Police - Need help with video Capture

[Police1 0]

I am a Lieutenant with local police department. We are constantly trying to get video footage from business surveillance systems when the business is victimized. As many businesses are switching to DVR's we find that most business owners have little knowledge of how to use their own systems. I am looking for any sugestions for equipment and/or software we can purchase which will allow us to capture video/still shots from different proprietary systems and then be able to download the captured video to a PC for making BOLO's,. e-mailing to media and other departments etc. Any suggestions?

[cachecreekcctv 0]

I myself have had to do that several times, in order to make something (video) that can be viewed on a normal PC. I take my laptop to the business. My laptop has a "capture card" which allows me to take the output of the DVR ( I usually take along several fittings to allow me to "T" into the line) into my laptops' hard drive. This function saves the video as an .avi file. Don't laugh, but I sometimes import this into Windows Movie Maker, making a "movie" for the local cops. Definitely wouldn't make it into court with such a thing, but at least the local cops know who to look out for. A couple of years ago, on Christmas Day even, a "jogging burglar" had broken into three cars, parked in a parking lot of local business. I added Christmas Music to the Windows Movie Maker movie of the burglar. The local Deputy got a kick out of it. Of course they already knew who the burglar was, the movie just helped it go from 99% to 100% for them. Like I said, I don't think it would stand up in court, but at least they know who the perp is.

[CollinR 0]

Plextor makes a hardware encoder that you might check into.

 

http://www.plextor.com/english/products/ConvertX2.htm

 

 

It's a USB device that you can use with most any laptop, all you need to do is get their system to playback on a TV or CCTV monitor and T into the feed (or just swap the wires).

 

It will exceed the quality of all CCTV recordings I have seen aside from megapixel IP stuff.

 

 

You might also call some of your local CCTV installers, I will trade services like that for referals or leads to who has a junk system and keeps getting knocked over. You might be surprised at how willing a pro may be to help ya.

[CraigVM62 0]

I logged on to post a question and decided to read this thread. It deals with exactly what I had questions about.

One of my installations had a "smash and grab" event a week ago through a window just barely coverd by the view of one of the cameras. Would take some time before anyone could be free to view the 10 hour time span when the event could have happened "cameras record full time". We didn't want to take a chance of the needed material being recorded over, so I swapped the hard drive with a different one. When I placed the original drive in a USB housing to view at my office, I found that my PC would not recognize any files on the drive. The DVR's Tech Support informed me the DVR records via a "special" FAT file format and it could only be viewed from the DVR. It seems be an issue they don't bring up when they promote the DVR's option for a CD-RW, USB port feature and such.

 

Is this the case with most stand alone DVR's ?

We have yet to tie the DVR into their office Network but once done. Is there a chance that recorded material could then be converted to a more universal PC viewable format and saved? I know that may be determined by the software, but wondering if it has been done before.

[kensplace 0]

That could become even more of a issue a few years down the line, when many of the current budget dvrs are no longer supported or even sold.

 

When the dvr eventually breaks, any footage on it wont be of any use if its a propriatary format, as you wont even be able to play it from the dvr to record on another device, and you may find it impossible to get spares for it.

[CollinR 0]

It will exceed the quality of all CCTV recordings I have seen aside from megapixel IP stuff.

 

 

What I really meant by that was if you hook a top of the line hi res camera directly to it the result will be better quality then most if not all CCTV DVRs. It will not improve the quality at all but it won't degrade it as much as many other methods.

[rory 0]

Craig, with most of the DVRs that use their own formats, the wayI have worked around that is to use a screen Capture program like CamStudio, to then record the screen as you are playing it back on the PC. Ofcourse this is lower quality, but at least you get a normal file format from it.

 

Other option is to use a Capture Card to a PC like mentioned already, even record that with the Free AmCap if you want the ultimate quality (no compression!) but the files get huge. Ultimately you could then convert the Raw AVI to another format like WMV (you can even use Windows Movie Maker for this) or just use other compressions when capturing it, or the software that comes with the capture card.

