I have an AutoVox A118 dashcam. It works as a dashcam should, but I want to add a Pi to my vehicle to add some functionality. Two main things I want to add are GPS through the Pi, and the ability to download the video files to my home network when in range of my Wifi.
The A118 has self storage, 32 GB.
I do not want to use an official Pi camera because of the smaller diagonal angle, and because of the short range of the ribbon cable. I also do not want to use a regular USB camera as they tend to be slower and of lower quality than the official Pi camera (unless you can recommend some great option, I've seen the official USB webcam list but don't know what kind of quality I can expect).
What I intend to do at the moment is to record the video with my A118 onto the mounted storage, and when home use the Pi to access those files and transfer them over Wifi.
The problem I am having now is that this camera, when first connected to either my PC or my Pi the camera asks whether it should act as a "Mass Storage" or "PC Camera".
Selecting "Mass Storage" on the camera, it acts as a regular USB flash drive, where I can access the files on it, but it cannot record. And when it is as a "PC Camera" I can record with the camera (have not tried using it as a regular webcam, but don't intend to use it as such with the Pi because of the lower quality video.
How can I interface the Pi with this camera to where I can control when it records, but record to the camera's storage, and access the stored files when needed?
