We just released an update of Amped FIVE with annotations and frame rate adjustments. You can review below all the new tools.
Add Shape
With the new filter Presentation > Add Shape you can add ellipses, rectangles, lines and arrows to highlight parts of interest in the image.
For example, in the picture below we added an arrow to indicate the guy entering the door.
And then added another instance of Add Shape to draw a circle around the other guy.
Note that all these shapes can be used to dynamically track a moving subject in a video just with a few mouse clicks, as can be done with filters such as Hide Selection and Spotlight and any other local filter in FIVE.
Add Text
The other new addition is the Presentation > Add Text filter. This is not only a simple text overlay, but it has an integrated macro system that allows you to automatically add to the picture a lot of information. In the example below you can see that the filename and file resolution has been automatically rendered on the picture, the same can be done with frame number and a bunch of other features.
Change Frame Rate
Sometimes it may happen that a video has a wrong frame rate set, either because of a problematic codec or a wrong capture. With the new filter Presentation > Change Frame Rate , the frame rate can be adjusted as needed, either from a set of standard values or by user submitted input.
Correct Aspect Ratio
A common issue with CCTV video, especially when converted from proprietary DVR formats, is to have an improper aspect ratio. This is usually due to an interlaced source, where frames appear stretched and with half the height of a proper one. While the layman approach is just to resize the picture doubling the height, this process in not very correct because, in general, this process will cause a resampling of ALL the pixels. With the Edit > Correct Aspect Ratio filter, the original rows of the image will be left untouched as original, and ONLY the missing rows needed to restore the full size will be calculated with one of the chosen algorithms.
This is the original video, you can easily see that the aspect ratio of the image is wrong.
This is the result obtained with the filter Resize: while it looks pretty ok, it is not the correct way to proceed.
And this is the result with the Correct Aspect Ratio filter.
As you can see the results you can get with the Resize filter are very similar, but the process is not correct. This is what must distinguish a professional from an amateur: not working only on an image which looks good, but try as much as possible to use the proper methodologies and techniques. These are not just “photos”, these are evidence.
The result of the Correct Aspect Ratio filter could also be achieved with the Deinterlace filter with the proper settings, but having it as a separate tool makes its usage and explanation more straightforward.
Remove Duplicates
The last major improvement regards the filter Select Frames > Remove Duplicates.
After removing the duplicates it may be necessary to adjust the frame rate to compensate the timing of the removed frames. Now this can be done, either automatically or manually, directly in the Remove Duplicates filter.
The Bottom Line
As usual we strived to bring you a lot of new tools to work faster, more efficiently and more scientifically on your cases. But remember that in order to download the latest releases your support plan must be active: this will entitle you to all major and minor updates. If your support has expired contact us to renew it!
