2.5-inch HD Car LED IR Vehicle DVR Road Dash Video Camera Recorder Traffic Dashboard Camcorder - LC

• 2.5 inch TFT LCD: 270° whirl, Recording resolution:1280x960 / 720x480 / 640x480 pixels
• 120 deg View Angle Day Night Video Camera with 6 IR Leds
• Microphone: can record sound
• Interface: USB2.0
• Support SD/MMC Card: up to 32GB (not included)

For less than $25.00 it does a nice job. I don't need a camera that costs so much that I fear that it will be stolen or broken. Has a semi wide fish-eye lens. I'm not looking for wedding photo quality, come on its only 25 bucks. Comes with car charger and suction cup mount, not mentioned in the description. Also comes with a cellphone type rechargeable battery. Plugged into the charger, I get over 9 hours of video (with audio) on a 16GB card. VGA quality is 640x480, so stay with that mode, because the other larger sizes that it records (D1, and SVGA) are actually not different at all. The SVGA 1280x720 is the same as the VGA and D1 680x480, but with thick black edges on the sides, video is not sharper. You may want to buy a different smaller sized window mount that has a "ball hinge". The mount that comes with it is somewhat large, but still fine to use. The charger wire is long enough to tuck under window trim and dashboard trim and reach the car's power socket. Not too bad at night time, so see the attached video sample that I made. The camera comes with infrared lights, but I see no use for them unless you are video recording your hood ornament, or if you use this device as a home security monitor inside of your house. Not a bad idea, just buy one of those 120volt wall adapters to plug your charger into, then attach the camera to a window or wall. If you are not sure you need a DashCam, but still want to give it a try before you go all out and buy a 200 dollar HD broadcast quality one, then this one is just for you. I like the home security idea myself.

Buy 2.5-inch HD Car LED IR Vehicle DVR Road Dash Video Camera Recorder Traffic Dashboard Camcorder - LC Now

I am a truck driver and recently a man accused me of running over his dog,I did not however it did convince me of trying a dash cam.I bought this one because of price to try as a trial.To my surprise it does a lot more than I imagined.I stuck it on my windshield up in the high middle and plugged it in to the cig lighter.2 weeks went by and a window tinting car cut me off in traffic.If you go to my youtube you can see how awesome this cam is....PLUS the vid on youtube is my phone recording off my laptop...I'm not smart enough and have not the software to edit videos.The programming is a little funky on the cam,like setting the time and date,but if you play with it for awhile you will figure it out.The micro speaker play back is scratchy until you play back on your computer and as you can hear it is very adequate.I put a 2 g mem. card in and carry a spare now in case I need to save something...it's worth it! This cam far and above does what I need.I already have saved vids of 2 more close calls,just in case.Go to youtube and look me up unitruth ,the vid is "cut off by window tinting car 40 mph evansville IN." see for yourself.The audio is crappy on the cam but once plugged in or memory card inserted in laptop you can hear the audio great!

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Excellent place to start with a dashboard (or maybe home security) video camera and DVR. Cheap and reasonably good. Just to be clear, the 270 degrees refers to turning the camera around by hand in the mount; the field of view is 120 degrees. The instructions were so bad that I have regenerated them below.

UPDATE: In response to readers, I'm using the default settings, And am getting about 80 1-minute videos with audio, about 50MB each and they are automatically overwriting the oldest on a 4GB chip. I have not yet filled a 32GB chip (24 hrs)!

Dowson Dashboard Video/DVR Operating Instructions

These instructions are based on the actual menu settings of a device delivered in mid-February, 2013. The included instructions did not match.

Switching Modes

1) Press ON/OFF: (on the back of the DVR this is the international O+I superposed).

2) Default mode is Video Recording; press "OK" (which is a round spot on the back of the DVR which lights up) to begin recording. Press it again to stop recording and save file.

3) Press MODE to switch successively between: Video recording (red cam icon), Audio Recording (blue A), Playback (left arrow icon), in circular fashion.

