Monthly Archives: August 2015

Increase Your Productivity with Amped FIVE

A big emphasis when designing Amped FIVE is productivity, however this is not usually what initially attracts people to the software. Most user feedback suggests that it’s the impressive samples of different enhancement filters.

After analyzing video for some time, you get acutely aware that in many cases, the quality of the video to analyze is simply not sufficient to get any of those amazing results seen in the samples. We have all been asked to get the licence plate from three white pixels or a face from a single macroblock.

It’s no surprise then that FIVE users report that it’s the speed and ease with which you can do routine tasks that makes FIVE their software of choice. FIVE makes easy tasks easy and difficult tasks, well, easy too. From converting a proprietary video file, to selecting a few frames, to add a time-stamp, to deblur a frame, applying super-resolution or apply a spotlight effect on a moving subject. And then, after the work has been completed, the reporting stage.

No need to hope that I have taken screenshots of all my software parameters and settings. With FIVE its just 2 clicks away. This means, without any exaggeration (many of our users prove it-Testimonials), that tasks which normally could take one or more days, can be done in a few hours.

There are many different tasks that an analyst or investigator may have to complete when dealing with a piece of video evidence. Ensuring that they can all be completed without unnecessary delay or technical challenges is one of FIVE’s many advantages. In this post I show a practical example of this.

The old way versus the new way

Some of you may remember a post on spreadys.com a number of years ago, explaining some of the challenges with Samsung AVI and SMI Files.

https://spreadys.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/samsung-mpeg4-avi-smi-files/

You will see that I had to utilize a number of different pieces of software as I was met with a number of different challenges. All of this takes time, and time is something we are all rather short of!

Amped FIVE not only makes it quicker, but it keeps everything contained and the best part is that, when it comes to reporting what you have done, its just a few clicks of the mouse.

This was highlighted to me this week with a new case, but with the same Samsung AVI and SMI Format.

Image 001

Cat or Duck? Authenticity versus Interpretation

The human visual system is highly complex. Linked with our memories, our brains are then able to quickly interpret shapes, objects and people that other people without the added bias of memory would not. That’s how people recognize others in poor CCTV. It’s that unique knowledge of a person or object that helps in the recognition intelligence.

Our minds can also interpret information differently, not only through experiences but also our emotions.

What do you see below?

illusion

Most of you would have probably seen this image before, but can you remember back to when you saw it first? Did you see the old lady or the young one? Is it an ear or an eye? People can interpret the image differently.

How about this?

cat

OK, it’s not a trick question! But you all said “a cat”, right? Correct!

The point of all this is that our minds are using half a black and white shape to tell us that it’s a cat.

From there we have 2 possible options… the first is that it is actually a cat. The second is that it is a single or series of shapes or objects positioned in a way that we interpret those objects as one, and we only perceive it to be a cat.

This was the predicament that photographer, David Burr, found himself in during the evening of 7th June 2014.

David had been at Bewl Water in Kent, UK, photographing the sunset across the lake. After returning home and examining his images, he had a choice to make – was he looking at a big cat, or was he interpreting another object to be a big cat moving across the lake behind the ducks?

Feline or Bird

Continue reading →

Amped FIVE Update: The Video Mixer Filter

A few days ago I presented the new Interleave filter available in the latest version of Amped FIVE. But this time I am going to announce a new whole filter category! I’m pretty excited about it as it opens up a host of new opportunities.

The new category is called LINK, with the first filter introduced being, VIDEO MIXER…

The filter help, at the bottom of the Filter list, gives us some clue as to its usage, “Connects and mixes different source filters”.Filter

Before we dive too deep, let’s take a look at its basic functionality.

Filter-settings-full Continue reading →

Amped FIVE Update: The Interleave Filter

Today we have just released a new version of Amped FIVE.  There are a couple of really cool new filters in this release. The first one I’m going to look at is “Interleave”.

It can be found under the Edit selection of filters and appears before Deinterlace.

menu

The Interleave Filter location: Edit > Interleave

Before we get into interleaving, let’s just refresh our knowledge a little…

An analogue video signal is constructed with horizontal scan lines. For PAL, it has 625 lines. When the camera constructs the picture, it doesn’t start at 1, and then go consecutively down to 625. It creates 1 image with just the odd numbered lines, 1,3,5 and so on and then the next image with the even numbered lines, 2,4,6 etc etc.

Each image of either odd or even lines is referred to as a field, with each field only having half the vertical resolution of the full frame. The video is interlaced.

As each field is taken at a different moment in time, if the camera or object in the frame is moving, the differences in the scan lines can be seen if the image is paused. These jagged edges are often referred to as interlacing artefacts. Continue reading →