Today, I met up with Kenney from ViGiDrive.com to talk about their latest product, MT-DR9, a Vehicle Video Recorder (VVR). MT-DR9 is a successor of MT-12. If you notice, there are many types of recorder that can be installed on vehicle. For ViGi, Kenney explained that their unit will be easy to install and in fact it is almost plug and play after taking out from the packaging.
The MT-DR9 comes with a 1.5-inch screen that you can review your clips and basically, setup the unit. It has a Sharp 1/3 CCD that is supposed to be of capturing superior video quality.
MT-DR9 has a viewing angle of 110 degrees (as opposed to MT-12‘s 90 degrees) and can support SDHC card up to 32 GB. The lens is make of glass (not plastic!) and it can be rotated 360 degrees. The recording is in segment of 2 minutes and it will auto overwrite the old files once it reached the card capacity. BTW, it records in 640 x480 VGA with selection of 5, 16, 20, 25 fps in MP4 format.
The top view.
To install MT-DR9, you will need to use the 3M sticker tape provided and stick it to the windscreen. It has Velcro on it so that you can easily remove the unit.
The controls are directly above the LCD screen.
The unit comes with 4 meters of cable that you can connect to the vehicle power socket (12v).You can easily unplug the unit from the cable.
If you wish to use it as a surveillance camera for your vehicle, you will need to get their authorized workshop to route the cable and perform some modification. According to Kenney, the cost should be less than S$100 but it depends on your car model and etc.
What it does is that it will tap the power from the vehicle and continuously run the camera. I have checked on the impact of the battery consumption if this camera was to left to run. It seems that as the consumption is low, it can be turned on for a few days (don’t quote me as I have not tested). I also understand that a switch will be installed so that you can kill the camera easily.
The MT-DR9 is package as below and comes with a 4GB SDHC (Class 6) Card (Ultra High Speed SD card).
The 4GB SDHC Card.
Here is the video of the unboxing (actually it is just a show of the unit and accessories).
And here is a walkthrough of the unit and its menu.
I have just gotten my review set. I will be testing it and update with footage. Stay tuned. In the mean while, you can check out ViGi website. The retail price of this unit is S$439. However, it is retailing at promotional price of S$399 currently. You can also check out the reseller on the website.
http://www.ViGiDrive.com
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