Magnet DVR Examiner: Easily Recover and Analyze Evidence from DVRs, CCTV and Surveillance Video

Magnet DVR Examiner from Magnet Forensics is an easy-to-use video evidence platform that enables police agencies to recover and analyze digital video recorders, CCTV and surveillance video in a forensically sound manner.  

Video evidence is growing at an exponential pace and is often stored in proprietary, complex formats. According to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, video evidence “can be as voluminous as mobile device data, if not more so, and there are limited tools available to reliably enhance and analyze video.” Many police agencies also face technical challenges in accessing video, reviewing it and converting it to standard formats, which often results in delays to investigations.  

With Magnet DVR Examiner police agencies can recover video evidence and metadata, even when it’s been overwritten, lost or deleted. The solution also allows investigators to go one step further and recover video evidence when the systems have been physically damaged. Accessing these systems is often difficult, but investigators using Magnet DVR Examiner can lawfully bypass passwords and complicated menus to get directly to the relevant evidence. They can also ingest multiple hard drives and video sources into one case file, which makes it easier to follow a suspect from camera to camera and location to location. When investigators find the video evidence that’s critical to their investigations, they can export it in the highest possible quality, in proprietary format or an open video format so it can be played on a standard media player. Together, these features can dramatically reduce the time to evidence and allow for a swifter pursuit of justice. 

After implementing Magnet DVR Examiner, a Pennsylvania-based police agency was able to recover evidence from a DVR system that had been burned in the arson of a 40-year-old family business. A two-minute video clip allowed the agency to determine how the fire started and identify the person responsible.