Making the Picture any clearer

[JamieLee2k]

I know this question is going to result in the answer I ain't looking for but I am hoping someone might be able to help me.

On the 2/11/2004 I had my brakes taken apart by someone at my work, and we have it on camera, the problem is, it's kinda blocky and I wondered if there was any way of making the picture any clearer, it's in an .AVI format and wondered if anyone had any help here.

The footage is 27 seconds and is 52.9mb long.

[jimmalenko]

Without knowing what we are dealing with, it is kinda difficult to give you any solid leads.

Can you download GSpot, load your file into it and post a screenshot of what it tells you here ? Maybe a couple of frame stills from the AVI also ?

[gll99]

A suggestion:
Best bet is to go back to the source. Is it analogue or digital video and how did you transfer it to avi? Does the original camera footage look clear?
There is no sense trying to clean up the existing avi if the transfer process is flawed. So you may want to discuss that first, ie...what codec, resolution capture method etc... did you use?

[FulciLives]

I hope people don't believe Sci-Fi movies and TV shows (like STAR TREK or CSI etc.) where they zoom in on part of an image and then make it crystal clear.

The kewlest but worst example of what cannot ever be done is the picture manipulation done in BLADERUNNER.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[guns1inger]

You need to be careful how much you tamper with the footage, and in what way, otherwise you may render it useless as evidence in a court case. If you intend to use it this way, I would have a specialist forensics firm do the work for you.

If you just want to play around, there is a deblocking filter for virtualdub here http://compression.ru/video/deblocking/index_en.html

But as Mr. Fulci quite rightly points out, don't expect miracles.

[krg765]

There are programs that will make use of a process called "frame averaging" where it takes several similar frames and sort of melds them together making the image clearer and bringing out details that were not visible in any of the individual frames. I've found scars on suspects' faces and read tatoos that were not clearly visible on any individual frame after processing the video. It uses some crazy math with motion velocity that I don't really understand, but it is very cool and works well. The program that I'm familiar with is Cognitech's Video Investigator. I'd be happy to do it for you, but I can't really use the department's resources for anything other than local police work. You might try your local department to see if they have these capabilities. I don't know if they'll touch it though, especially if it's a civil matter.

Good luck,

Kyle

[zzyzzx]

Lookup a thread a few years ago about someone who had a friend whose porn VCD's came out blocky.