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Solutions to the Frustrations of Video?
Re-Torque asks: "In our organizations, interviews with perpetrators of crime (child abuse, rape, etc), and with victims, are conducted by expert interviewers and are recorded on videotape or DVD (with back ups). These recordings are legal records. They are archival records, but they are also used in the courts and in other aspects of the legal process.
We have encountered problems with newer VCRs and DVD recorders. As long as the tape or DVD is played back on the same machine, there is no degradation of audio and video quality. However, when played back on any other machine, the quality of the recording is substantially degraded. We have been told that this is to frustrate illegal copying, but in our case, it frustrates the legal process. In your experience, is the problem in fact one of design of the machines or are we doing something wrong (i.e., some settings we should change before recording)? Are there any machines available that are not crippled in this way? Or are there other strategies we might employ to resolve this problem?"
I've had this problem with VCRs in the past, recording a show on one player, and then playing it on another would usually yield poor results. Or sometimes one movie I had bought would play fine in one player, but would be very bad quality in another. I assumed it was due to differences in read head alignment or something. On the other hand, I don't know how this could happen with DVDs. Because everything is digital, the output should be the same no matter which player/recorder you use. I've never experienced this problem with DVDs, even with home movies that were recorded onto DVD, they play fine in all the players I've tried them in.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I'd done some recent work with a friends department store to verify video hasn't been tampered with and all that jazz -- and it turned out the job had already been done for me.
They have a Honeywell DVR -- theirs is a 16 Camera unit, but I'm sure there are others -- that records multiple cameras, and ensures that this isn't altered. The video is encrypted and you can ask for chunks of it to be recorded out to CD or DVD, but it records to its own little Windows application that can detect if anything has been altered and shows all the encryption up front and verifies that it is intact.
Don't get me wrong, its annoying that its a Windows Only application (especially as from all accounts, this machine looks to be running on some sort of *NIX) -- but then again, what DA is running OS X or Ubantu (I had to pull up Parallels to see if it worked on my Mac).
From what I understand, the unit has been certified by the gov't for this sort of work...look into it if you need to archive stuff that needs to stay in the digital domain AND be uneditable / verifyable. I don't have much more info than that, but it was a pretty slick machine.
To add to the above: the digital form gives you more flexiablity in delivering the content. You don't necessarily have to be at the same physical location. I mention this, as more and more prisons are going to telepresense of inmates in courtrooms. Rather then bussing them from the prison to courthouse and back, just doing a video confernce via the courthouse and prison. No reason why the same underlying technologies can't be used to desiminate video interviews. Likewise, if you go to court, but forgot one of the videos or needed an additional one the digital form would allow you to retrieve it without leaving the courtroom.
Lastly, newer video codecs allow for compression much greater then MPEG-2 used on DVDs. This means that your archive could use less physical space to store more videos. I believe an additional Ask Slashdot coverd this a few days ago. This also helps protect you against technology obseletion. Rather then being stuck with 10,000 VHS tapes in 2015, just do a batch convert from format A to format B as needed, and then stream the resulting video to the courtroom.
Mike Scanlon
My mother is a lawyer (human rights) and is undergoing surger for breast cancer. Think before you sig.