fig1 for various components illustrated therein are for illustrative purposes these identifiers will be understood by those having skill in the art to be merely examples of components that could be employed in the system shown therein other commercially available components could be employed without departing from the principles of the invention in various embodiments of the present invention recording of video audio and metadata is event based in these embodiments the system only records when a triggering event has occurred for example when the user turns on the emergency lights siren the onboard accelerometers sense a vehicle crash or when the user manually hits a record button upon occurrence of the event the beginning of a recorded event is marked other examples of an event that initiates recording can be for example a traffic stop a chase a domestic call or pulling into a driveway the recording of the event continues until a stop point is determined in at least one embodiment of the present invention the stop point is determined when the user hits a stop button the system may also include an automatic stop event that allows the system to automatically stop recording at a predetermined time after all start record triggers have been turned off e g the lights and siren are off and the wireless microphone is off but the user has forgotten to hit the.