Well first of all, you will need a 3G GPS, Wifi DVR box that connects to the camera so it can send the live feed video back to any device once the network is setup. Most CCTV cameras have this feature so this isn't a issue. This DVR box can go in the boot. As I have mentioned this is my project and most of the features I have mentioned do exist and to the extreme might need a slight mod but that wont be to hard hopefully. This project is still young and full of different ideas. The camera will only record something when there is an activity going on, but will remain in standby mode till motion is detected, than it will automatically start recording ( No different to sleep mode) Some motion detection cameras on the market already have this feature. I have the Tenvis TH692 and the ZMODO ZP-IBI13-W. At the moment I am buying quite a few cameras and testing them out. The night mode on both of these are amazing, I will upload some pics in a mo. there not Dome cameras but you can get small domes with IP with the same specs for only about £100
I am confident with this project, in my day to day job I repair phones, laptops etc so this isn't a hard project for me, its just a challenging one that I need to plan out more
I definitely think you will run into a lot of issues, but that just makes the project even more impressive if you can pull it off.
These are a few that I think you will encounter:
-Camera position - Assuming you are mounting the camera to the inside roof, roughly in the middle, it's not going to capture a lot, if you are lucky you may catch some feet and legs. It's too high up and too far away from the windows. Your video frame is going to be so restrictive since a wide angle lens would just capture the inside of your car. You would need to use a much smaller angle lens to get a full resolution picture (don't want to waste valuable pixels on car interior), but it would be far too "zoomed in".
-Night quality - The IR lights will reflect off the window and cause huge glare, without the IR lights the night quality will be poor depending on the ambient light.
-Detecting motion - You are wanting to detect 360 degree motion and then rotate the camera, which is no easy task. Yes I know you can get controllable CCTV cameras, and yes you can use Arduino, Raspberry Pi etc to run code to control everything, but that doesn't make it much easier. Still intrigued to know what you intend to use to detect motion, since most CCTV cameras use the live video feed for this.
-Missing the action - By the time you have detected motion, and the camera has spun 180 degrees, you will have missed a lot, especially with the view from the camera. The CCTV camera I have always has a few seconds of buffer, so the actual recorded footage includes a few seconds prior to motion being detected. Works great since the camera position is fixed, doesn't work if your camera has to spin round to start recording.
-Power consumption - This is going to be high, no way you can run it off the main car battery, it will definitely require an additional supply. I don't know how low you can get it, but I would guess at least 5W, probably closer to 10W with everything in "sleep" mode. When recording etc that could be 25W or more.
Not trying to put you off the project, since I do think it is interesting. Just trying to point out some of the possible problems before you start so you can plan how to overcome them.
I do wonder if perhaps there is a simpler solution, such as just using two cameras - one facing out the front, and one out the rear.
What is it exactly you are trying to achieve with this project? Perhaps you could give an example scenario?
