Smart Witness Vehicle Journey Recorder

Wannabyourhero · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 12, 2005 Posts: 51

[Split from Roadhawk Thread]
In the end I bought a Smart Witness Vehicle Journey Recorder from ebuyer, went for the non gps version at £154, if I have an accident I think I'll know where it was and whilst I am observant of speed limits I won't pretend I don't sometimes do 32 or 33 in a 30 limit and I wouldn't want that to become a contributory negligence factor.

The camera is very small, barrel shaped and fixed behind rear view mirror it really does disappear from view. In my C4 it was easy to push the cable into the roof lining and panels so it is all hidden. The recommended fixing is the supplied sticky pad as you'd use for a rear view mirror, the mount is fixed to that so it's suggested if you want to remove you'd detach the camera from the mount. I thought that would be very fiddly so opted for sticky velro which works fine, camera and mount can be pulled off or stuck back in a second.

I've posted a short clip of the output on you tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYDMXL-D__Q&feature=channel
feel free to watch my holiday videos while you're there.

The camera has two modes, event, where it records just when something occurs like a bump - and normal where it records all the time, overwriting earlier files. This is where I confess to some disappointment, in normal mode the camera only records at 15fps rather than the 30 in event mode.

Also after about 40 minutes it starts to overwrite the earlier files despite there being plenty of space on the SD card. I think it must be protecting empty space in case you switch to event mode (though you need a pc to do that). I think the Roadhawk has a feature where at press of button the current capture is saved to a protected space on the card that won't be overwritten, something missing on smart witness.

The quality at night isn't bad, on the lit parts of the M25 there is plenty of light and even on unlit stretches the headlights of other cars provide quite a degree of illumination. Town centres are fine, on unlit roads you can still see what is happening. If anyone asks I'll do a night time youtube.

The files are all date and time stamped so it is easy to find any time you're interested in - you can also search for events but these seem to be mostly potholes. If you get the gps version the software is a lot more informative and has lots more things to play with. You can select any time range to export to avi which then plays in a media player.

Whilst it does what I want and I really like the size and shape I am slightly disappointed with the frame rate and the storage. Some of the Roadhawk files I've seen seem to return a better quality though they don't have the wide angle view.

Darren · Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 6:23 pm Post subject:

A small correction here. Whilst I can't find out what the angle of view is, the Roadhawk RH-1 does indeed have a wide angle view.
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Darren Griffin

Pocketgps · Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:21 pm Post subject:

Is there a user manual for the Smart Witness that can be downloaded.

The only downloads at thier own web site seem to be just product sheets and not actual manuals.

Pocketgps · Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 7:21 pm Post subject:

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