An Intro to Video Surveillance Recovery for Hikvision

Knowledge
2021-12-07

As we all know digital forensics deals with digital evidence, while among all of them, video evidence especially video surveillance like DVR or NVR video footage among CCTV, takes up quite a bit of ratio.
Given the digitalized world we operate in, surveillance videos have become an increasingly integral aspect of investigations in the private, law enforcement, and intelligence, detective agencies.
However, during the investigation, there are always instances where surveillance videos have to be recovered for case cracking or other purposes.

Today, we’ll introduce what is  surveillance  video recovery and dive into the way digital forensic investigators enhance their performance in surveillance cameras video recovery.

Surveillance Video Recovery in Digital Forensics

Before getting closer to the digital forensics by video surveillance, we would get started with looking into what a surveillance video system is.

Video Surveillance  System

Most video recordings from CCTV or surveillance cameras are saved using DVRs (Digital Video Recorder) or NVRs (Network Video Recorder).
These are the general 2 types of video surveillance systems: DVR and NVR.

  • DVR: The DVRs evolved from the older VCR models, while NVRs are the next best things in video recording technology. DVRs offer D1 resolution (about 720 x480 pixels), the traditional video quality used in closed-circuit television systems.

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  • NVR: NVRs, on the other hand, can record videos in 1080p (about 1920 x1080 pixels), which is considered to be high definition, so technically, they offer a significant improvement in video quality over a DVR system.

nvr - salvationdata

Interestingly, both systems save videos in external hard drives, USB Sticks, and SD cards from which the forensic investigators can retrieve videos.

This means Data Recovery System would definitely have a good performance when it comes to the data issues(Video files) within DVRs and NVRs, though it’s not specially designed for managing surveillance video files.

Surveillance Video Recovery in Digital Forensics

Owing to technological advancements, video footage from digital cameras and other devices capable of creating videos is increasingly admissible in court as sources of evidence. Videos are used as evidence in crime investigation because they provide vital forensic evidence items that can provide links to hitherto disjointed pieces of evidence.
For instance, closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems are widely used at strategic locations like banks, stores, malls, parks, and traffic intersections. Where necessary, video evidence would be recovered from these recordings to aid an investigation or build an existing case. There is a catch with video evidence.

For a video to be admissible as evidence in digital forensics, the quality has to be of a certain standard. Poor-quality videos will adversely affect any investigation where it is used. In some cases, it might not even be admissible as evidence in a court of law.

So though the video surveillance provides potential clues in one way or another, how to scientifically and successfully utilize them and submit as admissible evidence has a vital link to their quality and availability, which deems their video file recovery being one of the requirements.

Difficulties in Video Surveillance Recovery

Recovering the missing parts of the video surveillance becomes extremely important since the outcome of the investigation rests on it in some cases.

Sadly, some issues might hamper surveillance video recovery. 

Here are a few of them:

  • A digital video source recorder starts to overwrite itself with new video footage after recording videos for a period. 
  • A poorly exported video format that might still be preserved incorrectly.
  • A surveillance video that is not exported in the most viable format might be compromised in the course of digital forensic inquiry. 
  • Video files loss, mis-deletion or intentional deletion
  • Lack of compatible or corresponding tools to support various types of surveillance videos, especially true for Hikvision types of surveillance videos.      

In short, video surveillance footage could always encounter technical and artificial issues, which are hard to resolve without  professional digital forensic investigators, and supporting digital forensic tools’ assistance.

Use Video Surveillance Recovery for Hikvision to recover surveillance videos

As we all know, most of the DVR & NVR recorders are under Hikvision models.

It just makes every sense to deeply support the video recovery for Hikvision surveillance video recorders as a digital forensic supporting tool.

SVR(Surveillance Videos Recovery) is a surveillance video recovery tool specifically designed for Hikvision’s video recovery (Including DVR & NVR).

The SVR eliminates almost every technical issue like overwriting, mis-formatting, mis-deletion, and etc. Regardless of the video files’ circumstance, it provides the required functionality to support and facilitate the full recovery of  Hikvision surveillance videos.

Surveillance Video Recovery

 

Here’s how SVR for Hikvision helps forensic investigators get over challenges in Hikvision surveillance video recovery.

  • Reconstructing Fragmented Videos

One of the major issues during the recovery of video surveillance is missing or fragmented videos from the source. 

The recovery of video surveillance for Hikvision aptly corrects the issue. by proceeding with video files fragmentation reconstruction. Moreover, it could also extract and play the reconstructed videos.

  • Improved Access

Sometimes the process of recovering surveillance videos can be affected by the restriction of access to the disk of the video source. Recovery of video surveillance for Hikvision eliminates this problem as it bypasses any passwords and allows the recovery of video data directly from the faulty surveillance video recorder.

  • Support Video Recovery across Situations

Video evidence can get damaged or lost as a result of multiple reasons. With the Recovery of video surveillance software, any surveillance video can be easily effectively recovered regardless of the situation in which it was damaged or lost. 

  • Great Video Distribution Analysis

With recovery of video surveillance for Hikvision, it is easy to speedily analyze the distribution of the surveillance video on a disk and select a specific disk sector for scanning. This ultimately saves tons of time for the digital forensic investigators from scanning the surveillance video before going over it as evidence.

Once the surveillance video recorders have been scanned, the recovery of video surveillance system automatically saves the scan history. This way, the user can directly view the scan results without repeated scans of the surveillance video.

  • Time Correction

It’s always aiming to particular date and time within video files for most case cracking.In most cases, without / incorrect timestamps not be admissible in court as video evidence. Luckily, now forensic investigators can easily correct time and date by the software after the video has been recovered.

Why Do You Employ Video Surveillance Recovery For Hikvision?

A key part of digital forensics is recovering key information that supports a piece of evidence or facilitates an investigation. 

Video surveillance is now an integral part of living in today’s world. It has aided many investigations because certain events that are important to reconciling an investigation have unwittingly been captured by video footage for multiple video sources. The surveillance videos used in digital forensics are often used for comparative forensic analysis of subjects, vehicles, clothing, and weapons, among other things.

However, to submit lawful and admissible surveillance video evidence, the video footage must be handled according to the digital forensics industry standards, which includes the normal and available circumstance of the video footage files.

This is exactly what video surveillance recovery for Hikvision designed for.

Knowing how to safely and adequately recover video from surveillance video recorders is vital to the success of any digital forensic investigation. With video surveillance recovery for Hikvison, digital forensic technicians stand a better chance of recovering surveillance videos regardless of the extent of the damage.

 

Conclusion

Video surveillance is central to improved security and thorough digital forensic investigations. However, a low-quality video file adds little or nothing to an investigation, nor does a video that is a failed, hacked, lost or damaged, being useful to the investigation.

Focus on the admissibility and availability of the surveillance video evidence is what we should keep working on.

With SVR for Hikvision, you’re going to have a better chance to overcome various complicated circumstances when dealing with the surveillance video files, since it’s designed to make the forensic analysis of surveillance videos a lot easier for digital forensic professionals. 

 

Indeed, every digital forensic professional looking for success in their career path would do well to acquire and incorporate the video surveillance recovery for Hikvision software in their operations.

Just give it a Free Trial today to discover more than you’re imagining!