CCTV redaction software

[petben]

hello, can anyone recommend a CCTV (.mp4 format) redaction software. We are being asked to regularly produce redacted footage for multiple individual students in a group.

 

Any ideas for something simple/clever/intuitive?

 

Thanks

[PotNoodleTech]

I think most places would just not allow the footage to be viewed/shared if it contains other people(s data) as going though and constantly redacting 25 frames a second is unworkable.

 

Be interesting to see if anyone on here has some magic software for this as far as I am aware there's nothing free or cheap that would work.

[nwkeene]

When we had an incident with 20+ students and they needed it to be face blurred, we found this site: https://www.secureredact.co.uk/

 

They now seem to have a free tier of 20mins of video per month (it was a paid service when we used it)

 

I used to be a video tape editor for the BBC and it did in 5 minutes what would have taken me several days using 'standard video editing packages'.

 

Just upload your clip and let it do its stuff... It does miss the odd frame, but you can edit the markers for each frame to ensure you've got all the faces covered. I would suggest you edit the clip down to make sure you only upload the necessary bits.

 

PS not associated with it in any way, but was impressed what it achieved with some 'sub par' CCTV footage.

[clareq]

I've used YouTube in the past successfully. Upload as a private video, use the edit feature to blur the faces - it uses facial recognition, so you can select the faces to leave in the clear, then download the editted video and delete from YouTube.

[PotNoodleTech]

I've used YouTube in the past successfully. Upload as a private video, use the edit feature to blur the faces - it uses facial recognition, so you can select the faces to leave in the clear, then download the editted video and delete from YouTube.

 

Now that seems like a clever idea!!

 

You'd want to double check the GDPR side though I.E are you uploading your CCTV footage to non UK/EU servers just for the processing and how long do youtube keep copies for.

[DavR]

I had a video yesterday I had to blur some faces on.

 

I tried the blur faces feature in YouTube, out of an assembly hall full of children it only identified four faces, LOL. It was shot from the side, rather than head on, though.

 

https://www.secureredact.co.uk/ sounds good, but, I'd be wary of uploading confidential or restricted video content to a third party site without investigating their data protection side first.

 

In the end I used Adobe Premiere. In theory you can use tracking to blur a face, there are several tutorials online for it, although don't know how it would handle multiple faces. I just blurred the whole thing in the end though (we only really needed the audio), it was a bit too complicated for me.

[londonbg]

I use Ecamm Live for this job which is designed as Mac based live streaming and/or recording software, but does a great job of overlaying / obscuring things if required. I imagine the free OBS could so something similar for a quick fix. I just set up what I need and then run the clip, re-recording it to disk (in Ecamm aswell) in real time. Edited January 22, 2024 by londonbg

[rheibel]

Davinci Resolve has face/point tracking doubt sending the unredacted footage to a 3rd party would fly well with our DPO. softwere is free but dose have a steep learning curve but its what i use reguly.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve

 

Depending on your orgs interpritation and what the request is, we have done the reverse track the singular face, adjust size to what you want then blur the rest of the image e.g only the requestee of the data subject request face is unblurd. a quick follopwup pass if another face gets into the unblured region.

[3s-gtech]

VSDC Free Video Editor. https://www.videosoftdev.com/

 

This has the ability to overlay shapes onto video based on a timeline. It's very easy to blank out sectors of the screen over periods of footage - it has been an essential tool whenever we've had to release footage.

[colly72]

Adobe Premiere Pro can do this. Pretty easy but do it on a fast PC!

[PotNoodleTech]

Adobe Premiere Pro can do this. Pretty easy but do it on a fast PC!

 

Ooh can it? *installing now*

 

Is it easy(ish)?

[colly72]

Ooh can it? *installing now*

 

Is it easy(ish)?

 

Yeah, it's not difficult but perhaps a bit time consuming, especially if you have a lot of faces to blur. From memory, this is the video that I watched to learn how to do it:

 

[MikeBestev]

This is half an advert sorry... but we do this work as a service so know how hard it is. The OP said 'repeated jobs' so Prem pro and similar editing apps get a bit wearing, especially if you're doing something that moves around a lot like bodycam footage. The simplest systems are literally drawing over each frame, next up are the ones that use keyframes so if your subject moves across the screen in a straight line and constant speed you can just click the first and last frames, these can range from clunky to good enough to do anything... it all depends on the GUI. There are now a mass of AI and automated face recognition systems on the market. We've tried a load and used a couple in real jobs but....... BE CAREFUL .... ALL the automatic face detection in the world is just not as good at recognising IDENTITY as a person. It will almost always miss the odd frame, maybe a reflection or when an item passes in front of the face it will not be 100% perfect. We always use these systems as triage only, peer review the work, then touch up with a PERSON doing a MANUAL process. If you're just uploading a funny vid or unimportant DSAR (if such a thing exists) then fine, but if you NEED to be sure (think undercover officers/ threats to staff etc) then look to only get this done by someone who cares about the subject, or outsource.

[mikes]

I use Premier Pro but it's a pain in the arse for everything but the most simplest of incidents as you have to keyframe in motion, and the autotrackers are useless as kids walk infront of / behind other kids. Really SMT need to get a clue as to what is / isn't possible, a few years ago I would never have been asked to do this kind of thing

[TriggerHappyUK]

I've used Movavi in the past. It's pretty good. Can miss the odd keyframe but easily rectified:

 

https://www.movavi.com/support/how-to/how-to-blur-face-in-video.html

 

Not sure if it's included in the free version. I used the minimum paid for version, which was around £60-£65 at the time.

Edited February 23, 2024 by TriggerHappyUK