Criminal case: Help me guard my car from all angles please!

richcam said:
Sorry for stating the obvious, but why do all dashcams 'worth mentioning' have an infra red cut filter so they don't see any infra red light, when most domestic and industrial CCTV cameras work perfectly well without this filter which improves their low light abilities when an external IR illuminator is installed?
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CCTV cameras do have IR cut filters that work during the day just like a dash cam but they have an electro-mechanical solenoid that moves the IR CUT filter out of the optical path of the lens at night when triggered by a photo-cell. Some newer digital cameras perform the same function digitally. When the IR-cut filter is removed from the optical path the camera can then perform well with it's built-in IR illuminators. Of course, when the sun comes up in the morning the photo-cell triggers the solenoid to slide the IR-cut filter back into the optical path of the lens.

Here are two examples of electro-mechanical IR Cut filter assemblies from CCTV cameras showing how the filter slides out of the lens path.
cut.jpg

IRCUT.jpg

If you look closely at the front of most CCTV cameras you will usually see the photo-cell sticking out among the IR emitters.

CCTVdome.jpg

security_cameras.jpg
 
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Yeah and it even seem some cctv cameras and dashcams share the same sensor, but thats alllso where the similarities stop.

The firmware for the cctv products seem to handle the light hitting the sensor better, i assume thats to do with the fact they go into B&W mode when the IR filter disengage.
CUZ as i have tried just removing the IR filter on a videocamera and a dashcam dont mean they will be good with IR light, they might be able to see it and see by it, but in no way as good as a dedicated cctv camera can do.


PS. in my time here i have asked for some one to make a dashcam that would go into B&W mode at night ( without IR assist ) as i guess that will improve the night performance of the hardware.
I know for a fact that just before my IP camera go into night mode its so dark in the yard where my car is parked its no use filming down there with my dashcams or videocamera.
Its like the IP camera is 5X more light sensetive, and its not as its based on a 4-5 year old sony CMOS chip, so i assume its the firmware and how it handle that light.
 
The Mobius cameras can do B&W but you need to set it manually. @russ331 experimented with it and had good results as I recall.
 
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Ill give mine a spin next time i have it out of the car to retrive footage :D THX for the heads up
 
Dashmellow said:
You're welcome!

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actually along those lines I've got a friend that races cars in the old vintage classes and he likes to use a sepia setting so that his footage looks like it belongs in that era, well a 1080p version of that era I guess
 
jokiin said:
actually along those lines I've got a friend that races cars in the old vintage classes and he likes to use a sepia setting so that his footage looks like it belongs in that era, well a 1080p version of that era I guess
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It's funny you should mention that as I was just looking at the mSetup window above and wondering how sepia might work for night imagery compared with B&W. Since you would still have control over color balance it might offer some monochrome tweaking advantages over B&W.

Years ago, when I was in my twenties I shared a house with a group of people and a friend/housemate got a job working for the venerable old CV Railroad Company (Central Vermont). He ended up on a crew working with sledge hammers and pick axes repairing track and driving spikes. He had me do some shots of him and the crew posing with their tools on the track bed and print them in sepia. The photos looked like they were right out of the 19th century.
 
I've seen where some guys use dashcams sans the IR filter for night-vision on the cheap. The decent-grade cams seem to do OK but cheap ones don't. It takes a lot of IR lumens to make this work since these cams aren't optimized for IR. I'm going to play with this someday, always wanted portable NV but could never afford it.

Phil
 
SawMaster said:
I've seen where some guys use dashcams sans the IR filter for night-vision on the cheap. The decent-grade cams seem to do OK but cheap ones don't. It takes a lot of IR lumens to make this work since these cams aren't optimized for IR. I'm going to play with this someday, always wanted portable NV but could never afford it.

Phil
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Yeah, it works, but it's just not optimal. @kamakar1 has done a lot of experimenting with that. See his earlier post in this thread.
 
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Saw that already- that is what got me looking further afield. Some guys are even doing this stuff with firearm mounted systems, kind of spooky if you ask me. You have to admit that as far as DVR's go, dashcams are quite the cheapest 'economy' option, especially for experimenting!
Phil
 
I am kinda hooked on a pair of new FPV googles, though they look stupid.
http://www.getfpv.com/headplay-hd-fpv-headset-w-32ch-5-8ghz-receiver.html

They have a screen kinda like occolus and other VR goggles, but they allso have a 5.8GHZ reciver and support a 2 camera, so i was thinking a camera with transmitter on my rifle scope, and another camera + a IR light on the goggle itself and i would be cooking ( offcourse my airgun would allso need a IR light 940 Nm offcourse so you at least cant be seen with the naked eye.


Ill admit you would be stupid looking, but in the dark no one will see you, but with a cam on the scope you dont have to aim your gun like normal so the large goggle will not be in the way as you can just shoot from the hip if you like.
Use the cam on the google to move around, and switch over to the scope cam when you have found your mark.
And the cost is far from a pair of real NVG of a newer generation 3 or 4. :cool:
Okay it will allso be active NV but for hobby use i think thats okay.

If you are a cheap bastart hobbyking have a simmilar headset with a lower res and i dont think it support 2 cameras, but i assume when you add reciver ASO for that the price go up but maybe not to headplay level.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__539__543__FPV_Aerial_Video_Telemetry-Goggles.html

The old fasion goggles like fatsharks is a lot smaller, but they allso have a much lower resolution and FOV, and the large FOV is somthing ppl complain about on the headplay headset.
 
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Yeah same headset, and they allso talk alot about the overwhelming large screen.
I do like they are prepared for HD but sadly transmitters for that is very expensive today.

To a degree i agree with the guys, but then again the first time you try to drive a car or fly a quadcopter with a pair of regular fatshark goggles thats pretty overwhelming too, especially if you do it via the AV out of a gopro 3 silver which have a pretty wide FOW, gauging distance to things even the ground is hard.

And as i have tried driving my 1:1 car while looking at the feed from my front "dashcam" on a 7" screen in my headunit is equally hard and frightning.
Its like driving along a motorway at 110 km/h and you know the road is empty so you drive looking at the right mirror ( in my case ) and keep your car strait by seeing how close you are to the white line marking the edge of the road.

The first times i did that i could only do it for a fjew 100 M before i had to look out the windscreen, but after some months of practise i could go for several Km with no problem.
But it is damm hard to overcome what you have been doing all your life, and what is normal to do, and then do somthing else.
 
kamkar1 said:
And as i have tried driving my 1:1 car while looking at the feed from my front "dashcam" on a 7" screen in my headunit is equally hard and frightning.
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Like this ? :D
 
Yeah somthing like that, actually i saw a video with somthing simmilar from Ford yesterday, Henry the old anti semite would spin in his grave :D

Thats the night performance dashcams should have :cool:
 
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