Is It Possible To Brighten This Enough To See Faces ?

[NewTwoVideo]

Hello,

The attached video depicts a Homicide Victim and Two Persons of Interest for a murder committed in my community, February 2, 2018.

Is there any software that can brighten the video well enough to maybe see faces?

Thank you for any help you can offer.

[jagabo]

The problem isn't brightness. All detail in their faces has been eliminated by the compression.

[NewTwoVideo]

Thank you for the reply and for the information.

It is unfortunate. Hopefully the constabulary has another means of finding the perpetrators.

This wasn't my surveillance system, but when I choose one to install sometime in the near future, is there anyway for me to avoid the high compression that eliminates important details?

[redwudz]

A couple of comments:

Compression isn't usually the problem as many systems use H.264 compression or similar to save disc space.
However, higher resolution can help. 1080 X 1920 is fairly common now and can give more detail at distances.
Lower resolutions may also save disc space, but quality may suffer.

You can use a camera with higher light sensitivity, to gather more light and get a usable video in poorly lit areas.
I have used a camera for covert work with .0003 LUX sensitivity that can see by moonlight. But not cheap and can be blinded by bright lights.

Many surveillance cameras are in the 1 LUX sensitivity region. Fine in daylight, but not as useful in the dark.

Or you use a infared illuminator that works like a IR floodlight. The powerful ones are not cheap, but some can light a large area to 100 feet or more
and be mostly invisible to a perpetrator. Most consumer surveillance cameras with IR illuminators only work to about 30 feet.

And under IR light, video will be in black and white.

City streetlights are usually mercury vapor or HP sodium, neither put out much IR light, which cameras need to see in poorly lit areas..
Just because you can see doesn't mean the camera can. Florescent lamps also have very low IR output.

A IR illuminator can help. Or just a simple quartz iodine flood lamp, though that may be very noticeable to a perpetrator.

If you have a specific need to get higher quality video in low light situations, do some research.
One company I've used in the past is Supercircuits, but there are many others with quality cameras.

[jagabo]

Here's a sample with a big contrast stretch. Other frames look similar. If this had been uncompressed, or much less compressed video, you would have been able to get more real detail.



Is this the original video? Or has it been reencoded. If the latter, you might be able to get more detail out of the original.

[NewTwoVideo]

Thanks redwudz and jagabo.

I do not know if it is the original, but I do not think so since there appears to be a cursor that darts across the field of view at one point.

I forwarded jagabo's original comments to the person who sent it to me and they said that they were hoping that someone would recognize the clothes and the manner of walk of the persons in the video and perhaps remember seeing them somewhere else where there might be better video or an eyewitness who could make an identification through other means.

jagabo, the contrast stretched frame is very interesting. Unfortunate that the source is not more usable. Thank you for trying.