Ken

[Hudz63reNVRperformance 0]

Hi folks,

I'm new to this forum but have been watching from the back seats for a while. G'day. Now the time has come to introduce myself.

I'm seeking to chat with users of SANNCE NVRs in particular, regarding the NVR performance and tendancy to suddenly randomly stop working.

Sannce NVR randomly stopped working at a critical time when a crime was carried out. The crime is now a legal matter and the performance of the CCTV system is an important part of the case (that is; it is suspiscious that the NVR stopped working when the crime occurred). So, I'm seeking details of actual Sannce NVR performance dropouts that may be certain/clear enough to be used in court.

Ultimately it would help if I could meet/find a CCTV Expert in this field who would be prepared to make a statement to be presented in an Australian Law Court. A qualifying expert person would need to be more than just a CCTV user; but (non-expert) user testimony would add to the defence claim the system just crashed. Conditions do apply to represent as an Expert Witness. Any $ costs would be covered.

I am open to discuss the case details further, with those who respond to this initial enquiry. 

Kind regards

 

[tomcctv 190]

Hi who has the recorder now ?

did you burn off the footage onto a stick

is this home or business system

 

all systems can have problems if not setup correctly or maintenance not done which is a human error not recorder

is the court case against you

[Hudz63reNVRperformance 0]

Hi Tomcctv,

Thanks for your response & my apologies for this delayed reply.

I'm happy to provide you further info. Can we chat in a private message or similar?

The NVR is held as evidence.

There are various copies of CCTV from that time.

The CCTV system was installed as a home system.

My request is on behalf of the CCTV system owner (the court case is NOT against me but against him)

Ken

[Hudz63reNVRperformance 0]

Hoping someone might be interested to assist here. Would hate a guy to be found guilty just because no-one could be bothered to discuss some weird glitch related to this particular system brand.

We are running very short of time now.

[tomcctv 190]

Hi I have worked with many police video forensic teams all over uk

 

the reason why I asked who has the recorder is important 

All recorders for years have two types of burn off (footage) which is burn off to a cd - pen drive … but these are Dav or Avi files converted by recorder  to play back only on pc 

now there is also a native file ….. which is why the police take the recorder away 

the native file is footage data that has not had a player attached like dav and avi files do and this holds all information importantly the electronic signature and a watermark… this will show the police that the recorder was turned off or a file has been deleted it will even tell them time and date and duration 

watermarks and electronic signatures can’t be removed from native files so it gives forensics team all the info they need including removed files which can be recovered 

I don’t know what country you’re in but your friend needs to be careful…… depending on the type of crime committed is it just going to be a fine or is it jail ? 
 

as far as recorder faults yes there can be setup problems ….. motion set too low ….. a wrong schedule set up .. but this would show up same time same day on prior weeks …. But also show on signature or watermark 

 

as far as outside tampering or removal of footage …… someone would have to be watching his system 24/7  and if they see his crime delete the footage …. That does not happen ……. But again the forensics team will have also checked that in two ways  again watermark and signature but also the police would of asked from your friends internet service provider for a log of activity in and outbound traffic 

 

now if the police have gone this far with him then they have more footage than what you have seen (native files) which can’t be removed….. this is why the police took the recorder …. Burnt off footage can be manipulated native files can’t with out showing up on watermark and signature 

 

again it depends on the crime if your friend wants to fight it ….. is it just a fine or prison?

and also take into account costs

around two years ago in Birmingham it was a news agents between 7am and 8 am the staff would switch off the recorder to sell tobacco to kids ( split packs of cigarettes up) to sell one or two to kids each morning Monday to Friday 

he tried to fight in court he never did the offences till watermark and electronic signature showed he did ……. 4 months prison and £400 fine …… and he also had to pay forensics time …. Over £32k

[Hudz63reNVRperformance 0]

OK... so get the popcorn out!

Thank you again for this response. We're based in Australia. I have about 20 years experience in electronic security including designing CCTV systems. I have known my friend for about 10 years, we met through church. I have found him to be one the most honest people I have met.

The scenario is as follows;

2021 My friend (54M) lived alone in a small cul-de-sac community of 7x (bungalows) free standing homes. One next-door neighbour is a drug dealer & so always in dispute with my friend (who wants them gone from this community). Fire occured one night which rendered another neighbour's home unliveabe. Around 2019 that neighbour had developed a drug habit (Meth, supplied by the dealer neighbour) which resulted in many very loud & strange behaviours at all hours, including Domestic Violence Events. It is estimated police attended her home 25x over 12 months. So this neighbour was also 'wanted gone' from the community. The police call her the 'victim'.