[cachecreekcctv 0]

I do believe that once a hard drive is formatted for a DVR, for the most part, it cannot be placed , ever again, into an operating PC, and vice versa. Different systems that read and write independently of each others program. Totally different. The best bet to retrieve video is to put the DVR output directly into the capture card and record the video into another file format, onto a laptop hard drive. This way your laptop, or PC writes the digital video into its' own readable file. Getting the video onto a CDR is another problem, but one step at a time!!

[CollinR 0]

Getting the video onto a CDR is another problem, but one step at a time!!

 

Making the CD VCD or SVCD so it will play on normal courtroom DVD players is yet another.

[baywatch 1]

We use an Archos pvr, this works well & we then download to PC & burn to CD for the police. We do quite a bit of this where dvrs have been installed by "fly by night" outfits & cops seem happy to pay.

Laughably we sometimes have to put the images on to video tape (easy with the Archos) as the police can't even read some Geovision files. They are simply not allowed to keep their computer software updated.

[cachecreekcctv 0]

I have never made any video into the DVD format, even though I have a DVD burner on the home PC and laptop. None of my videos, I don't believe, would be even allowable in a typical courtroom. I have made them for business owners, and the local cops only. Any of the videos I have made for anyone, are all capable of playing in a PC, as I check them out beforehand. I will always ask a business owner if they have Windows Media Player, as for me, that seems the easiest way to play (open) the video on a CDR. Although I have never made a video over 10 minutes in length, I have "cut and edited" scenes to show, for example, a car passing by several times within a certain time period. By using my Windows Movie Maker program, I can add music (sometimes breaks the monotony of the watcher) and describe upcoming scenes by adding titles before the scene, so someone can watch for a certain person in the movie. I usually save all the videos to an external hard drive for later.

[baywatch 1]

We make our CDs so they can be played on Windows Media Player (as does Geovision) the problem is the police do not keep their version of this up to date.

In Britain if the video is edited in any way it is useless to courts, in serious cases the courts need the original recordinge.g. Hdd or complete DVR.

If the police ask for (+ are willing to pay for) the incident to be put on video then we do it.

[rory 0]

For the Cops ...

I make a folder with the Players and Video ..

 

Players are the Geo RPB software, and my Custom Media Viewer which also registers and loads the Mpeg4 and Mpeg2 codecs from the folder . .

 

Video is Original in 1 folder, and then there is another folder with the converted and compressed versions in AVI, WMV, and EXE.

 

I Have a Read me, burn it to CD and give it to the owner to hand to the cops.

They seem to be able to take it from there. We have no special requirments for the courts except they dont have PC's in them ... so they would also need to create a VCR Tape if they want the video in court ...

[Rooney 0]

Most DVR's do come with the software installed to export the video. I have run into this problem before trying to export video for Law Enforcement evidence. The problem you have with capture cards and other means of taking the video off the DVR is that the video may not be permissable in court, or may be thrown out because it was "edited". Most DVR manufacturers now include "water marking" for evidence retrieval. This shows that the video or single image has not been edited. With the numerous DVR manufacturers out there the need for standardization is needed now more than ever. The different Codec's for video and the preference of the installer or integrator makes it more difficult for L.E..

 

My recommendation is to try as much as possible to use the DVR's export program to export the video or images. If you do not have the program on your machine to view the file format it is easy to download a viewer that will enable you to view and enlarge areas within the video. One program that I can recommend that can view numerous differant formats is Irfanview. It will also handle most "water marks".

[CollinR 0]

I'm surpised watermarking still has any creditibilty, it doesn't take too much thought to bypass it (which should not be outlined publically).

[Rooney 0]

I'm surpised watermarking still has any creditibilty, it doesn't take too much thought to bypass it (which should not be outlined publically).

 

Your right that certain (most) manufacturers water marks are bypassable with means that are available. It does however give some viability to the images as compared to images that have been edited that do not have them. Also if a law enforcement official is present when the watermarked images are downloaded and it is obtained as legal evidence it makes it much harder to dispute than someone else downloading it and there is no official chain of custody.

