I just got a shipping notice from Amazon that says it will be arriving Tuesday, and a UPS notice that says it will arrive tomorrow. I have an account with UPS, so they send me notices whenever a package is addressed to me. It's not unusual for them to beat Amazon's promises by a day, especially when Amazon ships from any their Pennsylvania or New Jersey locations (especially EWR4 in Robbinsville, New Jersey, which practically guarantees an early delivery).
Depending on what time it arrives, the remaining daylight, and the precipitation, I may be able to start the installation tomorrow by heating the car and the glass as suggested. They're predicting snow for tomorrow, Tuesday, and Wednesday, however, which could put a damper on things -- more because I'm the guy who has to spend time clearing it than because it makes much of a difference in the installation.
That's okay, though. I have a portable car battery booster that has an accessory plug and provides a nice, clean voltage; so if worse comes to worse, I can satisfy my "little kid syndrome" by doing the device setup and any needed firmware updates while inside the house.
In the interest of furthering thread drift...
I've had some people ask why I even bother with a dash cam considering how little traffic there is where I live. The main reasons are the deer and other wildlife, and the tourists from the NYC Metro Area who descend upon us
en masse at various times of the year (mainly early trout season, summer vacation, hunting season, and ski season). The deer and the tourists conspire against the locals.
The problem basically boils down to tailgating. Everyone in the NYC Metro Area tailgates. I know this for a fact. I was born there, learned to drive there, and lived there most of my life. I was even stationed there for part of my time in the military. Everyone down there tailgates.
The reason they tailgate is not because they're necessarily bad drivers. It's because it's impossible
not to tailgate in and around New York City. If you back off enough to allow the recommended three seconds between yourself and the vehicle in front of you, other drivers will immediately fill that gap. So unless you're moving backwards, it's impossible to avoid tailgating in the NYC Metro Area.
Where I live now, almost none of the locals tailgate. Yeah, you get the occasional idiot with a souped-up pickup; but for the most part, people maintain a safe distance. The reason is wildlife, especially suicidal deer. You don't want to rear-end the guy in front of you if he has to stop to try to avoid a deer. This is especially important in the early mornings and late afternoons when the deer are commuting between their living and foraging areas. There are some roads where you can easily see a dozen or more deer in a five-mile stretch. So as a general rule, the locals don't tailgate.
The tourists, on the other hand,
always tailgate. It's what they're used to. They don't even know they're tailgating. They're not being aggressive or trying to get the vehicle in front of them to move faster. It's just how they drive. Sometimes they'll even tailgate you while you're in the right lane on one of the rare four-lane roads. And when a suicidal deer leaps in front of you while a clueless tourist is tailgating you, there's a good chance you're going to get rear-ended (which is why I insist on a dual-channel camera).
Another reason why I like having the dash cam is because I've started to enjoy posting the videos on Vimeo. Some of the routes are just pretty. Vimeo also doesn't compress as much as YouTube does (at least not with a Pro account), so the videos tend to be clearer. Vimeo will actually warn you if they think the video bitrate is too low for the resolution on a given video.
In a nutshell, my having a dash cam is part practical and part fun. The reason I chose the SG9663DC in particular is because by all accounts, it has the best video quality of any dual-lens camera with a rear camera that can be mounted on the glass. My current 4Sight TODC2 would actually suffice for practical purposes. If I were to get rear-ended, it would capture both the deer in from of me and the idiot behind me well enough for legal purposes. I mean, rear-end accidents are pretty cut-and-dry to begin with.
But I wanted better video quality. And a new toy.
Richard