1st International ICST Conference on Forensic Applications and Techniques in Telecommunications, Information and Multimedia

Research Article

Video Motion Detection Beyond Reasonable Doubt

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/e-forensics.2008.2763,
        author={Zhuo Xiao and Amirsaman  Poursoltanmohammad and Matthew Sorell},
        title={Video Motion Detection Beyond Reasonable Doubt},
        proceedings={1st International ICST Conference on Forensic Applications and Techniques in Telecommunications, Information and Multimedia},
        publisher={ACM},
        proceedings_a={E-FORENSICS},
        year={2010},
        month={5},
        keywords={video motion detection forensics surveillance law enforcement evidence},
        doi={10.4108/e-forensics.2008.2763}
    }
    
  • Zhuo Xiao
    Amirsaman Poursoltanmohammad
    Matthew Sorell
    Year: 2010
    Video Motion Detection Beyond Reasonable Doubt
    E-FORENSICS
    ACM
    DOI: 10.4108/e-forensics.2008.2763
Zhuo Xiao1, Amirsaman Poursoltanmohammad1, Matthew Sorell1,*
  • 1: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Adelaide SA 5005, AUSTRALIA +618 8303 3226
*Contact email: matthew.sorell@adelaide.edu.au

Abstract

We consider the analysis of surveillance video footage containing occasional activities of potential interest interspersed with long periods of no motion. Such evidence is problematic for three reasons: firstly, it takes up a great deal of storage capacity with little evidential value; secondly, human review of such surveillance is extremely time-consuming and subject to errors due to fatigue; and thirdly, there is often a need to prove to the satisfaction of the Court that excised footage contains no images of evidential value. We are therefore concerned with objective, reliable detection of video motion to automate the extraction of activities of interest and to provide simple but reliable measurements to the court to prove that this is a complete record of all activities in the footage. Early results indicate that average luminance-based detection is particularly reliable, and we provide a comparison with other frame-difference techniques.