Battery outage and portable video recorders
Al Yonovitz, Joshua Yonovitz, Herbert Joe, Brittany Galvin · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2016
The advent of user-friendly compact video recorders with large storage capacities has made them ideal for recording investigations and interviews by law enforcement agencies. In addition, they are also useful for surreptitious recordings both by citizens and government services. When these recorders are powered by an internal battery, the battery recording may be interrupted when the battery discharges. The analysis of this premature stoppage of the recorded video file may be important in the determination of the authenticity of the recording for courtroom admissibility. The differentiation between a purposeful edit and the normal shutdown process was investigated with a series of such recordings using a variety of modern recorders and common smartphones. Recordings were made with the battery at 80 percent charge and allowed to deplete. The recorder was then immediately restarted as well as restarted while being immediately attached to permanent power. The resultant recordings were compared and analyzed for any extraneous information related to the shutdown process.