My friend had recently upgraded CCTV to SAANCE brand. His other next-door neighbour has another lesser quality CCTV system installed. Both CCTV cover the cul-de-sac generally and have been helpful to police when criminal events have occurred in the community.

My friend's CCTV ceased to work, for about 18 minutes, during the time the fire started. When police reviewed the neighbour's CCTV they could see a male person, in very low resolution B&W, exit my friend's property then cross the street and enter the victim's property. About 5 minutes later they return, smoke can then be seen in the video, etc. Then other neighbour's appear on street, fire & police attend, etc. Then my friend's CCTV begins to record again. Not surprisinly police look at my friend, as most likely to have caused the fire. After an initial investigation the police arrest my friend & charge with Arson. After arrest, my friend was jailed awaiting trial for over 12 months until Nov 2022 when we secured agreement for him to be bailed in the community. His trial begins in 6 weeks.

The thing is that the facts do not support that my friend did light this fire. He strongly denies he lit the fire. All forensic investigation have found NO link between the accused & the fire. The Fire Investigtor stated " the cause of the fire was unknown... could have been an accident". Police are running with a 'circumstantial' prosecution.

We think that the fire was deliberate and orchestrated by the victim (she was days away from being evicted by the social housing authorities), a gas burner in the victim's kitchen had been left fully open, they had spent weeks cleaning out furniture immediately before the fire (but for say 6 months prior had effectively couch surfed (certainly, not been physically at their postal address)).

After release we have been working together on building his defence. We discovered this international SAANCE users website & the notes regarding CCTV SAANCE tendancy to randomly stop working and then start up again. It is not a core line of his defence; but it could help to have an expert witness statement/testimony that this brand of CCTV actually does randomly stop recording. Without it, a reasonable person would most likely conclude that it was a deliberate act that stopped the CCTV from working (when in fact its possible that it was just some random event).

Finally, during the police investigation police claim they found that the SAANCE CCTV behaved noticably differently when the power cord was removed from the NVR than it does when power to the electrical circuit is cut at the external switch board. Therefore police claim they can show my friend must have removed the plug from the NVR. The claim just doesn't make sense, when you consider how quickly electricity passes through any circuit.

There are rules around who can represent as an expert witness in court. Alternately, there might be a user of SAANCE who has had personal experience of a random failure to record, one who is prepared to place it on record. Should there be any costs attached to getting a statement obviously we would cover those.

Yes I'm aware of the watermaking, etc but thanks for the description all the same. My friend faces a prison term of 5 years. Plus, the authorities would like their A$300k costs to be reimbursed.

The police evidence presented to the accused has already been found to be lacking; tailored to tell their story only, rather than investigate all possibilities

[tomcctv 190]

11 hours ago, Hudz63reNVRperformance said:

Yes I'm aware of the watermaking, etc but thanks for the description all the same. My friend faces a prison term of 5 years. Plus, the authorities would like their A$300k costs to be reimbursed.

That’s not the only costs your friend is going to have  with court costs and costs

 

watermark / signature  will show if nvr was tampered with yes even power off and on and how long for ……. for upto a year

you keep saying SAANCE ?????? 
they don’t make dvr/nvr or cameras so no point looking for saance support if they don’t make the equipment they are a rebadge company

the police have cctv from a different system who sees your friend leaving his home  …… this is also going to give investigators more information which your not taking into account for your friend

it will show if your friends system went off at times said or your friend deleted files from that time …… the police will know from watching the other system 

[Hudz63reNVRperformance 0]

Yeah, quite definitely the system lost power (rather than video files deleted). The signature confirms that. It seems also that this chat group has discussed times where power has dropped out spontaneously on their own systems. I'm interested to find out more from other users who have experienced it happening to them. Could it be possible that a similar random CCTV system crash occured on the night of this fire? It IS very unlikely ... but having found other users saying that they have experienced random loss of power why would you not ask around about this tendancy?

I  wasn't aware that SAANCE were a rebadge company... That's Interesting. Thank you for the correction.

The 2nd CCTV records a male leaving accused' property. I believe there is enough in the video to show that it is not the accused... which means something completely different transpired. 

It seems in this case, due to lack of proof, prosecutor plans to argue 'Tendancy'.