Anyone installed a dashcam?

[sVWatt]

I've ordered this one for the Touareg; ITB500HD 2CH HD
It looks more like the the truth blackbox.

Yep sure is a true black box
Like the idea of rotating the heads for recording out the sides if needed

[Transporter]

Yes, the heat is the problem and I will definitely get some heat sinks.

Looks Ok but make sure you get the GPS as not a lot of good without the coordinates in an accident.

Rather expensive if you only need a front cam

Will be interested to see how it goes

Here is the ebay link; eBay Australia: Buy new & used fashion, electronics & home d

It's just a bit more than Blackvue400 that I've fitted to my daughter's Tiguan.

[ill0gitech]

Yep sure is a true black box

Then it should be bright orange right?
Let us know how you go

[Hillbilly]

My Blackvue DR500GWifi arrived today so will be installing it after lunch

Also got a Power magic unit as well

Cost $279 all up from here [Pittasoft] BlackVue WiFi DR500GW-HD 16GB Car Video Registrar DVR Drive Recorder Black-Box Wi-Fi GPS NEW - BlackVue - SHOP BY BRAND

He did it for the above price including FEDEX which got here in 6 days including the holiday weekend. Firmware is only in Korean ATM though

Will post a pic of it installed and a report on how it goes tomorrow

Also here is a link to A MAC version of the viewer

http://www.blackvue.com/en/contents/...ch=&searchstr=

[HPSOV]

Got my DR500GW-HD (wifi) from 'dream-seller' on eBay (dream-seller | eBay), $329 for the 32gb model, delivered in 4 days. Its the proper English version (English Firmware, Manual and Box).

Have only played round with it in the living room so far, going to do the car install tomorrow. Very impressed so far. Has anyone thought about a more permanent power install? I have a Mk6 Golf, would the 'console' immediately above the rear vision mirror have a power supply linked to the ignition that the camera could be permanently wired into? (such as the sunroof?)

[Hillbilly]

Got my DR500GW-HD (wifi) from 'dream-seller' on eBay (dream-seller | eBay), $329 for the 32gb model, delivered in 4 days. Its the proper English version (English Firmware, Manual and Box).

Have only played round with it in the living room so far, going to do the car install tomorrow. Very impressed so far. Has anyone thought about a more permanent power install? I have a Mk6 Golf, would the 'console' immediately above the rear vision mirror have a power supply linked to the ignition that the camera could be permanently wired into? (such as the sunroof?)

Go to Jaycar and buy one of the fuses with pigtails on them and fit it in the fusebox under the dash or wherever it is There is usually a couple of spares with power on only one side I just heatshrinked the other pin and has been ok for 18months.

You only need one fuse and some wire and a ciggy lighter socket All up about $15 worth and no cutting into car wiring needed.
Use an acc fuse with power only when ign on

Run the wire up the A pillar and across the front of the roof and you will never see it. See the pics of mine on earlier pages

I have used a power magic but not really necessary.

Pm Me if you want any help.

It also says not to cut the power lead so i havent but dont see why you couldnt.

Mine fits all nicely in the end of the dash.

Wouldnt mind a copy of the English software to play with as mine is Korean to see if I can make it understandable LOl

[Aurange_Tiguan]

I've had my BlackVue DR400 HD II installed with PowerMagic for a few months now. It's a great setup, but now that I've had it for a while I've noticed some aspects I'm not really happy about.

The BlackVue records in 1920 x 1080px with industry standard formats, etc, but one thing I never considered was the sensor or compression. The BlackVue records at 30fps, but the image quality is not the best. Compared with my GoPro Hero3 Black, or even White edition, the video sensor/compression of the BlackVue has an inferior image quality. To my dismay, the quality is so bad that most of the time I cannot read car plates of moving cars on the road; either driving in front of me or oncoming traffic. I'd have to be 2 or 3 metres away in good lighting conditions with a front-on aspect to read plate numbers.

There are plenty of incidents on my recent 6,000Km road trip where I wish I could identify the car plate of an idiot driver from the video, but although there may be enough pixels, the sensor quality or compression algorithm was inferior.

That said, the motion detection of the BlackVue was good. Even if I park next to a busy road, the camera doesn't seem to be activated by background movement. The maximum microSD card size is 32Gb, and at maximum resolution it equates to about 9hrs recording time before it loops over itself. It gets quite sensitive when driving at higher speeds and logs "Events" at the slightest bump in the road when going 100-110Km/h. Even adjusting X,Y,Z-axis sensitivity doesn't help much there. It's possibly because of windshield mount and the vibrations on the windshield at those speeds.

For now I'm thinking of augmenting the BlackVue with my GoPro camera to capture better image snapshots while the DVR takes in the context with GPS/speed logging.

[Transporter]

Thanks to the OP I jumped on the band wagon and bought drive cameras for all 6 our cars.

The first was Navman - the image quality seems to be very good from its 5MP sensor and it has everything like the Blackvue 400G except the GPS, but it has the 3" screen at the back and mini HDMI connector, also has the buttons, so you can take the picture or start manually recording protected file that won't be overrun in the loop recording. It lives in my T5 and my wife's Tiguan, however it's on a bit bigger side compared to Blackvue, so I will maybe get a smaller one for the Tig and use the Navman for the rear recording in my van. The size is something to consider here if it goes in a small car.

The second one, the Blackvue400G went in the RS Octavia and my daughters Tiguan - I'm yet to see the videos from them.

The 3rd one - iTronics Blackbox recorder with the 2 cameras and remote hidden box with SD card went in the Touareg, just finished installing it yesterday and will test drive it tomorrow. It has inbuilt low voltage battery disconnect and video out connector for the screen. It came with the external GPS antenaa.

Now, connecting the incident camera to the power in your car to make it work in the parking mode, it has to be ON when the key is out of the ignition and the car locked, so you need something to prevent excessive battery discharge. I use power magic that came with the Blackvue, but you can get Projecta Low Voltage Disconnect, there is 30A version that is well priced and you can adjust how low you want to get the voltage on the battery to drop and you can also connect other things to that little box, up to 30A load (there is also 50A version).

[Transporter]

The Power Magic Box installed in Golf MK6;



Works the magic.

[Hillbilly]

The Power Magic Box installed in Golf MK6;


Works the magic.

Nice and neat Wish there was that much room in the Passat.

Had to wrap mine in bubble wrap and fit it in above Fuse box so that it didnt rattle.

Also having two cameras I ran mine slightly differently.

The ACC wire goes to the front camera through a line fuse BEFORE connecting to the PM

The rear camera has the output from the PM.

The always on wire is run through a switch so I can turn it off when car is home in the garage and only turned on when driving or parking somewhere. Same as the Power Magic Pro but cost less to put switch in myself.

I have found that if you do a screen "CAPTURE" of the numberplate you want to see it shows up better than just pausing the video.
Or else using the full screen mode in the viewer

I usually take the SD card out and drop the whole "RECORD" folder onto a HDD and can play with it on there. I did that with our whole 3500mile trip in the USA

The magnify " feature " of the DR 500 is crap as it just magnifies a bit but I cant read the plates that it shows

Thanks to a member on here I have installed the English config files on the SD card and it now runs the English Blackvue Viewer but still the Korean voices which is not really a problem. Advantage is the settings pages are now in English as are the maps.
I dont however like the wide angle lens as much as the DR400. The WIFI works great and connects easily but is pretty hard to read on the small screen.