Video Enhancement (You can't display what you can't see)
O.K. - forget I used the phrase "video ehancement" in the title. The proper (correct) phrase is "video clarification", but, thanks to all the "pop, quasi-realistic, CSI-Miami, CSI-Las Vegas, CSI-Ad Nauseum garbage" on television I figured you'd recognize the term "Enhancement" since that's the misnomer these fact-challenged programs lead you to believe companies (and underfunded police agencies) are capable of doing. (We'll discuss the sub-par "acting" of David Caruso at a later date).
For the next few "blogisodes" I'm turning over the site to my able bodied wing nut right hand man and audio/video engineer extraordinare Eric Graf (who works with me at Video Resources, Inc. in the Video/Audio Forensics lab) to explain as simply as possible the why's and wherefore's of video and audio clarification and why it's important for you to know what will and, more importantly, what will not work for you.
Here's Eric's Video Clarification Blog: (Enjoy!)
The following is a list of random factoids about video. Hopefully there will be pearls of wisdom herein that will help us better serve you when you get some of that all-important footage that needs enhancing (oops! I mean clarification).. Warning: I tend to overuse parentheses (but I’m trying to improve).
First of all, you know those TV shows like CSI where they take grainy, blurry, little bitty digital video and enhance it until you can read the serial number on the bad guy’s cellphone as he throws it across the pitch-black parking lot?
Guess what ?. . . That’s fake. (GASP!) (Take a few moments to catch your breath and then continue reading once your vision returns to normal.. I know - it's a shock.)
Those shows are no more a reflection of real CSI science than James Bond is. The writers who come up with stuff like that just need some convenient way for the good guys to crack the case, so they make up something silly that they think most viewers will buy. And most viewers do. Please don’t be one of them.
Video doesn’t work like that. We wish it did.
... then there's that moment of silence after they've asked (which I'll admit I relish!) where I imagine them wincing - waiting for my laughter... that I answer with all the casualness of a fast food hamburger jockey asking if you want to 
