The irony of working with technology

A colleague often tells me that it is always the simple things that catch you out and I can think of many such examples but the latest one had me deeply embarrassed.

A spin-off service from my more regular video production services and one that I have provided for many years, is recovering video imagery from CCTV systems. Many older systems used hardware boxes that multiplexed the signals and recorded onto VHS tape, albeit 24 hours from 1-16+cameras on a 3hour tape. Modern systems are computer based and the multiplexing is software based producing a computer file. Single camera systems usually use standard file formats but more complicated multi-camera sytems require a dedicated player to unravel the multi-camera streams from the often bespoke file. The actual content is varied coming from cameras on buses and coaches, shops, factories, driveways, car parks, the list is endless and needless to say the variety of incidents captured varies from tragic incidents to blatant thievery.  

One of my clients provides investigation solutions to the insurance and legal professions. They often bring CCTV footage of  a variety of incidents. I had a call from the boss who needed a job done very urgently. He had a file of an incident that no one could view. We arranged he would drop it by that evening. I would have a quick look and then get something ready for the following morning so that all parties could view said footage.

Client and memory stick containing the file arrived and within a few minutes we had ascertained it was yet another file format I had not come across before. Not surprising as there are more flavours of CCTV file formats than flavours in an Italian ice cream parlour. A quick search on the Internet and all became clear. Very quickly I had located a player that would handle the file and the client went off to enjoy the rest of the evening. I set about  installing the required software, reviewing the file and than encoding to a suitable format. Big shock as the software indicated the encoding would take a staggering 8 hours to encode 30 mins of multi camera view. I sent a quick text to the client to say all was well and I would be in touch the following morning and left the computer to crunch away all night.

Early the following morning, I came into the studio and was delighted that I had a file simultaneously showing 6 cameras for 30 mins in real time. So far so good. I then decided it might be advantageous for both my client and his to put the file online so I uploaded it on a private link, tested it and really felt on a roll…and it wasn’t even 7.30 a.m..

I just needed to text the link to my client. I had been a Blackberry user for 5 days 14 hours and 7 minutes (not that I’m counting) First text got sent after 3 words, the second halfway through typing the link, the third success…er no… typo in the url…4th text was finally correct. Alas the client who was trying to enjoy his cornflakes had his phone vibrating around the table with my truncated texts.

Two days on I can smile at the irony that I was able to look after more complicated tasks, yet a simple task that most six year olds would be able to do blindfold was too much for me. Alas getting my head (and fingers) around a Blackberry is a skill that I still have to do more work on.

Post Tags: Blackberry , CCTV conversion , irony

Comments are closed.