[mythtv-users] DVR Capability

Nick Rout nick.rout at gmail.com
Tue Aug 26 01:13:13 UTC 2008


On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 5:20 AM, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 23, 2008 at 10:43:54AM +1000, Owen Townend wrote:
> > It is sufficient that an officer takes the stand and _swears_ that
> > something was said/done.
> >
> > If this is the case then the timestamps and chain of custody type
> > issues become moot as only the people in the room during the interview
> > will be actually testifying as to the events.
> >
> > So... either you need something certified and locked down (which myth
> > will not be) or you need something 'good enough' which is a niche myth
> > may fill, though I think Zone Minder (as suggested earlier by Jay) may
> > be better here. Myth is not good at arbitrary start/stop recording, it
> > follows program guides to record a show.
>
> Indeed.  Still photography, in particular, is admitted to evidence
> because the photographer is sworn and testifies that the picture
> accurately represents the scene he viewed, and that he can certify
> chain of evidence over the processing of the image.
>
> A similar chain would, I presume, be constructed for this sort of
> thing: an affiant performed the recording, burned the DVD, and checked
> it to make sure it was accurate, and then signed and dated the disk,
> and committed it to chain of evidence.


My experience of this type of "planned" recording is that it is often done
(in New Zealand) in  a police station as part of interviewing a suspect. It
was introduced (on VHS) some years ago to deal with the often made
allegation of police pressure, police making up a confession, police
brutality etc. Take a video and everyone can see what happened. The VHS
tapes are a right PITA becasue as a defence lawyer I don't have a VHS player
any more. The NZ police are just moving to DVD now, and I got my first
suspect interview on DVD last week, at which point I realised that all the
computers that have DVD drives in the office don't have speakers or are too
public (risk of other clients walking past etc).

I am not sure how the technology works, whether the recording is straight to
DVD or whether it goes to hard drive and is then written at the end of the
session.

Anyway the risk of tampering is fairly minimal. One day some suspect is
going to tell me the bit where he was beaten up or offered immunity has been
omitted, and I'll have to go into a trance about the process and how to get
any original material and/or get evidence about the technical process.

These things are admissable in court becasue the officer who did the
interview says he was there, pressed the buttons and the VHS/DVD is an
accurate record of what happened. He secured it after the session and only
got it out to copy it for defence counsel and to bring to court today your
honour.

The other category of recording is the security cameras present in many
bars, shops or public areas. These often have arcane and proprietary
computerised backends and require proprietary software to view the video. I
am waiting for the right case to get one of these thrown out.

Actually getting one of these admitted into evidence if the defence objected
could prove tricky. Presumably you have to ultimately call some expert to
attest that the software creates an accurate representation of what happened
at the time, that it can't be tampered with etc. How they do that without
access to the source I don't know.

Getting OT now though.
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