After viral video of ‘police violence’, cops defensive
The Chennai city police have been on the defensive after a series of raw video footage, presumably recorded on mobile phones by residents, and showing policemen engaging in arson has been spreading on social media.
By : migrator
Update: 2017-01-25 04:51 GMT
Chennai
The police drew flak and yet, the City Commissioner of Police, without a proper validation from his cyber forensic experts, claimed they were ‘morphed videos’ and said the Central Crime Branch (CCB) would soon be launching an investigation.
Cyber experts have opined that no ordinary person can create a morphed video from an original by just watching the clipping. They also point out that though morphing can be done in seconds using high-tech software available on mobile platforms, it would be nearly impossible to morph different angles of a single incident. A number of videos released about a single incident, all recorded from different angles, where a policeman is seen torching an autorickshaw. Similarly, videos of policemen vandalising public property and damaging parked two-wheelers emerged.
“The cyber forensic tools are used to decode the visuals and experts can tell you whether the visuals were morphed or not. We need a minimum of two hours to decode a minute-long video and the duration of examination depends on the format of the video,” N Karthikeyan, a cyber expert told DTNext.
A section of senior police officials, who believe that most of the visuals were original, want an investigation. “We should investigate the matter first and identify the policemen who were shown in the visuals. This is as important as identifying the anti-socials who targeted police and public property. The city police has lost its credibility after the emergence of these visuals,” another senior police official said.
As the City Commissioner of Police has brushed aside these visuals as morphed, no action has been taken on the policemen seen damaging public property. “The junior policemen were disappointed at the way the seniors handled the issue. We were asked to meet the protesters even without a baton at Marina and had to face the angry protesters at Triplicane without any protection. None of the senior police officials, except for a deputy commissioner, were on the field,” a policeman who was involved in the action, said.
Special effects, but by whom?
There is an argument that the videos could be doctored but experts say it is not possible mainly because there are two clippings from different angles of the same event — where a cop sets an autorickshaw on fire. Prathap R., a VFX expert says,” If you are using VFX, it’s very difficult to get the exact angle of the subject from how the scene is shot ; also its difficult to match the camera shakes and zooms to the object that is placed in the frame by the use of VFX. Then there’s the problem of lighting and movement of the subject. Even professional studios do not get it right all the time.”
Ganesh Vinayak, a VFX editor says, “It is impossible to work on every frame to get that kind of accuracy. The policeman who torched the autorickshaw has moved around and in the frames has walked past a female police constable. If you freeze the shots at any point, you can see that it has not been morphed. The doubt if this is morphed is due to the presence of a lot of smoke in the entire video. If at all the video has to be morphed, then an individual video with the help of a green mat has to be shot and then the video has to be worked upon by a team. All this work will need a minimum of five hours by any professional. One has to find dupe with same body frame, shoot green mat video, work on exposure etc. Also, while the policeman is on his way to light the auto, the reflection of the fire is seen on the auto’s shiny outer surface. This can be morphed but is an extremely tedious job for any pro editor.”
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