Can TAPELESS be used for litigation support?

nedcam

nedcam

Well-known member
I am a DP with a HPX300 and will be filming a Day-in-the-Life cinema verite documentary this Thursday of an unfortunate child who is now totally paralyzed due to malpractice. I have done quite a few of these over the years with video (betacam & DV) but now am wondering if I can go tapeless. I am certified by the American Guild of Court Videographers and they hammered into us the importance of what's called "Chain of Custody", meaning the opposing side can demand to see the "originals". If a videographer screws up the Chain of Custody the whole video can be ruled inadmisable.

So...before I bring the issue up with the attorney client I was wondering if anyone on this forum has had experience with this touchy issue. I imagine when I tell the client about transferring from a P2 card and then reformatting his solution will be to keep the P2 cards, until I tell him the cost. I don't think they will want something this important stored on a hard drive for a couple of years, especially when the material on the hard drive can not be considered "original", can it? This seems like a benefit of Sony's XDCAM disk system I guess.

When I have done litigation support using stills they bought and kept the flash memory card, but those are nothing compared to P2.

Thanks for your advice.
 
I'll check with a friend of mine who consults in this area all the time and is one of the tops in forensicn video evidence to see where this issue lies.

Michael
 
My advice is to ask the Guild what the prevailing opinion is. I think if I was an opposing attorney and there was a multi-million-dollar settlement on the line, I think it wouldn't be too hard to cast doubt on that video evidence.

Some of the tapeless cameras like the HMC150/HPX170/HMC40 have the ability to burn in the time and date stamp into the footage, which was specifically added there for situations such as deposition video. But for what you're talking about... yeah, that needs a legal opinion, and I would say it needs a Chicago attorney's opinion because various states may find it acceptable to various degrees, and you really need to know what your state thinks.
 
Here is what I got back:

I teach this stuff at the FBI Academy and elsewhere. Basically, he does not need to keep the medium. He does need to Hash the original data while on the P2 card and then verify the transfer. He will need to archive the original data. He can then transcode and edit all he wants. If the attorney questions the data integrity, he'll have a hash report and the original data.

Hash reports are generated by hardware or software processes, normally by a 3rd party video/computer forensic expert.

Having said this, the real issue is 'authentication' ... does the video accurately represent what it purports to show? The videographer can authenticate the data without hashing. The hashing process is really just the easiest method to shut down the question of whether the video data is the original.
 
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