Eyes on the prize

During a robbery at a Pawtucket, R.I., conveniencestore in 2007, security cameras caughtimages of the suspect and his car. But the poorquality of the video made it difficult to see theman's face and the make and model of his car.Using video forensic tools, state police wereable to clarify the images enough to release aphoto of the suspect to the media and determinethat he was driving a white Chrysler NewYorker."Someone identified him from the picture,which led us to getting his address and informationfrom the Department ofMotor Vehicles," said DetectiveDennis Pincine of the Rhode IslandState Police."We got his license photo, which looked similarto the photo we captured from the surveillancevideo," he added. "And we checked hisvehicle registration, which came back as awhite Chrysler New Yorker."With that information, police brought theman in for questioning, and he admitted tocommitting the robbery, along with othercrimes.For Pincine, the case illustrates the power ofvideo evidence and the need for tools to clarifyand organize video content.The Rhode Island State Police use two videoforensic tools: VideoFocus from Salient StillsInc. and dTective from Ocean Systems.VideoFocus was designed to make it easy toimport videos from any source, including surveillancesystems, handheld video cameras andcell phones. Once a video is imported, theclient-based software lets users clean it asneeded, said Laura Teodosio, chief executiveofficer at Salient Stills.The company is seeing a rising demand forits product from law enforcement agencies,intelligence agencies and the military, she said.Part of the increase is because of the greateravailability of video technology."The challenge is how [to] turn a video intosomething that's usable," Teodosio said."Whether the video is in analog tape form, digital form or in some sort of proprietary formlike from a phone, the first thing you need todo is get video off the device and onto yourcomputer," she said.VideoFocus makes that process faster andeasier than manual methods, she added. Itincludes a tool that turns proprietary video ?for example, from a digital video recorder ?into a format that can be edited.The tool also has a function that lets userscapture images directly from proprietary digitalvideos as they play. It captures and storesthe video in an uncompressed format.Customers can use the product's Quick Scanand Search feature to review and mark areas ofinterest in a long video sequence, which ishelpful in finding specific images. They canalso inspect detailed areas of images andmovies by zooming and dragging.The tool's filters make it possible to createclear imagery. With input from law enforcementagencies, the company chose the mosteffective, widely used and straightforward setof filters. They include: super-resolution, deinterlacing,field swap, crop, zoom, speedchange, sharpen, blur, histogram equalization,levels adjustment, and color and black-andwhiteconversion.The final step is to put all the video informationtogether for dissemination or sharing,Teodosio said. "That might be by convertinginto a form that's standard or making a littlepresentation by editing it all together."The forensics service unit of the Rhode IslandState Police processes videos that range in qualityfrom crystal clear digital to very poor VHStapes."Dealing with VHS tapes, you're going tofind that a lot of establishments use tapes overand over again, so the quality can get extremelydegraded," Pincine said.Newer digital systems also can have problems.The quality suffers if the resolution is set too low,the video is too compressed or it is set up to capturea low number of frames per minute.In addition to sharpening images,VideoFocus also helps police prepare courtcases."When we end up bringing these cases tocourt, these tools give you a record of whatyou've done with a certain piece of video or picture,"Pincine said. "It gives you a history asyou're doing clarifications. Documentation andhow you arrive at a conclusion becomeextremely important." And demonstrating thata result can be validated and reproduced is alsoimportant, he added.Law enforcement agencies that use videotools not designed for forensics are at a disadvantage,said Stephen Monteros, chief operatingofficer at Linear Integrated Systems Inc.,which developed management and chain-ofcustodysoftware for digital evidence.VideoFocus is integrated into Linear's software."There is still physical evidence, but electronicevidence is rising exponentially," he said."This can be digital photography, audio orvideo."The volume of videos law enforcement agenciesmust process makes specialized toolsessential. Linear's software manages and createsa chain of custody and archives thoserecords."They used to say back in 2001 [that] peopleare captured on video anywhere between eightto 12 times a day," Pincine said. "Today that issignificantly higher because cameras are everywhere,and more and more crimes are beingcaptured with video cameras."