02-27-2008, 08:19 PM
Posted By: JIM HOERRICKS
Good morning,
My name is Jim Hoerricks and I am the Senior Forensic Video Analyst for
the LAPD. My office receives CCTV video from crime scenes and processes
the files for court and the media.
I am seeing a trend in the security industry towards leveraging new
media's innovations for their commercial interests. Lately, we've seen a
lot of hybrid H.264 and MPEG4 video.
My question is general in nature, but alludes to a larger problem. Is
there a list of proprietary codecs out there? Is there a common
decompressor that is commercially available that can work with some/most
h.264 and/or MPEG4 files?
When a crime is cought on a CCTV system employing a proprietary codec
with no associated reference materials, this puts our investigators in a
worse than no-good situation. The public perception as to the value of
CCTV in the investigation of a crime - minus the evidentiary value of
useless proprietary video = equals trouble in court. Juries expect to
see the video and it causes trouble for both sides with the proprietary
nature of the codec prevents playback in common players.
Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Jim Hörricks
Police Surveillance Specialist 1
Senior Forensic Video Analyst
Los Angeles Police Department
Scientific Investigation Division - Electronics Section
150 N. Los Angeles St., Room 424
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Ph. 213.485.2528
Cel. 818.400.3657
Fax. 213.620.5794
Author of Forensic Photoshop - a comprehensive imaging workflow for
forensic professionals
http://forensicphotoshop.blogspot.com
Good morning,
My name is Jim Hoerricks and I am the Senior Forensic Video Analyst for
the LAPD. My office receives CCTV video from crime scenes and processes
the files for court and the media.
I am seeing a trend in the security industry towards leveraging new
media's innovations for their commercial interests. Lately, we've seen a
lot of hybrid H.264 and MPEG4 video.
My question is general in nature, but alludes to a larger problem. Is
there a list of proprietary codecs out there? Is there a common
decompressor that is commercially available that can work with some/most
h.264 and/or MPEG4 files?
When a crime is cought on a CCTV system employing a proprietary codec
with no associated reference materials, this puts our investigators in a
worse than no-good situation. The public perception as to the value of
CCTV in the investigation of a crime - minus the evidentiary value of
useless proprietary video = equals trouble in court. Juries expect to
see the video and it causes trouble for both sides with the proprietary
nature of the codec prevents playback in common players.
Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Jim Hörricks
Police Surveillance Specialist 1
Senior Forensic Video Analyst
Los Angeles Police Department
Scientific Investigation Division - Electronics Section
150 N. Los Angeles St., Room 424
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Ph. 213.485.2528
Cel. 818.400.3657
Fax. 213.620.5794
Author of Forensic Photoshop - a comprehensive imaging workflow for
forensic professionals
http://forensicphotoshop.blogspot.com