Another new car gadget

Have been using this "Rear View Mirror DVR" product now for about a month. I think it beats the el-cheapo "Drive Recorder" which I bought earlier this year.

Here are some general comments:

Pros:
- Overall package is quite nice
- Build quality is not too bad
- Wide angled adjustable camera
- Auto recording start upon ignition on
- Capture until last second upon ignition off
- Loops recorded video in first-in-first-out fashion (1GB can store approx. 100 minutes of video)
- The recorded files can be saved in 1 min, 3 min, 5 min or 10 min blocks
- There is also a feature where you can "lock" files to prevent them from being deleted / overwritten
- This thing can support 2 cameras. You can put a second camera for your car interior, or facing the rear. When there is power to this camera, the DVR and LCD will take this as the input. So by hooking up the reverse camera to the reverse lamp (for power), you can have a reverse camera view on your rear view mirror with DVR recording! You can do the same thing with the interior camera by hooking it up to the interior cabin lights (for power). That way, the interior is recorded everytime any of the car doors are open (great for taxi driver safety)!
- The unit captures audio too, not sure if this is a pro or con cos your conversation in the car will also be captured! (Good thing is that you can turn this feature off)

Cons:
- Mirror is quite big and bulky so may have a problem for those who like to use the sunshade, or those with small original mirrors which hang high
- Resolution too low (320x240), would have liked at least 640x480
- Prompts you to format SD card every 7 days, suspect it is to clean up any bad files that could have been created during ignition off
- There is date/time on the unit but somehow it cannot be captured in the video. It is used only for timestamping the recorded files
- The fast forward and rewind functions are buggy
- Price is not cheap

Although the video is not as hi-def as I would have liked, I think it would still come in handy as evidence should any accident occur through no fault of yours.

Anyway, have attached some interesting videos captured by the unit on YouTube. The quality is slightly better in the original file than what can be seen online. As you can see, both videos are of taxi drivers ...

1) Idiotic taxi who cuts into my lane, slows down, and then recklessly swerves into filter lane to avoid red light!!




2) Another taxi which abruptly cuts queue inside yellow box ...