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In-Car audio/video broadcast system

Yank

May 18, 2012
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Hello all.
Long story as short as possible:

I live in a region that suffers from consistent (and fairly grave) police abuse.
I won't get into the specifics but safe to say, this isn't the sort of thing that would be tolerated anywhere other than a 3rd World dictatorship. Our systems of recourse for this kind of thing are absurd. They demand that police officers be investigated by other police officers, who naturally have no integrity in such matters. The court systems trust anything a police officer says by default, meaning that abusive officers know they can lie abut their actions and the courts will believe them, not you.

From time to time, though, as we all know, technology has broken through this charade of accountability and left officers unable to deny their abuses.

I wish to develop an in-car camera system that has the following capabilities.

1) Full (and clear) video and audio, from both in the car and outside.

2) Footswitch activated. When the footswitch is depressed, all audio and video starts recording.

3) The hardware needs to be covert. I have to be able to mount it in such a way that it's essentially undetectable via casual looking. I'm not afraid to take a cars interior apart and drill holes, if need be.

4) This seems to be the hard part- I'd like it to broadcast the streaming video wirelessly, via some sort of 4g connection, to an off-site server. In the event the recording is discovered (or if I find myself in a situation where I have to reveal its presence to get them to stop beating me- seriously, the situation around here is that bad), I cannot have the recording vulnerable to their destroying it.

4a) If (4) is totally impractical, I need to make the receiving system small enough that I can store it in an extremely secure, welded box that won't relent to a baton or a hammer.

I'm pretty smart with being able to follow directions, have no trouble thinking outside the box but I don't have any experience in engineering electronics systems, so I don't know what protocols or parts are available to me.

Any ideas appreciated. I'm starting from Ground 0 on this, but wish to have a working prototype in a month.
 

sky_123

May 20, 2012
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May 20, 2012
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Hi,
I have a few suggestions. Firstly, it is not going to be cheap. Secondly, do you absolutely need to stream the video, or can you just record it and retrieve it later? Because even if you stream it, you still need to record. You can save effort by just recording in the car. There are some nice small recorders, check here: http://factory.dhgate.com/china/?uid=42932900&cid=42 and they will run from a car battery. If you use the SD card models, then you do need very large capacity SD cards. The hard disk model is usable too - I'd probably use an SSD in there rather than a physical disk.
They will record up to 4 cameras, so you'll need at least a couple of recorders. They record sound too, on at least a couple of channels. They will record for 24 hours or longer, so no need to stop/start the recordings.
For cameras, again they are not cheap, but you'll need to obtain some small analog cameras. For the audio, you can use any small electret mics, and a simple single transistor circuit to amplify, or better still use AGC mic chips.
In terms of power, if you're expecting to run this for a number of hours or overnight, you'll probably need to get another car battery and dedicate it to running this.
 
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jackorocko

Apr 4, 2010
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Just a thought though. If the cops do search your vehicle and they think you are a suspect character, don't you think they will question the foot switch? I mean in this day and age, a locked metal box and foot switch, no that doesn't look odd...

Have you thought about driving around and following them with a video camera? There is nothing illegal about that, it is, after all a public street.
 
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CocaCola

Apr 7, 2012
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I say don't bother with the broadcast as it over complicates the entire system, just be clever instead... Get two small DVR units (they are very reasonable now from Asia) hide the 'real' one that is doing the recording behind the glove box or tucked behind the dash out of sight and out of mind... If you put it into a black project box and mount it clean it will likely blend right into the surroundings just like it's OEM equipment... Second put a dummy or even a real parallel recording unit in more plain or even obvious sight inside say the glove box or just hanging under the dash... If and when you get rolled if you must disclose and fear them taking the SD card just point them towards the dummy unit they are content all the while the 'real' unit keeps rolling and is safe... And if they are stupid enough to steal the card you now have video of them doing that and everything else that happens from that point not just a dropped signal...

Also if you must 'switch' it best to pass on the foot switch and better to make it blend in for example an aftermarket fog light switch that is cleanly installed or take advantage of one of the many vacant switch locations on many new cars if you don't get all the goodies... Remember sometime the best hiding place is in clear site...

BTW being form the Chicagoland burbs myself care to disclose the locality that is the issue?
 
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CocaCola

Apr 7, 2012
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Have you thought about driving around and following them with a video camera? There is nothing illegal about that, it is, after all a public street.

You are correct to a point, nothing illegal NOW (as of last week) about filming police in Illinois but that doesn't mean the cops care and didn't push the issue still...

For a primer...

For the followup... http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...dropping-case-eavesdropping-law-separate-case

And more details... http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...peals-court-illinois-eavesdropping-law-ruling

BTW this is only as of last week! This is not old news but just yesterday news!

I was never one to get into political debate but the City of Chicago and the minion suburbs under it's influence (and by default the State of Illinois due to Chicago's vast population vs the rest of the State) are simply out of control in many respects working as a fine tuned corrupt entity above the law...
 

sky_123

May 20, 2012
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May 20, 2012
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By the way, double-check if you are purchasing any DVR, how long it can record for, and how you can turn it on - the link I posted I have personally tried, and they can record a complete day, depending on your needs. I also experimented with things like JVC Picsio cams, but they cannot record for 24 hours, and their touch-screen made it hard to automate.
Also, as a backup, worth having a separate audio recorder device too. Not as good as having video too, but still very good. I've always been planning to develop some SD card recorder that could record a few audio channels in very high quality constantly (and overwrite after a day or so) but never quite got round to it... there must be some existing audio recorders that are available I suppose. There is a very compact video recorder called FlashBack by Ovation, but it is crazily expensive ($1500). So the slightly larger models from Asia are definitely preferable, they are much more cost-effective and perform just as well I bet.
 
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