Idea on the DIY dashcam system

[Xor]

While trying to decide which cam I need, I was reading russian forums for the BlackVue 500 hacking progress.
Thinking of what can be done in that MV embedded linux I got an idea.

My wife have Logitech C920, and that beast have hardware h.264 encoding 1080p x30fps.
So, technically it shouldn't be a problem to write v4l2 scripts to save the output to file, along with streaming over WiFi (if needed), motion package will allow motion detection, add GPS, add accelerometer and you have g-sensor functions, possibilities are endless and hardware load is minimal (granted the hardware in camera h.264 encoding).

Even Raspberry Pi will work if they will fix USB packets issue. But more interesting is the MK802 (and clones) with linux installed. This things have sdcard, wifi, bluetooth, etc. built in, even HDMI output and power to decode/play on the TV.

Prices are: $78 for c920 @ amazon + ~$33 (MK802 should be enough?) = $111!

So, now the question is - how good is the Logitech C920, will check it next week once back from business trip.

What do you think?

 

[Sabe]

It's not very efficient considering there is hundreds of dascams available in stores at very low price.
But as a hobby it might be interesting, and a way to spend tens and tens of hours.
Just be carefull not to spend more time witch raspberry than wife
Here is sample of that camera in car, it's not very good at night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLPCPDntCd8

 

[Xor]

It's not very efficient considering there is hundreds of dascams available in stores at very low price.
But as a hobby it might be interesting, and a way to spend tens and tens of hours.
Just be carefull not to spend more time witch raspberry than wife
Here is sample of that camera in car, it's not very good at night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLPCPDntCd8

Sure hundreds of dashcams available, but for most of them the night time quality is not very good. And for a few with the good glass lens and an good night quality the price is 195+.
That surprises me, because of the calculations above, A lot more powerful chipset + separate camera with hardware encoding + Carl Zeiss optics is half the retail price of BlackVue/FineVu/Lukas.

Of course, the question is how good c920, the video above is made on mac almost a year ago, this is official response on the forums for mac from Jan 2012 "Unfortunately, at this time, there are no plans to provide Mac support for the C920", so, this video is most likely software encoded 720p at 15 fps, the bitrate of encoding is unknown as well.

As for the project, my wife already hates my quadcopter
It will be something to do in the business trips evenings. Hope the c920 hardware 1080p will be good enough to even start bothering.

 

[DashCamMan]

Someone was able to build a Raspberry PI and Logitech C920 dash cam here. They have a comparison video with the FineVu CR-500HD. Here is the video...the FineVu has a much wider video angle and better quality as well.

 

[CheckYourLights]

I hate to bump an old thread, but i just found this while looking for new YouTube list videos and thought it might be of interest to someone who wanted to try it out. Sorry if it has been posted already. The details page was updated in September, and the other Raspberry PI related thread was older then this one

A Raspberry Pi dashcam with two cameras and a GPS

 

[Peter Wilson]

I like that but I would be using a hd usb capture device and have wide screen camera on the exterior of the car or on the back of the rear view mirror.

I recon you could build for around the £300 for to cameras with a Pi and two capture devices. but you would have to setup time and date, GPS isnt a problem Bluetooth to a cheap one and write the location and speed to a file usable with g/maps.