Determining Video Frame Capture Rate through Reverse Engineering

The timing of video recordings, along with the spatial positioning of objects, is a fundamental parameter for calculating the speed time history. If the task involves determining an object’s average speed over several to a dozen frames, the average inter-frame interval can be used as the basic time unit. However, if the objective is to compute speed from individual frames, the reliability of the timing becomes crucial. Without access to DVR hardware documentation, proprietary algorithms, or software – and considering the frequent hardware modifications and software updates - the most effective way to solve the problem is through a reverse-engineering approach. This study discusses several aspects of timing analysis, including: (1) making a test recording of a calibrated LED lightboard; (2) analyzing the relationship between the lightboard time and the presentation time stamp (pts) extracted from the file metadata; (3) investigating frequency interference occurring when recordings are exported at different frame rates; (4) modeling the composite motion of the rolling shutter and the lightboard LEDs; (5) identifying the DVR’s actual frame capture rate; and (6) compensating the timing of the evidentiary recording. Establishing the timing scheme of the test recording enables reliable speed analysis based on two or three adjacent frames of the evidentiary recording, as well as the determination of the velocity time history over a short segment of the recording. It also forms the basis for further analysis of dynamic processes, including Kalman filtering or polynomial approximation.