[kensplace 0]

I dont see any real difference in using a good quality external device to capture footage over burning to a cd/dvd that is built into a dvr - as far as the courts go (but I am not a lawyer)

 

They could argue that by capturing the output onto another dvr that records, or a pc with capture card that the footage ends up being re-compressed (hence edited) - BUT that is exactly what happens (as far as I am aware) with pretty much any cctv dvr that has a built in cd recorder or dvd recorder.

 

The cctv DVR will be recording in mpeg4, wavelet, jpeg stream or goodness knows what format, and to save it to the inbuilt DVD it will have to re-compress it to mpeg 2 format (which unless the dvr internally saves in mpeg 2, will involve re-compression).

 

If its saved to a in built cd, then it needs recompression, as the dvr still wont be recording (unless it specifically is made that way) in svcd format or vcd format.

 

So if they allow footage from high end cctv dvr recorders with in-built cd/dvd drives then they should allow footage captured (properly, witnessed etc) on another device.

[baywatch 1]

Where we have been involved with serious cases, murder, rape etc, the police here have impounded the Hdd from the machine. We have had to send a technician to replace the hard drv under police supervision & put the unit in a sealed bag with a signed statement as to what he has done.

[Rooney 0]

Where we have been involved with serious cases, murder, rape etc, the police here have impounded the Hdd from the machine. We have had to send a technician to replace the hard drv under police supervision & put the unit in a sealed bag with a signed statement as to what he has done.

 

I have run into that if we were not able to create a cd or dvd from the DVR itself that is watermarked. We have to create the cd or dvd under police supervision while writing down exactly how we created it. The problem with removing Hdd is the files are compressed ussualy with proprietary software. If the department or courts do not have a copy of the software they are unable to retrieve the information.

[kensplace 0]

In the UK though, I thought if the police impound evidence such as the hard drive, its kept by the police not just for the trial, but the full length of the sentence. So a impounded hard drive may end up with a life sentence with the police before you ever see it again.

 

Unless the police make a master copy back at their premises, and give it back to you, but then I would say that *you* then have no proof the evidence was not tampered with, which is even worse than a copy being made (if they want the hard drive they should make a direct copy onto a new hard at your premises, or with you present at theirs, with a drive they supply!)

[baywatch 1]

Don't know what the police eventually do with the Hdd.

 

We are paid to replace the Hdd with a new unit for the customer & our interest ends there.

 

There is no reason for the police to return it to the customer.

[kensplace 0]

Is it the police who pay, or the customer?

 

If its the police, thats fine, but if the customer has to pay out every time they capture something the police need, then it could work out very expensive for them, and some people may be put of actually reporting the fact they have evidence if they fear they may lose their only recording drive, and have to shell out for a new one.

[baywatch 1]

Its the police that pay, but the customer would be crazy to try to withold evidence in a murder case anyway. He usually doesn't know he has the evidence as it could just be 2 people leaving a club together or similar.

[bigbuilding 0]

The DVR Systems I am familar with have a program that can be attatched to the CD automatically so a third party can view the video.

 

We also have the option of exporting to .avi.

 

 

Some companies have the view programs available on their websites for download.

[BillB 0]

I am a Lieutenant with local police department. We are constantly trying to get video footage from business surveillance systems when the business is victimized. As many businesses are switching to DVR's we find that most business owners have little knowledge of how to use their own systems. I am looking for any sugestions for equipment and/or software we can purchase which will allow us to capture video/still shots from different proprietary systems and then be able to download the captured video to a PC for making BOLO's,. e-mailing to media and other departments etc. Any suggestions?

 

Lieutenant,

 

I'm in the process of building up a video surveillance system for my home and have been lurking here. There are solutions out there for your exact problem. One of them is called StarWitness DVRPro from a company called Signalscape. This technology is VERY popular in the LE and government space.

 

There are even federal grant programs available such as CTAC, TTP, CETA, etc that may be available to you.

 

I should disclose that I work for this company, but am not a salesperson. If you are interested in learning more, visit the starwitness or signalscape websites to learn more. Or if you prefer, PM your contact info to me and I can put you in touch with someone who can answer any questions you may have.

 

Bill B.