International. ONVIF announced that its export file format, ONVIF's specification for the export of videos from recording platforms for security surveillance, is the new standard recommended by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for the export and playback of surveillance video recordings.
In an FBI-mandated research project to assist law enforcement agencies in forensic investigations, NIST worked with ONVIF to adopt the export file format and use it as the FBI's new minimum interoperability requirements for exporting and sharing video clips, and to optimize the video playback process from different video recording platforms from different vendors. These files are often exported in different proprietary formats, making it difficult for law enforcement agencies to collect, correlate and analyze video data, as happened in the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, where more than 120 FBI analysts over-reviewed 13,000 videos before uncovering key evidence in the recordings. The NIST recommendation is published as NISTIR 8161 revision 1, which replaces revision 0.
The ONVIF export file format will allow law enforcement agencies, as well as private users, to conduct forensic investigations more quickly and efficiently using videos of an incident from different sources, both public and private, no matter which recording system originally captured the video. The export file format will also be part of the new global standards to be published by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) this year on the use of video surveillance systems in security applications, which will increase the applicability of this standardized format on a global scale.
"This is an important step in leveraging the enormous amount of video evidence, produced by IP-based video surveillance systems, that may be available to law enforcement agencies in the event of a major incident, as well as to any user of a video recording system who needs faster and easier access to multiple video files." said Per Björkdahl, Chairman of the ONVIF Steering Committee. "We are very pleased to be able to offer our expertise, specifically that of our technical experts, Dr. Hans Busch and Stefan Anderson, and that our interoperability-oriented work is thus validated by global standards and safety agencies."
The NIST report addresses technical details, such as the use of MP4 as a standardized file format, and includes support for H.264 video codecs, as well as future variants to ensure video quality. The exported video must contain standardized Clocktime stamps with Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) that correspond to each video frame, with a clock time with UTC of recorded export system, and with a reliable external reference time to be determined at the time the video is exported. The use of the ONVIF export file format will also provide useful information of exported metadata (e.g. the recording equipment used, the time of creation of the export file, the name of the export operator) and will also allow the digital signature of the video file to ensure the chain of custody for evidentiary purposes.
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