Enhancing a still from video

[JVRaines]

Aren't you just able to say "Computer, enhance" and a little square pops up and makes the numbers clear as day? That's how they do it in the movies.

From what I see, the more you try to sharpen, the more abstract the image becomes. I think the best machine for this job is the brain working with the motion video. I would have as many people look at it as possible and take the modal result.

[jagabo]

I think the best machine for this job is the brain working with the motion video.

That's the way I approached it earlier with my partially motion stabilized version. I would scroll back and forth and watch the numbers. Letting my eyeballs do the averaging.

[budwzr]

Does this help?

[themaster1]

Got too much free time budweiser, nice attempt to fool us though

[budwzr]

Got too much free time budweiser, nice attempt to fool us though

I know I got a bunch of 'em, hehehe.

[dkavchak]

I have the same issue with my license plate videos. I tried various tools discussed in this thread. Not much luck. Also tried stacking multiple frames of cropped license plate in photoshop and using Mean, Variance etc, but did not get much improvement either. Please see attachments for the original videos of thiefs on 2 separate occasions. Many thanks for any information.

[JVRaines]

The rightmost characters look like "44" or "A4".

[Alex13254]

Can someone help me with this guys plates?
i have tried everything. its almost clear to see but its not... please help =/

[jagabo]

Not without a sample of the original video.

[Alex13254]

I uploaded it to YouTube. I tried posting origional video but it's wrong format. Suggestions? Or is youtube ok?

[jagabo]

Youtube reencodes the video losing even more detail. You can upload up to 500 MB directly to this site, and delete it later if necessary. Or you can extract a short segment. What tool you use will depend on what container and codecs the source is.

[Alex13254]

ok so heres the video. The scenario is he ran a stop sign and scratched the front of my car and was talking sh*t trying to fight me with my pregnant wife in the car.
https://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=37718&stc=1&d=1468033795

[jagabo]

I couldn't really get anything more readable. I tried averaging frames together, contrast enhancements, different scaling and sharpening algorithms, and combinations of all of them.

The video looks like it's been deinterlaced, losing half the vertical resolution. Is that really the source?

[Alex13254]

Yea that's straight off the SD card.. it's supposed to be a 720p dash cam. Well thanks for trying. I have no idea where to begin on finding the plate info.

[Alex13254]

it looks like its 1320174 but its not. thats as close as i can get. did you get any numbers or letters? i cant even tell what kind of truck that is.

[jagabo]

Maybe 1325174.

[poisondeathray]

i cant even tell what kind of truck that is.

It's a white dodge pickup (ram ?) model maybe ~ 1990's +/- a few years.

Dodge is written in the front grille in your video, when he's making the left turn at the stop sign

Similar to this model, but the yellow lights are different
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3MqgvnxvNI

Search google images for specific model years

[Alex13254]

When I typed in 1325174 it came up as a Ford f350. I also think it's a dodge because of the grill and the writing in the front

[poisondeathray]

Is the timestamp correct in your video, or were you just lazy and forget to set it?

If it's not correct and the video was actually more recent - that has legal implications on your situation even if you could identify the plate clearly

[Alex13254]

It actually happened yesterday. The time resets every time I get in my car

[Alex13254]

I don't want to go to the police yet because I don't want them to say like that have before "there's nothing we can do." So I'm trying to get as much info as I can.

[Yoyi]

Hi Can someone help me too, hit and run, this is the video from my camera but i can't see the license plate! I also attached the video

[usually_quiet]

I'm sorry to say this, but based on past experience with similar posts here, the picture and video you provided are not remotely close to having enough detail available to recover any useful information from the license plate.

[Oto]

[Attachment 42798 - Click to enlarge]

Can someone help me with this guys plates?
i have tried everything. its almost clear to see but its not... please help =/

My best results using super-resolution stacking. Looks more like 1A251T6

[arsenal2]

Hi, I see some of you tried to help in cases similar to mine... Someone scratched my car and I found a video from a nearby building but don't know who it is. If anyone could clear it even a little bit it would be great (I found a same car in the same street and have his license plate but I would need the plate from the video to match him). I tried some programs but as I haven't done any video edditing ever I couldn't even load it up. My car is the black one and the one that hit me is goldish. Thanks in advance

[johnmeyer]

You can zoom in using VLC. There is nothing there to enhance, as you can see.

Impossible.

[arsenal2]

He gets a little closer after that (to the camera) but I guessed there won't be anything anyone can do, thanks anyway

[johnmeyer]

It is too far away, and the plate is completely overexposed. Either one would kill any chances to retrieve something (especially the over-exposure, which can never, ever be corrected), but together they make it a complete impossibility.

Everyone is buying Nest, Ring, & Arlo security cameras, all of which are nifty technology, but as this (and dozens of other videos) show, 99% of what they record is actually quite useless when it comes to catching the perp.

[arsenal2]

Thanks for taking a look, cheers