3 Steps to Create a Searchable Repository of All Your Digital Evidence
October 2023
·
2 min read
A minor traffic stop can garner hours of bodycam footage.
But that’s just one source. Factor in surveillance cameras, smartphone recordings from bystanders and patrol car dash-cams, and the volume of digital footage "shoots" up. 🚀
In fiscal year 2021-22 alone, public defenders handled 521,377 cases. That’s a significant amount of digital footage for each defender to review– hundreds of hours, to be precise.
Navigating them is a challenge in and of itself. 🕵️
Reduct’s searchable repository accelerates this process for you by providing you with synchronized transcripts that you can search, redact, clip, and share with your clients and present in court.
Understanding Reduct’s "searchable repository"
Reduct, a law transcription software, packed with text-based video editing features can be a central store for all your eDiscovery.
Once you upload footage from all relevant sources into Reduct, you can instantly search for words and dialogues from suspects, victims, and witnesses of the crime you’re investigating. To put it simply, you can find exactly what you are looking for in hours of footage, in seconds.
Creating a searchable repository in Reduct
To initiate a keyword search, you need to first upload videos to your project. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.
Step 1: Start a new project
Click on the new project button in Reduct’s project catalog. Here, along with a unique identifier, like a case ID, you can add a description to add additional information about the case.
You can also invite your clients and team to the project for transparency, if required.
Step 2: Upload footage to the project
After you fill in the description, you can start uploading footage to the new project. Or if you have a pre-existing project, you can upload new evidence to it. To do this, select the file you want to import from your device or a public URL.
For instance, under the project CaseID-01-23456, we have footage from a body-worn camera and a surveillance camera pertinent to the case. To add a new footage, simply click on the new recording button.
Step 3: Search for quotes within one footage or all of them
Reduct’s powerful search lets you dig deep into the repository to find exact matches of spoken words. Or you can also run fuzzy search to locate relevant words and phrases across your cases.
For instance, when I search for the word "police" and run a fuzzy search, it also shows results for “officers”, which is a close match to “police”.
You can click around the transcript as you search, and our platform will take you to that exact portion of your footage.
Avoid the hassle of reviewing endless hours of footage
Locating a key piece of evidence in a pool of footage can be frustrating. You know it exists, yet finding it requires sifting through the materials one by one.
Reduct helps you skim through them faster with a simple keyword search instead of going through the hassle of reviewing individual footage.
In addition to locating the exact and/or relevant words in the searchable repository, you can also use Reduct to redact sensitive information from footage, create video exhibits with synchronized captions to present in court, and share your findings with your team and clients without the need for specialized staff.
Try Reduct out for yourself with our free trial.
