I have a video that shows a trailer number on a truck that I need to be able to read. The video I have is from a dash cam and it is just a little bit too blurry to make out the digits of the trailer number.



I have called a couple companies tat provide "video Enhancement" services, but I have had zero luck with them. None of them seem to be able to enhance this video just slightly in order for me to be able to read these digits.

As you can see from the screen shot I took of the video, you just can't make out the digits, but it's close. I really need to find someone or some company that can clear this up just a bit in order for me to be able to read it.

What services would this be if not "video enhancement". Would this be something some type of photo manipulation/restoration expert might be able to do?

Does anyone know who I should try to contact to see if they can help with this?


Thanks!

if the camera simply did not capture enough resolution/data to be able to recognize the numbers, then there is likely nothing that you can do about it. (i googled really quickly, and there does seem to be some possibly real but limited improvements that can be made if the image is fuzzy due to a very predictable/calculable focus issue). the "enhance" feature on CSI (or other crime shows/movies) is not a real thing.

beyond that, an "enhanced" image may get dismissed in court anyway, so unless finding this number would result in finding other usable evidence, it might be futile anyway.

if this is all you have, and you really want to pursue, someone may be able to tool around in photoshop/gimp to see what happens, but i wouldnt hold out much/any hope. it looks like at least the left 3(?) characters just were not captured in that image.

Thanks Joe12286,

We don't need it to hold up in court. We just need to identify the truck. We have plenty of video evidence of what actually happened. That video footage would be enough if it came down to it.

The confusing part is how there can even be a "Video Enhancement" industry with experts in the field. I have contacted a few of them and they are not able to "enhance" this video even that tny bit to get us over the hump to being able to read it. Many wanted a sizeable fee to even look at it and let me know IF they would be able to help.

This is an image that is pretty close to being able to be read as it is now. It only really needs a tiny bit of improvement. If an expert in the field of "Video Enhancement" can't clear this footage/image up just that little bit to allow us to read it, what are they actually capable of doing?

You mentioned there might be some people that could tool around with Photoshop/Gimp to see if they can improve it. Where would I find these people and who would be some of the best ones to try?

THANKS again for the help!!!

there are plenty of things about a video that can legitimately be improved, like brightness, contrast, noise, de-interlacing, etc. but those things are taking the data that you have and processing it in different ways. if you don't have the data to begin with, there is nothing to process.

as with lots of things, it does take knowledge/skill/time to do things like this. supply and demand, etc. that said, i'm not sure why the people you contacted wouldn't even glance at the video to gauge whether there is any chance at all (i.e. zero chance or possibly non-zero chance). i'm very much a cynic, but that just leads me to think that maybe they're not super legitimate. edit: or perhaps they are legitimate, and just have a rule not to get involved with people who want CSI results.

i meant that anyone you know personally who is knowledgeable with video and/or photo editing might be able to mess around with it. i don't personally know of anyone or any company that would do this kind of forensic analysis. joining whatever rough knowledge i had to start out with the random stuff i saw on the internet in googling this, i believe you would want to grab the best frame that you could (considering the video type/coding/compression), and then see about running an edge detection algorithm like those that photoshop/gimp have. i'm not very knowledgeable about doing either of those.

Thanks again Joe for the great information.

Some of these video enhancement experts did take a look at it and some wanted an up front fee to look at it. The ones that did look at it said there wasn't much they could do. A couple actually took a quick try at it and couldn't help improve the quality. One was very well respected in the field (from learning more about him via google)

It's just odd that there are Video enhancement professionals if a video like I have can't be improved at all. What are they actually capable of doing if they can't improve something like this where I just barely can't read the digits in order for me to be able to read the digits? I'm not asking them to take a completely blurry image and turn it into a high res image. I'm asking them to take an image that is just BARELY under readable and turn it into BARELY readable. If video enhancement services can't do that, where does their value fall?

I will gladly pay any reasonable fee as this is VERY important!

I'm still looking into things, but if anyone has any suggestions I might not have considered, please let me know.

Thanks all!!!!!!

You're missing the point here (even though Joe has mentioned it more than once). Video enhancement experts can't create higher quality imagery if the data isn't there to start with. If you have been told there's nothing they can do, that's because no more data was captured at the outset by the sensor of whatever device recorded the video.

Sure, they could enhance it for you by guessing and painting in pixels. But so could I. And so could you. And that is not going to give you a dependable result.

The value of people doing enhancement work is taking images that have been processed in a less than optimal way and cleaning them to remove noise etc and thus improve the image. Assuming what you've been told is correct (i.e. that you can't be helped) and that is, as it invariably is, due to the quality of the original image, then what you need is not an image enhancement professional. What you need is a time machine so you can use a device with a better sensor in the first place.

^ Nice guy - I'm sorry if I offended your intelligence by not understand the technology behind video and images to that degree. I understand no one can create data that is not there.

I did not understand that there could be video footage that is barely too blurry to read some numbers that could have the necessary data to "enhance" it.

BUT, there could also be similar looking video that is barely too blurry to read some numbers that wouldn't have the necessary data to "enhance" it.

So if you are correct...an expert would not be able to determine if they can "enhance" or can't "enhance" until they really dig into the footage and see if the data is there behind it or not. Just looking at the video wouldn't tell them what data is really captured. Is this correct?



joe12286- THANK YOU once again!

Can you get any help from the trucking company? The range of values that were in the area in question at a date and time? They can't have that many trucks that could have been there and maybe they have distinct enough numbers that you can get to the one in question by process of elimination?

Thanks kerowo. We know it's an Evergreen container being pulled, but they have 10K+ containers and would need the trailer/container number in order to help identify who was driving that particular container on that day, at that time.

That sounds like bull**** from them. They should be able to give you a list of trucks that were on the road in a particular city or county at a give time and place. If they have that many containers they probably have geo-tracking on them or their trucks.

Evergreen just leases out the containers. Once the container is connected to the truck, Evergreen no longer tracks, or has any way to know where that truck pulls the container.

We need something that links the driver to that container, then Evergreen can help out. If we have the trailer number, Evergreen can tell us who had that container that day, but they can't help with just a location of where the container was on that day/time.

SuSuo -- no tip necessary

No idea what SuSuo is or means???