October 21, 2025
In the finale, video evidence analysis becomes presentation. With Amped FIVE, we redact what must stay hidden, sync media on a single timeline, add crisp annotations, and generate a protected, transparent, professional, and court-ready report.
We’re nearing the end of our full case workflow in Amped FIVE. If you haven’t read the first two parts of this story, then I highly recommend you read part one and part two.
To recap our case, we’re following a full FIVE workflow within a murder investigation using the following steps:
- Acquiring the video evidence, verification and creating the project
- File analysis, editing, adjustments and correcting issues
- Presentation elements, ready for court
I am the video analyst in this case and I’ve been provided with video from a body worn camera, a drone, a mobile phone, a dashcam and from CCTV outside an apartment building where the crime is said to have taken place.
I’ve already performed hashing, an initial review of the files to gain a brief understanding of what I’m working with, before conducting a file analysis stage. This also included preparing my files for this stage of my case, the presentation. I know my original video evidence files are preserved, but I want to tell a story with this case to present to the court, showing the movements of the suspect on the day. Not only that, but I’ll want to produce a report showing everything I’ve done, ready to disclose to both prosecution and defence, and maintain transparency in my work. OK, let’s get to work.
So we’re going to be going through the following steps in this post:
- Redaction
- Combining media and creating timelines
- Presentation elements
- Bookmarking
- Forensic reporting
Let’s kick things off with redaction first.
Redaction
One of my first concerns is that I know an undercover officer was utilized in the search for the suspect. There are operationally sensitive callsigns, moments in which we see the officer’s face and information present in the body worn camera footage that we don’t want broadcast in a public setting. My first port of call will be to redact the sensitive audio using Audio Redaction.
You can see the sections of the video here where I’ve redacted the audio and this is helpfully displayed on the footage itself. I’ve also used Annotate and Hide here to hide the portions of the video where the officer’s face is visible. We’ve already explained and addressed the strange discrepancy in the timestamp during our analysis of this file earlier on in this series, so this is my opportunity to remind you to first check out the previous posts if you haven’t already!
Combining Media and Creating Timelines
Another thing I want to do is link together the drone footage with the map image showing the GPS coordinates. I can do this using Video Mixer and here I’ve set the files to be shown vertically side-by-side.
A nice presentation feature, especially if you’re creative with maps and animations.
The next step is the biggest one at this stage: to create my timeline of all the footage together using Timeline. Just a reminder, when dealing with videos from different sources, you’ll need to use Convert Frame Rate to make sure they all have the same FPS. More on that in this Tip Tuesday post. I’ve already made sure all my files share the same frame rate and now, I’m just going to select the chains and filters I want, in the desired order.
The side buttons within the Filter Settings for Timeline such as Move Up/Move Down will help with moving videos around when you’re creating the sequence. I click Apply and FIVE will create a new output chain of all my video evidence in the order I wish.
Presentation Elements
Now we’ve got our sequence of events sorted, I can begin adding any presentation elements, if I need them.
I’m going to start by adding some annotations using Annotate.
You can see I’ve added some text and a logo here, just to make sure my evidence is identifiable straightaway and looks professional. I’ve also set these annotations for all frames so they appear throughout the file without interruption. If I had more than one suspect, I could also add shapes and track each subject. In this case, however, I’m happy with this output.
I’ll now write the video into a new file so I can make sure that file is ready for any annotations using Video Writer. This will just help me to keep track of what I’m working with. I’m only writing out the one video. However, if I had a number of videos I wanted to process I could use the new Writing Queue function. This would allow me to queue these tasks up whilst I continue working and then run the Writing Queue just before I leave for the day. Really worth checking that feature out if you haven’t already!
Bookmarking
I’ve now got my presentation timeline video sorted. There are a couple of final things I need to do before I generate my report – bookmarking is one of them. I want the report to show certain steps of my workflow, so by selecting these bookmarks, I’ll be able to demonstrate the elements I want to emphasize. You can do this throughout your case with each step if you prefer, but in this instance, I’m doing so towards the end of my workflow.
Forensic Reporting
Now all that’s left to do is use Generate Report to produce a protected PDF of my work documented by FIVE throughout this case. When I export my report now, not only do I see all my hashes, working and scientific references, but I also see all the bookmarks I selected earlier.
…And I’m done! My project and generated materials (video files and reports) can all be produced and retained as necessary. All I need to do is wait for a trial date to be set in order to present my evidence. I think it’s time for a coffee after all that first though…
Finally
We’ve reached the end of our case – our evidence has been verified, analyzed, edited and adjusted where necessary. Now, it is in a format that is ready for court presentation. Our entire workflow has also been documented using FIVE’s forensic reporting, complete with appropriate bookmarks to clarify my working processes. What I’ve demonstrated hopefully gives you an insight into the typical problems faced with different types of media and how to overcome or explain them. With a product like FIVE, I know everything I am doing is auditable, robust and will stand up to the scrutiny I may face in the upcoming trial for this case. My final task will be to retain what I need to in accordance with my organization’s data retention policy before making a well-deserved coffee!
Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed seeing how Amped FIVE can be a one-stop tool for the entirety of your case and whilst dealing with different sources of digital media evidence.
If you have any questions or want to discuss this or any other topic we’ve covered here in more detail, then our Support team is always here to help.