New Pentagon Video was heavily processed, My letter to Steven Jones

Dear Prof. Jones,

I am a researcher in Royal Holloway, University of London, just
finishing a PhD in the Machine Vision of CCTV cameras. I'm not an
expert in CCTV, but I do have a lot of experience. I took a look at
the recently released Pentagon video and noticed a few unusual aspects
of how it was produced.

Firstly, I'm talking about the totally new video, rather than the
older one of which 5 frames were already in the public domain. I
obtained this video from Google Video download through a link from
Judicial Watch.org. A spokes person interviewed on the Alex Jones
radio show has said that the video was provided to him on a CD-ROM,
and I am assuming that Judicial Watch did not process the video in any
way before uploading. I am also assuming that Google Video does not
process uploaded videos in the unusual way I am going to describe. I
am not going to talk about the content of the video at all, just its
structure and how it was processed.

FEATURES OF THE VIDEO

The video is constructed of 5 756 frames of pixel size 480 by 360.
Oddly, every 32 frames are nearly identical. I say nearly, because
while each group of 32 frames certainly contain no movement and were
certainly derived from the same original CCTV output frame, by running
the video through frame differencing you can easily detect small
jpegging artifacts and noise within the 32 frame groups. Further, the
video occasionally shifts up or down by a tiny amount, in a seeming
random fashion. Finally, there is a faded black border around the
frames. These are all clues to the probable history of this video, and
how it was constructed.

PROBABLE ORIGIN

Most CCTV cameras in the US produce a very similar output to regular
TV video format, and despite advances in digital technology, most are
still analog. The camera position here seems to be in a non-critical
role at the entrance to a staff car park. This, coupled with the faded
black boundary indicated that this video was probably produced by a
regular NTSC Interlaced signal recorded onto an Analog medium such as
a VHS cassette. This analog video would then have been digitised,
processed, and released to Judicial Watch on the CD-ROM.

NTSC is interlaced, meaning that alternate rows of pixels are
refreshed at twice the quoted frame rate. So that, with a NTSC frame
rate of just under 30 fps, old and even pixels rows are alternately
refreshed at just under 60Hz. To save video tape, Analog cameras only
record one frame every second or so, and that seems to be the case
here. (Modern digital CCTV systems commonly record at a variable
framerate, depending on activity in the scene. The fact that this did
not happen here is further evidence that the system is an older Analog
CCTV)

When digitizing the video, you have the choice of deinterleaving the
frames to produce a video of 60Hz, but with half the vertical
resolution. One disadvantage of this is that because alternate frames
are produced by pixel positions with a slight vertical offset, the
digitized video will vibrate up and down in an annoying way. However I
believe that this video was produced in this way because at irregular
intervals, the video can be seen to shift up and down by approximately
one pixel. The irregularity indicated that the video's producers
cherry-picked certain frames from either deinterlace output, and built
them into one video.

DIGITIZED, BACK TO ANALOG, AND DIGITIZED AGAIN?

Finally, the Judicial Watch video is constructed of 179 original
frames, each reproduced 32 times. The CCTV camera would have recorded
frames to analog at a rate of 1Hz, but each frame only once. Why would
the Judicial Watch video have frame multiples? Why would there be
intraframe noise within these 32 frame groups? Digital video formats
can have any desired frame rate. There is no need to have multiple
frames, when the computer can simply display a particular frame for an
arbitrary length of time. Analog cannot do this however. On VHS, if
you want a frame to display on screen for 1 second it must be
reproduced on tape a number of times.

I propose that the original 179 CCTV output frames were digitized,
deinterleaved, manipulated extensively, recombined into one video and
then recorded back onto a VHS (or other analog format) cassette. This
version was then digitized again and released to Judicial Watch.

I do not know why they would do this, but it is my best explanation of
the processing anomalies of this video.

The important conclusion is that this video has a long history. I
suggest that the Pentagon be asked to release the original, analog and
unedited version of this video, along with the 84 other videos they
hold.

Yours sincerely,

I propose that the original 179 CCTV output frames were digitized,
deinterleaved, manipulated extensively, recombined into one video and
then recorded back onto a VHS (or other analog format) cassette. This
version was then digitized again and released to Judicial Watch.

Sounds good. You should put this thesis first instead of last.

I thought about that - but its such a weird conclusion, I wanted to make the case first.

You don't want to count on someone reading the whole thing. Look at the way academic journal articles are written: first, a really short summary, then a brief intro, and then expository. That way, no matter where you stop reading, you haven't missed anything.

This is great work. I am of the opinion that the videos are altered also.

Has he responded? I can post this on the members only forum on Scholars if you want.

What I am trying to figure out is how come the plane and plume doesn't cast a shadow?

Hi Merc,

Yes - it would be cool if you could post it on ST911 forum.

No answer yet, but its early morning there.

Thanks,

Seabhcan

I made a thread. Apparently he had already posted it in the Pentagon Video Thread:

Good job.

edited..



This post has been edited by payt on May 18 2006, 08:04 PM

why would the video be doctored, for what purpose?

why is this such a concern of yours?

Why? I don't know. Ask the pentagon why they did it.

I think it should be a concern of every thinking person if a government lies to the people.

What difference does it make? If its altered, wouldnt you want to know why? If they have nothing to hide, why alter the video?

The release of the footage is to distract away from the documented facts so more people will speculate on the issue of whether a plane hit or not. If they do release video of a plane clearly hitting the Pentagon it will just give them more chances to say "SEE I told ya those Conspiracy Theorist are nutjobs."

If a plane really did hit the Pentagon...Does that change the WHOLE picture?

I see a lot of people leading with this aurgument of a missile hitting the pentagon. I like to lead with Operation Northwoods, Cheney in control of NORAD, FBI involved in 1993 WTC, Drills being run at the same time as the 9/11 attacks, London bombing, Madrid, Oklahoma.

You must not get caught up in the speculative points when there is SO much of the HARD FACTS.

I'm not saying dismiss the evidence that shows a missile may have hit, but focus more on the facts that have been proven.

i really think in the next loose change that the pentagon shouldnt be presented the same way-

i think it should reserve itself until more pentagon evidence is released.


but the way the gov is releasing info and keeping evidence seem highly tactical in its execution for some reason.

Agreed. They are baiting the hook.

Agreed. They are baiting the hook.

or "over a barrel"

Hopefully the petition to the US Congress and Senate demanding the release of all confiscated tapes will be successful and soon.

A couple of snippets from the petition...

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/...?ltl=1141667399

---

Have you had an opportunity to watch the new set of clips that Dylan and LTW have put together.

Specifically, two interviews.

First a lady (Leuren Moret) who discusses the near tenfold increase in DU levels detected near the Pentagon after the hit (13:39 - 19:20).

And a very interesting interview with Bob Pugh who was the first camerman at the Pentagon on 9/11 (30:30 - 57:35).

I found them very interesting, hope you do too.

Link to clippings on Google video : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1840058038507754977


All the best

LondonEye

Ya, I watched it - very interesting.

I'm not sure what to think about the DU thing. DU is used in heavy armour on tanks and in anti-armour rounds. I never heard of it being used in either missiles, military planes or, of course, in 757s. The only thing I can think of is that they replaced the nose radar system with a DU balast, but thats a wild guess.

I know the UK navy has a lump of concrete in the nose of their harriers, because the BAE radar system is ten years over due. (Read this great book to find out more)