Safe Speed Forums

Well spoken and polite....I like that!

As a professional Imagery Analyst with 15 years experience I can think of a few problems with the idea of home-made video evidence (although as an idea it does have its merits).

Video cameras are notoriously poor at depicting depth/distance - if you space out some objects and video them, they will appear MUCH closer together on the playback. This would be a bit of a showstopper for sorting tailgaters.

Modern Video and Digital cameras record images beyond the limits of your visual abilities - they ditch the blue part of the visual spectrum and move more into the near infrared. This gives them good haze/mist penetration (atmospheric water reflects in the blue) in some circumstances and naff penetration in others. This may cause minor snags in poor conditions, either with you saying the weather was awful and it appearing better or with reflections/blooming obscuring key details (but is more of a problem for amatuer ghosthunters who snap "mists" that they swear they couldn't see when they took the photo )

Video "creative editing" is amazingly simple - especially from a fixed camera such as one strapped to a parcel shelf. The Gollum analogy doesn't really stand up, remember he wasn't actually real and because of that the Physics are subtly off and your brain is very good at spotting things like that. The objects that you are talking about are real, and for some offences that would make them very simple to fake (tailgating: mask any sections of your vehicle that appear in the frame and freeze them, zoom the remaining footage by 2, re-record the sequence and hey presto "he was right up my a*** your honour").

It's not substantiated: police video just backs up what the officers say they saw - we are not trained to make that kind of call so what we consider dangerous driving (tailgating) may be anything but (IAM driver moving to advanced driver 1-second overtaking position).

As for the post office thing, not sure where that's coming from? I can take a deck chair and sit outside my local post office for hours staring at it if i want to, so I fail to see why it would be illegal to video it? If it is there for all to see, then I'm fairly sure you are usually OK to film it - same way that if you decide to shoot a video on holiday you don't need all the locals to sign model release forms.

What would happen if you wanted to stitch someone up (perhaps somone who keeps nicking your parking space at home/work, or who you just don't like for whatever reason), and you got a mate with the same colour/make of car to act out some dodgy driving with you on a nice quiet bit of road, whilst their car is wearing some easily made up false plates... Who needs CGI tools to post-process the video if you can simply record it all for real in one go?


As for Gollum... wasn't he rendered on top of a motion-captured Andy Serkis, in which case the real-world physics of inertia, gravity etc. would be inherent in the motion-capture data? In general when it comes to CGI in movies, I think we now expect a film to contain some, and we're primed and ready for spotting the slight (or in some cases not so slight) anomalies that make the rendered material stand out like a sore thumb from the real world footage. OTOH, when it comes to footage that we're not expecting to be modified, will our CGI detection alarms be armed and ready, or will it be easier for someone to slip an unexpected bit of image manipulation past us without noticing?

I suppose it might have been a reversing camera, but not really needed unless the driver's view through the back window is obscured, and even then, the door mirrors are usually adequate.

As a motor caravanner though, I find that reversing cameras, and even security cameras are quire common on motorhomes.

I saw one on a site in France last smmer that had at least half a dozen security cameras, giving all round vision even when all the blinds were drawn. Perhaps the owner had had a bad experiance overnighting on a motorway service area!!

I suppose they could also be pressed into service on the road....

No idea about the laws in the UK but over here the anti-terrorism laws prohibit the filming of some sites.

A man and his son were fishing nearby an oil refinery very close to Melbourne and when the police saw them photographing each other with the refinery in the background they were told to "move on".

The idea is that people may film these sites with a view to planning a terrorist attack on them using the video footage to determine the best way of doing so.

I feel that our liberties and freedoms are fast disappearing due to all these laws. I see absolutely no harm in filming children, not that I actually do, as I am not a paedophile and simply enjoy seeing the children happy and laughing. While on holidays recently I was waiting for friends outside a cinema beside a playground and thoroughly enjoyed watching the children playing. This was in Fiji and they do not seem as concerned but the uncomfortable feeling that people might think I was doing something wrong was still there. Just tell me "Why was what I was doing even vaguely not an appropriate thing to do?"

It has got to the point where even walking past a school is cause for suspicion and standing outside a school, waiting to meet someone, is cause for harassment by the police.

I really hate the way society is heading and long for the "good old days" when none of this was an issue.

BTW, I am all for the use of cameras in cars on a short loop of a few minutes which could be used as evidence in the event of a crash. Any other use of the footage is simply a waste of everyone’s time.

_________________
Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!