The most important thing about any covert surveillance system is for it to be so well-disguised, so inconspicuous, that nobody will actually be able to tell the difference between it and the object it's masquerading as. And a very good example of such a device is represented by the Sunglasses Camera with Personal Digital Video Recorder, presented by the people over at Spycatcher of Knightsbridge in the second half of 2007, a device that hides a very complex video recording system under the apparently innocent looks of a pair of sunglasses.



Thus, the Sunglasses Camera with Personal Digital Video Recorder is a wired, yet very discreet surveillance system that allows the users to film just about everything they're looking at. The device incorporates a a built-in colour monitor and speaker (for the other members of the surveillance team), 32MB of internal memory (expandable via the device's built-in SD/MMC card slot) and can even time and date stamp all the available video recordings, something that can prove to be extremely useful during any investigative action.



The camera works in both NTSC/PAL systems and has been fitted with a 0.25-inch (0.65 cm) CCD image sensor, which helps the device attain a 350-line maximum resolution, with 510 x 492 pixels in NTSC and 500 x 582 in PAL.



The device has also been fitted with an electronic shutter (1/50 – 1/100000), as well as a very effective built-in lens (3.1mm/F3.4 (3T), 3.9mm/F3.9 (4T)). The portable surveillance system provides a minimum S/N ratio of around 48 dB, and requires a level of illumination of at least 0.5 Lux/F 1.4 in order to work properly.



The Sunglasses Camera with Personal Digital Video Recorder retails for around 1800 US dollars, which is quite a hefty sum, but it's completely worth it, taking into consideration just how useful this thing can prove to be in quite a lot of situations.