Getting a Car Registation Number from CCTV

[belindasawyer]

I am trying to clear up the image of a vehicle caught on CCTV and get the registration number but no one seems to be able to help me? you can see some of the letters and almost make them out but apparently i need all the digits for the police to be able to help me? If anyone thinks they can help please e-mail me and i will send you the clip....it is only 1 minute long so it wont be too big i hope! Thanks!

[M Bruner]

I've seen this kind of post before. Unfortunately the answer is that the original video has all the information you are ever going to get. But a law enforcement officer who is a member here says to simply print out a frame and show it to your neighbors and see if they can identify the car. Good hunting, detective!

[Supreme2k]

Pretty much "what you see is what you get" in this case.

You are referring to the license plate number, not the registration.

[belindasawyer]

Ok thanks ... unfortunately printing out a frame to show my neighbours wont help as it happened at the garage at the Airport not my home but i will keep trying!

[Snakebyte1]

Its interesting to note how people in general get so worked up over "Big Brother" always watching them in public places, yet when you actually need the security video you can't see a damn thing. Its like on the news, they come on about a child abduction and show footage taken from a surveillance camera of the suspect, but you only see some human-shape-like blob... meanwhile the prev down the street has infra-red, 50X optical, High Def night-vision equipment that can tell what colour underwear you have on at 1 KM!

[JohnnyMalaria]

Pretty much "what you see is what you get" in this case.

You are referring to the license plate number, not the registration.

Depends where you live. In the UK, for example, the plate is indeed the registration. It is the number assigned to the vehicle when first registered for use on a public highway and has nothing to do with licensing. You can change it but few do. Generally, the car will have the same plate for its entire life irrespective of owner, changing state etc. In the US, though, the plate is a license. The UK equivalent is the tax disc that goes inside the lower passenger side of the windscreen. This has nothing to do with the similarly-located safety/emissions sticker in most US locales. The nearest UK equivalent for that is the MOT certificate which is usually in the form of a paper certificate much like the vehicle registration card. Which is the nearest thing in the US to the registration plate. SA is more aligned with UK.

No wonder culture shock exists

[stunner21]

Well depending on how clear your needing the image to be you might want to give Topaz Enhance a go. Its not specifically made for numberplate recognition but it does clean images up quite well & you may have some luck with it. Failing that if its a crime thats happened with your car you maybe able to get the police to try and enhance it as some departments have certain levels of video enhancement kit in their hands. Hope this helps you out mate.

[Supreme2k]

Depends where you live.

I think that we can all agree that it is a plate number. There are numbers and they are on a metal plate








wait...sometimes there are letters

[belindasawyer]

Ya ok i am from SA so it is a Number plate. i will try those 2 ideas and see if it helps! Thanks very much will let you know! i have attached the file for anyone who wants to try see if they can clear up the image! the vehicle is the white opel corsa 4 door which you see leaving the petrol station at 16:47:37

.exe]cam05[16_47_00-16_48_01].exe

[belindasawyer]

sorry that did not seem to work i dont think you will be able to open the file.

[Supreme2k]

this is probably the best that I can get:



Here's the video download link (3 megs, built-in player executable)

https://forum.videohelp.com/images/guides/p1984972/cam05[16_47_00-16_48_01].exe

[classfour]

If I had a jpg capture (i.e.media player classic, etc.) I might could do something with it - if the source has it in it. The photo in the previous message downloaded at 72 dpi - way too low for me to do any good. I could tell the center numbers are "735", that's about it.

[VegasBud]

belindasawyer,

Would it be possible to post the raw video instead of a "player included" exe? That would allow the use of "image stacking" to get a much more detailed still for the source image (to be further processed).

[jagabo]

Super resolution techniques can probably get that plate readable.

[955i]

Hi Belinda,

Apologies upfront for the lengthy reply.

On an assumption, I would say that you're probably the shop or petrol station owner at the Airport (in Cape Town area, South Africa) where the CCTV video was taken, and the Opel driver has departed after not paying for fuel or goods, maybe other fraud or similar, and you require the plate number in order to very least try have the police follow up. (FYI, I'm from Pietermaritzburg, South Africa - so obviously can recognise the plates and likely location (looks like CA cars parked at the pumps) - and possible scenario here).

Supreme2k and VegasBud who have posted here already have pretty much summarised the "reality" in this case. "What you see is what you get, WYSIWYG" - the resulting video from any source is only as good as the original capture quality / resolution - and unfortunately "normal" CCTV capture is usually done at relatively "low quality" (e.g. VCD type or lesser resolutions), and at larger frame intervals (which doesn't help in your case).

Bottom line is that CCTV in its normal form will only confirm that "the event occurred", and can't normally detail much more - such as a persons face or a plate number. You would need far higher resolution video to do this confidently, which is impractical when running say 8 or 10 cameras 24hrs for security purposes - and recording to a single HDD. I also assume that since your video clip is in *.exe form, that this is the output form that the CCTV software allows you to do - but this itself can certainly degrade the resolution / quality of the initial capture (file).

There are some software (programs) around that deal with picture enhancement or even number plate enhancement in particular, but these are still limited by the original file content, and only use "maths" to interpolate what "might be there". As wonderful as it seems, the stuff you see say on CSI series where the click of a button "turns a reflection in someone's sun glasses into a clearly detailed plate" is still fiction for us mortals (military etc. may be better - we won't know for years yet).

Unfortunately, with the video you've supplied in its current form, it's unlikely anyone is going to get anything more than a guess, even when using the enhancement software. To me the plate looks like ??? 505 or 565 EC (Eastern Cape), but this is my guess (as clear as mud ;-)).

Is this the only camera / angle that got a shot of the plate? What about other linked security cameras, or even an ATM nearby, or another camera system, e.g. Airport parking (with similar date, time). Tall shot, I know - but just maybe??!!

[stunner21]

Right ok I've taken the best frame available into photoshop and enhanced it as much as possible. By the looks of it the numberplate reads something like 1st 3 letters either FCB or FGB middle part either 503 or 505 (I'm leaning towards 505) & either 50 or 30 at the end. This could be complete bollocks as I'm just looking to the best of my ability, so I've attached the image for you to have a look yourself. I had to keep the image small to keep the original quality as high as possible. Either way hope this is of some help to you, if I have time I'll have another sit down with it & see if I can get any more from it.

cctv%20enhanced.tif

[brassplyer]

I'll have another sit down with it & see if I can get any more from it.

I don't know what your stake in this is and how much effort it's worth to you, but what about making several "test" plates - i.e. drawn on paper with the numbers and letters you narrowed them down to at the exact size and shape as they would appear on a license plate. Put them at the same position/distance as the plates in question and see how the various number and letters get distorted by the camera. I would guess they'd be distorted about the same way every time and that you'll get to where you can recognize what the distorted characters look like and recognize them more readily in the perp photos.