In-car video system using flash memory as a recording medium
First Claim
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1. An in-car video system, comprising:
- a video camera fixably mounted to a vehicle for capturing an image of an event and producing a corresponding video stream;
a digital video recorder fixably mounted to the vehicle, the digital video recorder having a receiving area being adapted to operably couple a flash memory card to the digital video recorder so that the flash memory functions as a digital video storage medium; and
a controller coupled to the video recorder to control writing of data that is representative of the video stream to a flash memory to thereby generate a stored video record of the event.
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Abstract
An inventive system and method is provided by an in-car video system that uses a type of electrically erasable programmable read-only memory known as flash memory to store video of an incident or event. In an illustrative embodiment of the invention, a digital video recorder and video camera are fixably mounted in a vehicle such as a police cruiser. An event of interest is captured by a camera and the resulting video stream is converted into a form that writable to a flash memory. The video recorder writes the video to flash memory to thereby store a record of the event on the flash memory as a storage medium.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. An in-car video system, comprising:
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a video camera fixably mounted to a vehicle for capturing an image of an event and producing a corresponding video stream;
a digital video recorder fixably mounted to the vehicle, the digital video recorder having a receiving area being adapted to operably couple a flash memory card to the digital video recorder so that the flash memory functions as a digital video storage medium; and
a controller coupled to the video recorder to control writing of data that is representative of the video stream to a flash memory to thereby generate a stored video record of the event. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method of creating a video recording of an event, the method comprising the steps of:
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providing a digital video recorder and video camera that are fixably mounted in a vehicle;
capturing video of the event using the car-mounted camera;
transmitting the video to the digital video recorder;
converting the video to a form that is writable to a flash memory, the flash memory being operably coupled to the digital video recorder; and
writing the converted video to the flash memory using the digital video recorder to thereby store a video record of the event on the flash memory. - View Dependent Claims (10)
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11. The method of claim 26 further including a step of providing a plurality of flash memory cards for storage within the vehicle so that when a first flash memory card in the plurality of flash memory cards is filled to capacity, a second flash memory card in the plurality of flash memory cards may be used to replace the first flash memory card.
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12. In a vehicle-mounted video system including a car-mounted camera, a method of operating a digital video recorder, the method comprising the steps of:
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receiving a flash memory card in a receiving area of the digital video recorder, the receiving area being adapted to operably couple the flash memory card to the digital video recorder so that the flash memory functions as a digital video storage medium;
receiving a video stream of an event captured by the camera;
converting the video stream to a form that is writable to the flash memory;
writing the converted video stream to the flash memory to thereby store a record of the event on the flash memory. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification