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Differences between original video and Youtube/Vimeo video
  • Brian_SianoBrian_Siano

    A lawyer friend of mine asked me an interesting question. She wanted to know if there was a way of determining whether a video acquired from an online source (say, YouTube or Vimeo) was the original video, i.e., what the camera shot.

    I said that services like YouTube and Vimeo usually re-compress the video for Internet playback, so if one captured the playback, it'd definitely be different. But, some services allow people to download the original uploaded video.

    So, I'd like to ask everyone: Is there some characteristic (like bitrate) that we can check to see if the video is the "camera original" or if it's been processed by something else?

  • 7 Replies sorted by
  • 4CardsMan4CardsMan

    In FCPX, you can upload an unmodified clip from the Event Browser, which might already have been cut down during import, or a Project, which can undergo almost anything, from the timeline, directly to YouTube or Vimeo. So, the answer is no, you cannot determine whether or not the video is a camera original.

  • DrDaveDrDave

    I'm changing my comment to "no idea." The more I think about it, there could be ways to mark up a video, I simply don't know.

  • 4CardsMan4CardsMan

    @DrDave, camera original means right off the card, right? Perhaps Brian_Siano's friend means unmodified by the hosting service.

  • Brian_SianoBrian_Siano

    I'm thinking drdave is correct: without the original, there's not really a way to tell beyond something obvious, or having the original as a point of comparison.

  • karlkarl

    @Brian_Siano: Your question is funny in that it basically asks for an answer to the whole subject of a veritable science. Books have been written on this topic, and lots of scientists spend years of their life researching it.

    For some small introduction, see e.g. https://www.wired.com/2014/10/physics-fake-videos/

  • Brian_SianoBrian_Siano

    @karl I'd found that web page, but it didn't answer my question. If videos show things that clearly show tampering, like flukey physics, that's one thing. Basically, I'm not asking about how to determine if something's a special effects fake.

    The question was whether one could tell if a video was the original, or a visually-identical copy of an original. It's more of a chain-of-evidence thing. Let's say a client submits a video into a court case, claiming it to be an original from their camera. But we need to determine if they simply downloaded it from someplace else, i.e., they're not being truthful about their chain of evidence.

  • 4CardsMan4CardsMan

    The client could supply the camera and the original card with the clip still recorded, which would not be a sure thing, but a lot more credible than something on a thumb drive. I think an expert could use those to authenticate the clip.

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