Discovery │ Enhancement │ Authentication
Satyavakta Solutions
Specialized Digital Image & Video Forensic Services
Today, most investigations involve the use of, and dependence on, digital photographic or video evidence in some capacity. And while it is influential in nature and directly impacts investigations and trials, such evidence is not always easy to make sense of — or even factual.
Services
At Satyavakta Solutions, we understand the power and importance of digital visual evidence. And we want to help you make the most of it.
Be it a visually-degraded image that defies attempts to extract vital information or a crucial footage suspected of tampering, our specialized solutions have got you covered.
Our solutions help eliminate distortions to reveal otherwise obscure facts, discover and analyze inconsistencies, and verify integrity and authenticity of the data so that you can be confident of its ability to serve as evidence.
Keep scrolling to peruse through our services catalogue or use the services menu to learn more about a specific service.
Visual Content Enhancement and Clarification
Visual evidence is only as useful as the quality of the information it provides, and more often than not, quality of the acquired data leaves much to be desired.
Maybe there’s too much noise in the data, or it’s too dark to see. Maybe the license plate is too hard to read because of poor lighting conditions or the distance between the camera and the vehicle. Perhaps the video is too shaky or important details are blurry.
There’s a lot that can compromise the quality of photographic or video evidence, thereby keeping it from conveying critical facts.
And although you might not always be able to control how the camera records, we at Satyavakta Solutions can do a lot about the quality and usability of the final recording.
With some carefully targeted adjustments and clarifications, digital images and videos can be enhanced to reveal much more than what’s readily apparent, all the while ensuring that no vital piece of information – however slight – gets altered during the process. So the integrity of the data is maintained at all times.
Video Stabilization
Videos captured using hand-held cameras or those recorded by dash cams tend to exhibit extreme jitter or shakiness, which not only impacts general viewability of the footage but also makes object identification and recognition nearly impossible.
Stabilization can make a substantial difference by not only allowing the footage to depict its contents more clearly but by also making it amenable to further high-level processing operations, such as object detection and integrity verification.
Motion-Blur Removal
Moving vehicles caught on camera often appear blurred, a phenomenon commonly referred to as Motion Blur; it can impede the detection and identification process.
Our deblurring tools can help remove this visual streaking and smearing, and make it possible to extract useful license plate information and other important details from affected images and videos.
Metadata Analysis
Often described as data about data, metadata is the data and information that is part of or is attached to a digital image and video file that allows forensic analysts to understand its history, including when the file was created, modified and accessed, among other information that can be used to describe important file properties.
These unique identifying markers, when examined methodically, can provide a wealth of information – even critical evidence – to help prove or disprove the matter at hand.
Where to find metadata
While some metadata is visible (for instance, when we right-click on a file and see some general information such as the file type, size, and when it was created), other more significant metadata is hidden and requires specialized tools for retrieval and analysis.
Information such as date/time when the image or video file was written, created, modified, last used, and even the longitude and latitude of the geographical location from where the file originated as well as the information about the camera used is often valuable to a case but mostly remains inaccessible.
Specialized examinations can often bring these small but important details to light.
What it all means
Even the most basic metadata is prone to misinterpretations and misunderstandings.
What does it mean when a file has a ‘last written’ date of yesterday but a ‘creation date’ of today?
Metadata can even be altered, and is therefore most meaningful when subjected to methodical and all-inclusive inferences.
And as with all evidence, it’s not only what’s there that matters but also what isn’t. Metadata inconsistencies are symptomatic of bigger issues and must be scrutinized.
At Satyavakta Solutions, we help do all that and more.
License Plate Detection
One of the significant challenges associated with surveillance footage analysis is automatic license plate detection, which is often antecedent to other more direct investigative operations, such as identifying vehicles of interest at a certain location in a given time frame or establishing the presence or absence of certain vehicle at an event of interest.
When it comes to successful license plate detection and identification in large volumes of recorded data, our primary concerns are accuracy and reliability, and we ensure not only that but also speedy results by employing the most effective state-of-the-art license plate detection algorithms.
Effective license plate detection in low-quality dash cam video
Automatic Object Detection
Another significant investigative challenge is object detection, i.e., recognition and cataloguing of every object seen in every frame of the video at hand, which further facilitates sifting through weeks’ worth of footage to isolate content of interest based on the specifics of the case.
In large volumes of recorded data, this becomes tedious.
With accuracy and speed being the priority, we automate detection and tracking, saving valuable time in the process.
Source Authentication
Sometimes, it is the source of the image or video evidence that is in question.
Was it recorded by the camera it is said to have been recorded with?
Do all frames of the video originate from the same device?
Since unverifiable sources seem inherently unreliable, verifying the source of the data through the process referred to as Source Authentication or Source Camera Identification becomes important for establishing provenance.
Tamper Detection
One of the most prominent weaknesses of digital data is its innate susceptibility to alterations, and with advanced video processing technology becoming more and more accessible, the process of digital image/video manipulation is now easier than ever – and even novice-friendly.
In addition to removing objects or manipulating frame sequences, artificial intelligence now enables creation of entirely fake content, commonly referred to as deepfake videos or simply deepfakes.
Considering the highly influential nature of image/video evidence and the scope of its utility, it becomes critical that its integrity be verified – both exhaustively and conclusively.
Forensic Reports
Any and all forensic examinations performed on the given data, along with the results thereof and any pertinent expert opinions formulated therefrom, are handed over to the client in the form of a detailed forensic report.
These reports, which can be used for purposes such as affidavits, proof of what was found or not found, and billing, are proprietary and confidential.