There are some with IR light for filming the inside of the car, but here you might only see people in the back seat as moving shadows / silhouettes.
BUT ! if you park in a place with a little light from a street light or maybe in a underground garage, then a regular dashcam with good night performance might be able to help.
Thanks! You brought up some very interesting points I wasn`t aware of yet. I might be able to park my car close to a street light so a regular dash cam with good night performance might be sufficient.
The night mode on the thinkware F770 is really good, also has time lapse for longer recording. Maybe have a look on youtube and watch some night shot videos ?
Thanks! The night recording quality of the F770 is indeed great. Unfortunately, the price is anything but cheap, especially with the additional rear cam.
A more budget-oriented choice might be using a G1W-S recording 24/7 with a BDP. These have great low-light video and one member here has been running his in this manner for over a month with no problems so far
Used with a 64GB card this will give you about 8 1/2 to 9 hours continuous recording tine before over-writing. This is a new cam so nobody can be sure that it will endure such usage which of course is not recommended by the manufacturer
Now that is an interesting suggestion! Thanks! The video quality seems to be great even at night. I guess lowering the resolution to 720p would easily net 15 to 16h or constant recording. The only downside seems to be that the cam doesn`t have any sensors to turn it on in case an event happens, so constant recording and sifting through hours of footage in case something happens will be unavoidable.
No dash or action cam can work without some light, and none are optimized for use with IR illumination which would also need to be provided separately.
Actually, the Zetta ZIR32/Somikon DSC-50 seem to be optimized for IR recording, featuring built in IR-LEDs.
The best cams for parking security are those viewing the car from the outside, not inside. There are much better cams of that type available and many have good IR capability but unless you can always park within their range they won't be useful here.
That`s true and if that was an option, I`d go for it. Unfortunately, I neither have a constant parking lot, nor can I see my car from my apartment to record it from there.
Cams can protect you only after something has happened in showing who caused the problem. Car insurance is always your first and best line of defense with car alarms and cameras assisting
Actually, insurance is not really helpful in some cases, such as mine: My car is old, so insuring it against such damage isn`t really worth it. Also, I know the perp who damaged my car. There`s a high chance he might do it again and that`s what I want to document, so I have some hard proof. Also, the perp is my neighbour and I need proof of his violent outbursts for the landlord so he can be kicked out. Nothing an insurance could help me with.
I ordered the Somikon DSC-50 and will order G1W-S as well to see which one fares better, before I consider buying the F770. I`m willing to give more cams a shot, so if someone has a good suggestion, then don`t be shy about it