Introduction

The digital age has provided an opportunity to video surveillance that had not changed for almost forty years.

From the invention of the magnetoscope, or magnetic wire recorder, by the Germans in World War II, no other technology has changed so rapidly than the video camera, both for consumer and surveillance applications.

This little machine, that in World War II revolutionized the art of audio recording, would within ten years time, provide an opportunity for the broadcast industry to utilize magnetic tape to record video images.

By the early 1970’s, the recording of video image for surveillance applications was already a leading industry with millions of VCRs to be produced for consumer, industrial, and surveillance use.

However, while the cost of recording video had dramatically decreased through the 1990’s, the cost of cameras had remained constant up until the late 1980’s.

This is due to cameras being composed of very expensive devices using tubes as their imaging technology.

Once digitization, or the application of digital electronics to image capture, occurred in the late 1980’s, it enabled cameras to take off like never before in all industries.

With a drop in chip camera prices to almost half with its second generation release, CCTV was on the doorstep to become an almost ubiquitous occurrence in modern urban, industrial and especially, justice locations.

While commercial use cameras of the early 1980’s used to be heavy and have fairly poor resolution with black and white images, by the early part of the new millennium, $400 cameras were available in color with a consistent and sharp resolution that could not be touched by the older cameras. To replace their tube counterparts would often cost the equivalent of the entire new generation camera.

But, just as the video recorder led the way with electronic capabilities, so does digital imagery. The camera's ability to capture and provide storage will lead the way for simple cameras in the near future – nearly self-contained surveillance.

The manipulation, switching, encryption, storage, and transmission of digital images are not like anything in history as both a communication and forensic tool.

The ability to broadcast in real-time from a surveillance video camera to any location throughout the world, using the Internet, and to record the same images has never been easier or more economical.

This tutorial will cover the history of scene imagery, as well as recording and provide a primer on video surveillance use in the justice arena.

Electronic video and recording techniques will be covered as well as understanding real‑time vs. sampled scene recording.

As with most devices, the accelerated technology of the digital age has also provided limitations on its structured use.

These limitations or compromises will be reviewed, as well as the standards of care for responding, recording, and archiving these images.

The legal aspects of video assets and their use and some sample law cases will also be discussed.

We will discuss what the “dropping edge, cutting edge, and bleeding edge” video technologies bring to the table, as well as next generation devices and important sources and links for your further investigation.

You will come away from this tutorial understanding video images and scene recording, some of the electronics that determine the quality or quantity of recordings made, the standards of care from a legal standpoint, and use as well as potential improper use, through sample law and the application of video assets.

With this background, you will be able to draw on modern technologies and how video images and the next generation of equipment will forever change our look on society and the ever-present role that video surveillance images will play every day, especially in the field of justice.