CASE EXAMPLES
Major Investigation
Situation
An investigator within a police high tech crime unit was handed a case that had already been dealt with by the CCTV unit at another location within the agency. This was a serious case involving loss of life – this video evidence was now critical to the investigation. The digital exhibit was a generic CCTV DVR unit recovered from an address by officers on the investigation team. Chunks of standard video data had been extracted from the DVR hard disk and were in a raw file format, each being 1GB in size.
Workflow
At this point, batch conversion was needed in order to place the raw data files into a viewable format. Using Amped DVRConv, the investigator dropped all the video file data chunks into the software and it converted them in the background, allowing the investigator to continue with other ongoing cases they were working on.
Conclusion
Following this, the investigator was now in the fortunate position to pass the viewable footage recovered from the DVR to the major investigation team, complete with the Amped Software logs suitable for any disclosure and audit needs. The major investigation team could now view the footage comfortably and quickly, allowing them to proceed with their enquiries that very same week.
Covert Operation
Situation
During a covert operation, an investigating officer was required to view a large amount of CCTV footage in order to capture the comings and goings of a suspect within a large scale investigation. The files were captured over the course of a number of evenings so there were a lot of video files, each individual file being 50GB in size. The proprietary player had a number of limitations, meaning it was difficult for the officer to view the footage.
Workflow
It was decided that the proprietary format files needed to be converted to facilitate easier playback and viewing. Due to the amount and size of the files, manual conversion was not practical. The batch automation of DVRConv was now essential to the expediting of this investigation. The default folders within DVRConv were changed to HDDs capable of holding the sheer capacity of the copying of the original files and the files were dragged and dropped into DVRConv. Left overnight while the computer used to convert the files was securely locked, the files converted and were in playable format the next morning.
Conclusion
The officer was then able to more easily playback and view the files and pertinent times and dates of suspect movements were recorded and collated as part of the investigation, allowing for warrants to be executed and the suspect arrested.
Open Records
Situation
An Open Records Department is tasked with reviewing videos from a wide variety of CCTV footage for release. These videos are commonly saved in a proprietary format which is not playable for the requestor or the records technician. IT is hesitant to install every player that comes into the department on their computer for fear of system instability.
Workflow
It was decided that the proprietary format files needed to be converted to facilitate easier playback and viewing. As files come in, the records technician can simply add them to a folder on their desktop, and quickly get viewable versions for review. Additionally, they can use open standards in their conversions to make sure they are playable by any requestor.
Conclusion
Records technicians were able to quickly review the videos they originally had no ability to see. Additionally, because they are in a standard format, if the videos need to be redacted, they can take just the videos they need to redact into the video editor of their choice, or into Amped Replay.