StressedDave wrote:jont wrote:Stephen wrote:I use my own dash cam in it and wouldnt be without it as there is no better evidence than seeing it on film you cant argue with it as it is untainted cant lie as it happens,
Rubbish. Footage can be edited, manipulated etc etc.
And isn't acceptable unless it is provided directly to the Police so that it's retention and storage is in accordance with the appropriate protocol - which is a bugger as you'll lose your memory card until the trial as you can't store it on WORM media such as DVD+/-R in its original form.
Don't get me started on the Home Office protocol - it's perfectly written, but a bugger to implement in software. I'm still bitter about the experience 12 years on.
Hmmm , perhaps you have a different interpretation of the law where you are ?
When we ( fire service ) moved to digital photography and videography for evidence gathering , must by now be getting on for 10 years ago , we spoke to the procurator fiscal , our counterparts in the police , our own legal team and a few others to determine best practice .
We had previously shot everything on film or analogue video tape and still have a large room full of metal cabinets containing archived negatives and video tapes ; at the time memory cards were expensive and it was going to be impractical to purchase a new one for every job . With video , we moved to MiniDV format and still retained the original tape from each job . In the case of photography , it was agreed we should shoot in RAW format , and that , on return from a job , these files would be transferred to our secure server system ( which backs up nightly to a remote location ) , after which cards could be formatted and reused . Processing of the RAW images , to enhance detail in dark areas or 'blow up' a small section of an image , is permitted as long as the original unaltered image is available for comparison , and images can be converted to JPEG format or printed for use in court . Just as in over 10 years of doing this I had never been asked to produce negatives , I have never been asked to produce RAW files either .
I have also shot video at scenes , and archive the original tapes , but the courts have always been content with a transfer to DVD video format , with a covering note that this is an unedited transcript of the original recording ; I see no reason why this should not be the case also with dash cam footage ( most dash cams record in either Quicktime Movie ( .mov ) format , or AVI format , although if a consumer camcorder is used it might be AVC or AVCHD format , but again there is no reason the original file cannot be transferred to an optical disc in its original data format ( other than that the file size might exceed the capacity of the optical disc in the case that an entire card might need to be retained to show the events leading up to an incident rather than just the incident itself , in which case yes the memory card might need to be retained , but this is unusual to the point that I have never heard of it happening ) . We now have a number of card based or optical disc based camcorders ( Sony XDCAM ) and the data from these devices are treated in exactly the same way as that from digital still cameras .
In the case of a private individual offering footage from a dash cam , giving up a card isn't that big a deal ( high capacity cards can now be bought for £10 or £15 ) , but if I were volunteering something it would be a transcript ( to which I would be prepared to speak in court ) and it would be likely that the original card had been overwritten by then ( I just use a 16Gb card in my GoPro which overwrites every couple of hours ) .
While I have a GoPro which records in loop mode , it is only for my own protection in the event of my being involved in an incident , and I have never posted anything from it on YouTube nor had any need to make use of it ( I bought the camera to use for other purposes and it resides in the car when not being used elsewhere ) .