I've heard rumors of people modifying bitrate and other encoder parameters in some of the Ambarella based Dashcams. For those who don't know - Ambarella SOCs are primarily used in small HD cameras like the Go Pro Hero 3 and Hero 3+ cams...

Seems like you can get quite a lot for quite a little with these cams, and they are running embedded linux. I think there is a wide open space here for a Ptool like setup tool to be developed, and for people to experiment with these - doing things like adding interchangeable lenses, and modifying to put multiple cameras on small Quad and Hexacopters for instance.

Some of them even seem to have GPS and other data logging.

Curious which one is the TOP camera in terms of best chipset used, best sensor, and highest achievable recording bit rate with modification.

Here is one example - but there seem to be a million out there:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/190841075632?lpid=82