mobile phone manufacturers have been making cameras for their phones with a lens no bigger than 6 or 7mm diameter with 12 megapixel photos and some with even 4K video capture (iPhone 6)
now if phone manufacturers can get the lens down in size to something like this
do we really need a lens getting on for half the diameter of a can of coke?
my idea would be to have a small central unit say not much bigger than a packet of cigarettes that contains the brains, then to this one could connect up to say 4 wires containing the feeds from the 4 lenses that would be not much bigger than the ones on an iPhone (or Samsung) mobile phone,
have a bit bigger housing for the circuitry so you have a lend in a 10mm - 20mm housing with the needed circuit board, so if one wished to have just a front camera then he/she would only buy one lens, on the other hand if the person wanted both front and back the would buy two, or if they wanted one lens for each side of the car then they could buy 4 lenses
even though the mini range of DVR’s are small, they are larger then need be. if all the processing power was in a central unit and the only thing poking out the windscreen was the taking lens and the small the circuit board controlling the lens, then I think we moving forward in designing specifically a DVR
for now most designs look like they are a digital camera that has been stuck on the windscreen, I’m sure in a few years time will be looking at the DVR’s we have now and it will be the same as comparing a top of the rang Nokia phone from 2002 to a smart phone we have today
the problem I see is, as the market might not big enough yet, the risk in designing from scratch is too great, some manufacture come in to this market but don’t innovate they just copy a design that was first used around 100 years ago, but those camera looked like they did as they had to accommodate a 35mm film going through it, these DVR’s can be any shape
I’m sure if the big car makers get on to this bandwagon, with their buying power they would / could incorporate these DVR’s just like radio speakers in cars today, they could ad one on each side of the car near the A pillar, one on or very near to the rearview mirror and one on the rear windscreen, we already see top range cars with a 6 or even 8 speaker ICE system so won’t take much to incorporate DVR’s in to their cars
lets move away from big 35mm look a likes
for anyone wanting to know about 35mm cameras would be good to google up Oskar Barnack the man who designed the 35mm camera as we know of, and Ernst Leitz, the company he worked for who built these 35mm cameras that became known a Leica,
as ever, all in my own opinion