X-Driven DRS-1100 Drive Recorder – Camera For Recording Car Accidents

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Records video to show time and place events, great on GPS information and Google Maps.

Thumbs Down:

Software bundled is not user friendly.

Inside the Trunk:

Utilities and drivers, power cable

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

X-Driven DRS-1100 Drive Recorder is a digital camera with 1.3 mega pixel resolution. The videos are stored in AVI format and the options for resolutions are 1280×960, 640×480, 320×240. It has integrated flash memory with an option for SD memory card expansion. The camera is 5.1 inch wide, 0.6 inch deep and 1.9 inch high.

Razzle Dazzle:

We do not expect the X-Driven DRS-1100 Drive Recorder to look sexy, it is simply not made to serve that purpose. The device looks like a Bluetooth speakerphone, just a bit bigger. The front part of the unit is thick as compared to the rear end because of the camera which bulges out of the device. You can mount the camera on windshield of the car or behind the rear view mirror. You can also adjust the camera angle up or down in order according to the mounting.

Inside Dope:

X-Driven DRS-1100 Drive Recorder is not a camera for taking photographs or shooting videos of your favorite memories but it is used for taking videos of the car to provide evidence in case of accidents. It records data all the time but doesn’t save unless there is an accident or shocks or unless you manually press the record button which is saves a lot of memory. Recording time is increased if the car is driven at high speeds.

There are two LED indicators on the device, the red is for power and the blue is for GPS signal. There is also a button that lets you record videos even if there is no accident. On the side of the camera there is a slot for SD card and power cable port on the other side.
There will be problems from the power cable when it comes to mounting the camera in your car because the power cable goes up from the device to the 12 volt power point. But the company bundles in a long cable and cable ties to tie up the loose cable.

There is a soft ware that lets you view the videos that you have recorded and stored on the four GB internal memory of the device. You get the video plus the position of the car, courtesy of Google map. The software has normal controls like pause, play and skip for viewing the clips. But the down side is that the files are presented with weird names, we would have liked the files on the card to be stamped with date and time. The software also gives you the speed of the car and you can toggle between options of miles and kilometers.

We found the software a bit tough to use but was great on the maps, it took data of GPS and related itself with Google map and which gives you the exact location of where the video was taken. The Google map also lets you zoom in and out.

The camera records videos for 20 seconds when it detects an accident or shock to your vehicle. Or you can manually press the record button when you feel like recording clips. When the camera detects the accident, it records 10 seconds before and after the event. You can increase or decrease the default setting of 10 second recording.

You can take the files out of the memory cards to save them on to your computer hard disk or different memory drive. You can also give names to the files, so that it will help you relate to the time and date of the event. The files are stored in ub1 format which is the proprietary format which combines GPS information and video. You can also use the avi format but then it won’t give you the GPS information, just plain video of the event. AVI format is more popular than ub1 but then there is loss of vital GPS information. You will struggle a bit when it comes to loading files on the view. To viewing the clips requires loading file called _system.mdb from the memory card.

We tested the device and we found the recording was triggered whenever we got over a pothole or turned our vehicle on the streets. The red LED blinks whenever it saves a video. We also got the SD card to check out the videos recorded but then the files names make it difficult to find what you want. But we were glad that we got the time and date stamp on the snapshot whenever we clicked on it.

The video quality is not spectacular owing to the 1.3 mega pixel lens but you don’t need a 5 MP lens for such a camera, do you? The video quality though not that good will give you accurate details of the incident. You will have to mount the camera on the front of the car and thus you won’t get videos if the accidents occur at the back of the vehicle or on the sides but it will show if you were following the traffic laws when the event occurred.

Nitty Gritty:

We don’t know if you need a camera for recording accidents or other such events while in a car and so we are skeptical about if you need the X-Driven DRS-1100 Drive Recorder for your vehicle. We found the camera good for recording but it cannot be used for recording on the rear and the software was a bit tough to use.