Discover how the latest Replay update helps you in your day-to-day work: more complete technical reports, safer bookmark exports, clearer encrypted-file warnings, support for four additional formats, and practical workflow refinements.
Hello, my dear colleagues and friends and welcome to a brand new release of Amped Replay, the forensic video player of choice for law enforcement officers and investigators! With this update we bring you significant improvements to report generation, including the addition of footnotes and agency logos. We have also added some functionality improvements and support for a new number of proprietary video formats. Stay right here to find out some more!
See the New Features in Action
Key Takeaways
- You can create more complete technical reports by adding your agency logo, case details, footnotes, and custom footer information.
- Replay now warns you when bookmarked frames fall outside the selected export range, minimizing the risk of sharing unintended material.
- Exported frame numbers are recorded in the report, even when you rename the image file.
- The update adds support for four new proprietary video formats, clearer export progress, interface improvements, and several stability fixes.
Report Generation Improvements
We have some great news for those of you who generate technical reports and viewing logs along with the evidence. You can now add footnotes as well as your own agency logo to the report, facilitating compliance with any document control guidelines that may be present in your workplace. These new features are all available in Program Options, where you will find a new Report tab. When you access this tab, you will immediately notice text boxes where you can type case information, but also the Left Footer and Right Footer fields. Here, you can add information such as the revision number of the document, exhibit reference, case reference/operation name or any other information you wish to add at the bottom of each page of the report.
You can also add the agency logo (in all the common image formats). Add the path in the Logo field or simply click on the Browse radio button and navigate to the image location in your hard drive. By ticking the “Automatically fill in the Case info panel with this data” box, the information will be replicated in the case info panel displayed in the Play tab.
Safer Exporting of Bookmarks
Setting a range of frames before exporting a video is a very effective way to reduce the amount of disclosed information and focus the viewer’s attention on what matters. However, it may happen that during the initial triage stage the user bookmarks some frames that end up outside the final selected range.
So what should happen if the user later decides to use the Export Bookmarks button?
Should Replay export only bookmarks included in the range, or those outside as well?
The most reasonable solution is to… ask them! Therefore, when exporting bookmarks outside a selected range, the user is now notified via a pop-up to prevent the disclosure of unwanted material.
Exported Frame Number
Another useful addition to the report in this new release of Replay is the exported frame number when selecting the “Export Current Image” in the Export tab. This could be extremely useful, especially when you choose to rename the exported file and remove reference to the exported frame number within the file name. The information will now still be available in the report and displayed in the Output file paragraph, as shown below.
Encrypted Video File Notifications
As we continue to improve format support across all products, we have started to add the ability to detect encryption when the user attempts to load or import an encrypted video file. At this stage, there are only a small amount of formats that get detected and it will only be possible to decode an even smaller number when the password is known. This will improve with future updates.
When dealing with encrypted files that cannot be decrypted, the user will be informed with a pop-up message so that he/she is aware that the issue is not due to the video codec or container used. This could be useful for troubleshooting or for implementing an appropriate acquisition strategy.
When dealing with a format that is indeed supported for decryption, the program will display the message shown below instead.
To decrypt the file, simply create a textual file with Notepad or similar, enter the password in the newly created text file and save it with a “.password” extension in the same folder as the encrypted video file, as shown below. Then, drop the video in Replay again and it will be decrypted, converted and loaded in the Play tab.
Formats
In this update, we have added support for 4 new formats!
Remember: if you find a video file we don’t fully support, then there is a good chance we have never seen it before! Hop over to the Amped Support Portal, upload it, and we will get on it. While doing that, make sure to provide as much information as possible about the DVR’s brand and model, and possibly provide the proprietary player if available.
Submitting new formats not only helps you out but the entire Amped community too. The best part? This is all included in an active Software and Maintenance Support plan. Learn here why it is important to keep your SMS up to date.
Other Improvements
We continue to improve performance and background functionality in every new release of Replay. This is what we have also updated:
- When exporting evidence, there will now be a percentage progress counter in the Processing dialog window.
- Magnify and Spotlight values are now shown in the slider tooltips.
Bugs
In this release, we have fixed a number of minor issues reported by our trusted users.
- Fixed a bug that caused Replay to become unresponsive when Assisted Redaction encountered an error. The user will now be notified that the processing has failed, but the program will remain responsive.
- Fixed an issue with Undo/Redo in the Annotate tab causing the Redo button to be disabled.
- Fixed a bug with padding when fitting size to text in the Annotate tab.
- Fixed an issue with annotation positioning when looping a video or a range of frames.
- Fixed an issue with the program not closing during the playback of a redacted video file.
- Fixed an issue with some video formats causing a number of extracted files not being stored in the cache folder as expected.
- Fixed a bug causing the program to crash to desktop when using Motion Detection in conjunction with the Light Filter.
The Final Word
Replay helps Police officers and detectives worldwide overcome the challenges of working with a limited set of tools. It protects them with the forensic rigor required in today’s legal environment and speeds up investigations.
Forensic video analysts and technicians have benefited from Amped FIVE for many years. It is now possible to perform the most basic enhancement tasks and annotate images and videos with Amped Replay, too. If you are lucky enough to have Replay on your desktop, then update today or email us.
Don’t Delay – Update Today
If you have an active support plan, you can update straight away by going into the menu About > Check for Updates within Replay. 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.
FAQ – Replay Update 41290
The update introduces more flexible report generation, safer bookmark exporting, encrypted video file notifications, support for four additional video formats, clearer export progress, interface improvements, and several bug fixes.
Yes. You can add your agency logo, case information and footnotes (left and right) from the new Report tab in Program Options.
When bookmarked frames fall outside your selected export range, Replay displays a warning so that you can export all bookmarks or only those inside the range. This helps you reduce the risk of disclosing material unintentionally.
Yes. When you use Export Current Image, the exported frame number is included in the technical report, even when you rename the output file.
Replay can now detect encrypted stream data for a limited amount of formats and warns you if encryption is the cause of the problem. It can also decode encrypted video data for a very small number of formats, when the password is known. Detection and decryption will improve with future updates.