Swivel base with mute for police interaction

freedom hawk

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I have looked but can't find what I need. I need a dash cam that can record the road but easily swivel towards the windows to film any potential police interaction. I also need the mute button to be easily accessible. I would prefer the dash cam to stay on mute pretty much all the time except when I am pulled over. I want to be able to quickly unmute the camera and point it towards the window without trying to scroll through menu settings if pulled over. Anybody make something like that? I am honestly surprised that they all don't do that since that seems like a major reason you would install a dash camera.
 
mic on off while recording by pressing a button is a feature of most cameras, quite a few have mounts that will allow you to swivel the camera, whether you can mount a camera in a suitable position for either situation will depend a lot on the vehicle type as well as the design of the camera
 
Mobius does turn easily but the audio isn't great. Here in SC where I live audio recording is two-party consent so mine stays off as you're not going to get that consent. and having illegal audio attached to the video footage could render the video inadmissable as evidence. If I feel a need to record audio there are plenty of cheap small digital recorders out there to catch it separately and discretely :D And then my video remains legal as evidence ;)

Phil
 
Pretty much all dashcams have mute button.
Quite a few cameras can swivel, specially the ones with suction cup mount and a ball head joint.
I try to put the mount rotation in my unboxing videos.
 
I would prefer a low mounted camera if i had the "evil" cop problem, but cops here are as mellow as the 5.5 million Danes they are supposed to keep watch over.
I am constantly trying my best to get pulled over, and this year so far i have set a new record with 2 pull overs.
This might be hard to beat as there arnt many cops in my little home town, there should have been more but the politicians keep finding other things for them to do, and most of that is overtime.
Also the annual number of cops leaving the job as they feel bad about turning people that need help down all the time, so the number of droop outs have at least doubled since 2010.

And i fully relate to them, it is no "fun" going to work every day and feel you have done nothing when you get home, i myself worked 5 years in a public company ( danish railways ) and it was so incompetent run that the last day i left i swore to never work in such a job again.
 
Mobius does turn easily but the audio isn't great.
Phil

Surprised to hear you say that as I always obtain excellent audio from all my Mobius cams. I even use one as a pocket audio recorder occasionally and it can clearly capture every sound in the room. Perhaps something is wrong with yours?

If I needed a camera to record video and audio of a police stop I would consider mounting an auxillary Mobius on the right side A pillar permanently aimed at the driver's side window. If pulled over by law enforcement I would plug the camera in or even wire in a switch so that I could quickly turn it on before the officer approaches my vehicle. Then again, it could be left on all the time and simply be an extra camera that can capture a certain amount of action on the left side of the vehicle. The problem with simply swiveling a camera mounted high on the windshield towards the driver's side window is that it can easily miss capturing an officer's badge number and certainly his face. A camera mounted low on the right side A pillar or perhaps on the dashboard itself can capture these important details. At least where I live, the concept of two party consent goes out the window if you are outside in a public environment as there is no "expectation of privacy".
 
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Surprised to hear you say that as I always obtain excellent audio from all my Mobius cams. I even use one as a pocket audio recorder occasionally and it can clearly capture every sound in the room. Perhaps something is wrong with yours?

If I needed a camera to record video and audio of a police stop I would consider mounting an auxillary Mobius on the right side A pillar permanently aimed at the driver's side window. If pulled over by law enforcement I would plug the camera in or even wire in a switch so that I could quickly turn it on before the officer approaches my vehicle. Then again, it could be left on all the time and simply be an extra camera that can capture a certain amount of action on the left side of the vehicle. The problem with simply swiveling a camera mounted high on the windshield towards the driver's side window is that it can easily miss capturing an officer's badge number and and certainly his face. A camera mounted low on the right side A pillar or perhaps on the dashboard itself can capture these important details. At least where I live, the concept of two party consent goes out the window if you are outside in a public environment as there is no "expectation of privacy".



Exactly. Not much of an expectation of privacy on the side of the highway.
 
Mobius does turn easily but the audio isn't great. Here in SC where I live audio recording is two-party consent so mine stays off as you're not going to get that consent. and having illegal audio attached to the video footage could render the video inadmissable as evidence. If I feel a need to record audio there are plenty of cheap small digital recorders out there to catch it separately and discretely :D And then my video remains legal as evidence ;)

Phil



What illegal audio? There can be no expectation of privacy on the side of the highway. Additionally, how can the police record me with a body cam that they expect to use in court and then then turn around and say they had no idea they were being recorded and thought they had an expectation of privacy?
 
Exactly. Not much of an expectation of privacy on the side of the highway.


Another thought is, it would be nice to have that one camera (and same video clip) facing forward that recorded your driving and then that same camera is turned to the window and audio flipped on to record the interaction. The reason being, it would make getting the entire video into evidence much easier. The other side can't argue that the video of the good driving was on a different trip, etc.
 
mic on off while recording by pressing a button is a feature of most cameras, quite a few have mounts that will allow you to swivel the camera, whether you can mount a camera in a suitable position for either situation will depend a lot on the vehicle type as well as the design of the camera


Such as?
 

most cameras that hang from a suction mount bracket can swivel, even some of the 3M type mounts that have the same type hang style bracket will allow you to swivel, just about any camera with a screen has a mute function by pressing a button, the screenless ones are generally a bit more cumbersome in that respect as they usually need an app to access and change the audio setting, there may be some exceptions to that but they generally aren't the type of camera you can swivel anyway
 
What illegal audio? There can be no expectation of privacy on the side of the highway. Additionally, how can the police record me with a body cam that they expect to use in court and then then turn around and say they had no idea they were being recorded and thought they had an expectation of privacy?

While we may think alike on some things when it comes to the law you need to know exactly what is what :cool:

Audio recording lies in the domain of the States while video recording lies in the Federal Domain. On video, Glik v Cunnife was the 'landmark' case regarding taping public officials (!st Appeals Court 2012) but now another district (8th I think) has recently come to an opposite conclusion so it is likely we will see a Supreme Court case in the future. Other than that one District you should be safe videotaping Police in public locations as long as you're not interfering with their official functions. There are some restrictions on this especially while on Government controlled property. There are several threads here on the subject ;)

State restrictions on audio recording usually fall under 'wiretapping' statutes. There are generally 2 types of restrictions. One is "one party consent" or "no consent", which means that you do not need anyone else's permission to record them. The second is "two party consent" where persons being recorded must be made aware of that. And there are variations on this. Here in S.C. it's 2 party direct consent. You must inform whoever is being recorded that it is being done at the first reasonably possible moment, and if any person you are recording denies their consent you must end your audio recording immediately. Consent must be directly given here; only stores and other places which the public can freely access are permitted to use signs letting them know they are being recorded (which is called "implied consent"). And States are allowed to transfer the right of regulation to their Counties. Cities, and Towns if they so desire further confusing the matter :rolleyes:

In many places (including S.C.) violation of audio recording laws is a Felony offense :eek: And oftentimes when any part of an article of evidence is deemed illegal, that entire article might not be allowed as evidence so 'muting' the audio on a combined A/V recording may not be enough to allow the video to still be used as evidence :(

See what I mean? There's a lot to know here- common sense and logic does not apply in the Law or in Courtrooms :mad: You need to look into what the audio recording Laws are where you will be recording then follow them :) I chose my approach of no integrated audio recording because that is legal everywhere, and I'll let my Lawyer deal with what may or may not have been audio-taped on a separate unseen device which I won't admit to having intentionally used :whistle:

Phil
 
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