A proposed solution to the issue of proprietary DCCTV video file playback

The use of Digital Closed-Circuit Television ("DCCTV") is becoming so widespread in our society that most criminal investigations are likely to involve video surveillance as evidence. Maintaining the integrity and quality of video evidence is crucial to its purpose. The greatest challenge with DCCTV video files is that most manufacturers implement their own proprietary video file formats. Finding the resources and support for the playback of these proprietary video file formats can be a time-intensive task and sometimes ultimately futile. Transcoding the native file format to a different file format results in quality degradation, so working with the native file format is of paramount importance to the forensic video analyst to ensure the highest quality image for examination. This thesis explores different DCCTV proprietary video formats and describes the groundwork and initial implementation of a script designed to identify proprietary video file formats based on file header information in order to provide information for the playback of video.