Information about video cameras in place of outside mirrors

[Christ]

Of course, if you could get by with the 3.5" screen, you could get two of the combo I posted a few pages back for nearly the same price... two cameras, two screens.

[thatguitarguy]

3.5 is just a little bigger than the screen on my camera, and my eyes are getting old, and I don't know if they'd be happy with trying to refocus back and forth from the road to the monitor.

What I'd really like is some virtual reality driving goggles with camera views from all around the vehicle with a slight turn of your head.

The last thing you get to see is a clear crisp image of that idiot in an H2 on a cell phone slamming into you.

[Christ]

When I started riding motorcycles, I was looking into putting a camera into a helmet with a visor that had the camera image low in the visor. The technology is prohibitively expensive.

[Eddles]

Originally Posted by thatguitarguy

10.2" Rearview mirror monitor + Water Proof Camera + TS

All in one kit. I think this uses the same camera that Neil has, but has a wider monitor that clips on the factory mirror, and is "presumably" reflective enough to double as a mirror when it is off.<snip>

Oooh that's nice! Shame that they charge $45 to post overseas, and I run the risk of incurring custom charges (15% plus $13 admin fee).

Screen resolution doesn't seem terribly high at 800x240.

Anyone know what Neil's screens resolution are?

[Christ]

800x240 is because of the wide screen. It's a 10.2" diagonally, so it's probably about 3" tall and nearly 9" wide.

[thatguitarguy]

Screen resolution is a concern, but I was figuring 240 lines in 110mm is pretty fine. Not hi-res, but good enough to see that f'n Hummer.

[Eddles]

What I meant is that my mobile phone screen is 240x320 and the screen's roughly 1.2 inches (30mm) x 1.5 inches (41mm) - so the 10.2" monitor's dpi would be a lot lower.

[Eddles]

Guys,

Is it worth the extra cost for a CCD rear view camera, or just about any CMOS camera will be good enough? Remember we all are talking about replacing rear view mirrors here, I want to make sure the replacement will be up to the job.

[thatguitarguy]

I went back to Neil's post:

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Hiya,

I just clicked the "buy" button on two each of these:

REAR VIEW CAMERA NIGHT VISION WATERPROOF NEW FOR CARS

6 inch standalone headrest car lcd tft monitor screen

The cost is ~$156 shipped; pretty reasonable really!

The small mirror may get moved to the driver's side (to meet the the letter of the law)...so far I have liked how things have worked with it on the passenger side.

Later in the thread he has pictures of his setup in action. You might PM him and he might be able to help you out with his opinion from first hand experience.

[NeilBlanchard]

I'd say my screens are ~640x480. The screens are a good size, and yes you can see enough to see vehicles. The relative distances of how far away things are is a challenge, and something you have to adjust to. They work very well in situations when optical mirrors have a harder time: low light and in the rain. They work less well when optical mirrors are good: bright sunshine.

Video mirrors have advantages over optical mirrors:

They do not need to be adjusted for different drivers
They do not blind you with reflected headlights
In the rain, optical mirrors make you look through 2 layers of water drops and/or fog -- whereas on a video camera, only a drop right in the middle of the lens is an issue; and once you clear this, it stays clear when you are moving.
Rooster tails/mist clouds from other vehicles tires are not an issue -- the cameras may lose them due to lower resolution?
They work very well at dusk and near dark, as they are able to use infrared light (they have IR LED's that light up stuff withing 10-15' or so)
Of course, the whole reason that we want to use them is they have much less aero drag.

They have disadvantages, some of which could be minimized with technical improvements:

They are overwhelmed by bright sunshine -- could be helped with more "F-stops" and also finer adjustment steps
My screens get dimmer as they heat up; eventually they will go black if they get too hot -- more efficient backlights would go a long way to fixing this
They only work when the car is turned on, so can't help you open your door on a busy street
The backlight leaks out in darkness, and this causes a reflection on the window glass -- I positioned mine to avoid seeing this, and dynamic backlighting and better LCD screens would also help a lot
Perspective is distorted, and vehicles look much farther away than they really are -- this could be largely fixed with purpose made lenses for the left and right hand sides of the car