4) Press to turn OFF

Function Keys

ON/OFF

OKconfirm mode selected

Keys below screen, in left to right order:

MENU choose a menu for settings, detailed below, and also leave a menu

DOWN go down a menu, or 4/3/2/1 x digital zoom while recording

UP go up a menu, or 1/2/3/4 x digital zoom while recording

MODE mode switching video record / audio record / playback

Menu Settings

Video / System Settings

Press ON, press OK, press MENU, press OK, then UP or Down as needed

Video................Output Settings

1. Size..............640x480, 720x980, 1280x720, 1280x960

2. EV................+1/3, +0.0, -1/3, -2/3, -1.0

3. White Bal.........Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent

4. Time Stamp........Off, Date Only, Date & Time

5. Video Time........3, 4, 5, 10, 15 minutes (per file)

6. Motion Det........Off, On (when On saves 2 min files during motion)

7. Record............Off, On

8. Night Mode........Off, On

After each selection press OK to confirm, and press MENU to leave one menu item for another and then again to exit

Video with Audio Settings

Press ON, press OK, press Mode, press MENU, press OK, then UP or Down as needed

Capture.................Setup

1. Size:................12, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1.3 M, or 640x480 (0.3 M)

2. Quality..............Fine / Standard / Economy

3. Scene Mode...........Auto, Sport, Night

4. EV...................+1/3, +0.0, -1/3, -2/3, -1.0 (Exposure luminance adjustment)

5. White Bal............Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent

6. ISO..................Auto, 100, 200

7. Color................Standard, Vivid, Sepia, Monochrome

8. Saturation...........High, Normal, Low

9. Sharpness............Hard, Normal, Soft

10. Time Stamp..........Off, Date Only, Date & Time

11. Burst...............On, Off

After each selection press OK to confirm, and press MENU to leave one menu item for another and then again to exit

Playback Settings

Press ON, press OK, press Mode, press Mode again, press MENU, press OK, then UP or Down as needed

Play....................Setup

1. Delete...............Single, All, Select (came up as Execute)

2. Volume...............1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Press MENU again to get the following:

1. Format...............Cancel, Execute (came up Next Menu)

2. Beep.................On, Off

3. Language.............English, Francais, Deutsch, Italiano, Espanol, +6 others

4. Auto Off.............1 min, 3 min, 5 min, Off

5. Sys Reset............Cancel, Reset (came up Next Menu)

6. Light Freq...........60 Hz, 50 Hz

7. TV Output............NTSC, PAL

8. Data Input...........Off, Set

9. USB..................PC Cam, Disk Drive

10. Screen Set..........Always On, 1 min, 3 min

After each selection press OK to confirm, and press MENU to leave one menu item for another and then again to exit

The rest of the operating instructions provided make some sense, except Loop and Slideshow commands, which may be on another hidden menu. If I find them, I will update.

Want 2.5-inch HD Car LED IR Vehicle DVR Road Dash Video Camera Recorder Traffic Dashboard Camcorder - LC Discount?

For starters you're going to need one of these: Transcend 16 GB SDHC Class 10 Flash Memory Card TS16GSDHC10E You can get the 32 GB size as well but I know the 16 GB one works.

I uploaded a somewhat lengthy video from the unit with a fairly detailed review. Please note I had to shrink the file so it would fit under amazon's 100MB limit. The actual file is almost 500MB for 5 minutes and is 640x480. But what I uploaded should give a decent idea of the video quality. For this item please remember price matters. It is a cheap piece of hardware and it shows. I mention in my video review that I could not even use the power adaptor that came with the DVR because it caused interference on my FM radio. I had to use the adaptor that I had from my Garmin Nuvi 350. But, that worked so I'm less irritated than i would otherwise be.

Despite the problems I gave it 5 stars because of how cheap it is. Frankly I wish they'd double the price and up the build quality. But if you just want to play with something like this I think this is a good way to start.

If you're looking for an inexpensive camera that works good, try this out. I haven't had one problem with this working incorrectly.

Issues I have with it (but for the price, is just fine...):

Picture isn't the greatest. It isn't real clear. If you're using this to read road signs or license plates, forget it. If you're using it to show that there are in fact other cars or large objects, it is just fine.

I've noticed that switching into the 720p mode, it does jump a little bit. It isn't bad though, just slightly noticeable.

The infrared for nighttime use isn't the greatest either. It shows picture great to the front of the hood and then it loses all IR because of the headlights.

It does feel a little cheap, but again, for the price, not bad.

I have used this for a couple of weeks now. If you'd like to watch a few videos of me responding to calls (I'm a volunteer firefighter), go here:

The oldest videos with me responding, are w/out 720p and the newer ones have 720p. I don't notice a huge difference, just the slight jumping of the picture...

Overall, not a bad product for the price.