Amped Authenticate Update 34382: Range-based Processing for Video Mode, Updated Social Media Identification Filter, and More!

Table of Contents

Reading time: 6 min

In this update, we’re introducing range-based processing in Authenticate Video Mode and frame overlays in VPF Analysis. We’ve also enhanced our Social Media Identification filter by adding LinkedIn support. Plus, we’ve made numerous other improvements and bug fixes to streamline your workflow and boost efficiency.

amped authenticate update: range-based processing, updated social media identification filter

Dear friends, welcome to yet another update for Amped Authenticate! In this version, we’re bringing an important improvement to the Video Mode: the ability to perform range-based processing by selecting and analyzing only a specific range of frames. Additionally, we have updated and improved the Social Media Identification filter in the Image Mode, adding LinkedIn to it. Keep reading to find out more!

See the New Features in Action

Range-based Processing in the Video Mode

Authenticate’s Video Mode is the home for video integrity and authenticity verification tools. While most filters are very fast, a few may take longer to process, particularly for lengthy, high-resolution videos.

In some cases, only a portion of the footage requires inspection. Our users requested the ability to limit analysis to these segments through range-based processing. We found this request to be totally reasonable, and we have implemented it for you all!

Selecting and Cancelling a Range

In Authenticate’s Video Mode, the player now features two new buttons. The leftmost button lets you set the start of the range, while the rightmost button allows you to set the end. The central button clears the current range selection (it will not remove any frames, of course, only the selection).

range-based processing in video mode

Visualizing the Current Range Selection

You’ll see that the currently selected range is displayed as a blue bar in the player panel, with the initial and final frames shown near their respective buttons. Moreover, when you navigate through filters when a range is defined, you’ll be notified that some of the processing will be limited to that range.

range-based processing

How Frame Selection Affects Range-based Processing

Not all filter actions are affected by range selection. For example, let’s select a range of frames and then move to the Block Difference filter. As you can see, if you move across frames, you’ll still see the filter output for each frame in the Viewer panel, regardless of whether it’s in the range. However, the two actions that normally apply to the entire video (Generate Plot and Export Processed Video) will only consider the selected range, as indicated next to them.

Bookmarking and Reporting of Ranges

When you bookmark a filter whose results were computed on a range, this will be reflected in the bookmark’s name.

And, of course, range selection is also documented in the report:

Social Media Identification: Added LinkedIn and Updated Signatures

The Social Media Identification filter allows you to compare an image with a dataset of reference files downloaded from several social media platforms (SMPs). Of course, the filter does not compare the image content but some properties such as resolution, quantization tables, presence and amount of metadata, etc. You can find more details in the program manual and the scientific paper describing the implemented method.

With this update, we’re bringing two improvements to the filter:

  • We’ve added LinkedIn to the set of SMPs known to the filter;
  • We’ve refreshed the database for the following SMPs: Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Telegram.

Overall, we added 1136 new reference files to the dataset, obtained in various ways (uploading through an Android or iPhone app, using the in-app camera feature, picking an image from the gallery, or downloading from the app or a browser).

Properties of LinkedIn Files

It’s important to note that, images downloaded from LinkedIn, often match against images from other social media platforms as well, as shown below. This is expected since LinkedIn uses a fairly standard way to compress and store images, which makes the signature not very unique to that platform. However, LinkedIn name files follow a regular pattern, which will be detected by the filter, reducing the ambiguity, as you can read in the Optional Message row. This highlights the importance of not renaming evidence files, as the name of a file can also provide some clues about its history.

Adding Your Own Reference Files or SMP to the Filter

As a final note, please remember that the Social Media Identification filter is reference-based and may occasionally return false negatives (meaning that a file coming from social media is not detected as such). If you encounter this, please let us know via our contact page. Remember that you can add that file to your local reference dataset using the button at the top of the filter.

Moreover, the Batch Add Signature From Path button allows you to easily add an entirely new social media platform to the filter! Simply place all the reference files you have into a folder, then use this button to point to the folder and specify the social media name.

VPF: Added Frame Overlay

The Variation of Prediction Footprint (VPF) analysis is used to detect whether a video has been compressed twice. In general, we expect an original video to be compressed only once, during capturing time. Additional compressions, unless documented and motivated, cast doubts on the integrity and reliability of the file.

Until now, the VPF filter found in Authenticate’s Video Mode showed a plot with several series, including the VPF signal. With this update, we have added an overlay in the Viewer panel, allowing you to see which macroblocks are contributing to the computation of the VPF. Although you will find some similarities with the output of the Macroblocks filter, you’ll also notice that the overlays are not identical. This is because the VPF does not consider all possible macroblock types. More details are given in the program manual and the scientific paper presenting VPF analysis.

You can still turn the overlay off by clicking on the dedicated checkbox in the Filter Parameters panel.

Other Improvements

We’ve made a lot of smaller improvements to Authenticate! Here’s a list of the main ones:

  • Changed the color and extension of the frame position marker in the plot to improve its visibility.
  • Added support for the AVIF image file format.
  • Restored the ability to customize the columns to be shown in tables by right-clicking on the table’s header.
  • Image Mode – DCT Map: restored the ability to process non-JPEG files.
  • Image Mode – Diffusion Model Deepfake: improved support for Korean filenames.
  • Image Mode – Smart Report: elements are now numbered starting from 1 instead of 0 (sorry for computer geeks).
  • Image Mode: improved support for HEIC images in portrait mode.
  • Video Mode – Motion Vector: fixed a plot alignment issue.
  • Video Mode – Macroblocks: make the Show Subdivision feature work even when no other parameters are set.
  • Video Mode – Macroblocks: show the selected analysis mode in the default bookmark’s filename.

Bugfixes

We’re always grateful to users who report issues and bugs in the software. With this update, we’re implementing the following fixes:

  • Image Mode: fixed a bug that caused Visual Inspection output to be cached even when the cache was disabled.
  • Image Mode: fixed a bug that prevented the filter name from being displayed in bold font when a cached result was available for all its configurations.
  • Video Mode: fixed a bug that caused filters not to run after aborting a previous processing.

Don’t Delay – Update Today

If you have an active support plan, you can update straight away by going into the menu Help>Check for Updates Online within Amped Authenticate. If you need to renew your SMS plan, please contact us or one of our authorized distributors. And remember that you can always manage your license and requests from the Amped Support portal.

Table of Contents

Share on

Subscribe to our Blog

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Subscribe to our Blog

Related posts

Amped Engine Updates

Amped DVRConv and Engine Update 35082

Reading time: 2 min The newest version addresses a video library update, support for new formats and variants as well as improved overall stability. Don’t wait, update today!

Read More »