HandBrake – An open source video transcoder
handbrake.fr
handbrake.fr
Man have times changed...
MakeMKV has been around a long time, works well and it's not what I would call a "random" closed source tool.
HandBrake 1.2.0 Released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18949007 - Jan 2019 (58 comments)
HandBrake 1.0.0 Released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13258029 - Dec 2016 (174 comments)
Handbrake 0.10.0 released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8650126 - Nov 2014 (56 comments)
ffmpeg is a great tool, and time is well spent getting to know how to use it. but it takes a lot of time/effort to get there.
Handbrake is also the easiest way for non-technical people to transcode videos from one format, resolution, or quality to another.
I've switched to ffmpeg now, with MakeMKV to do the rip. I find this works better and more reliably. It also let's me separate the ripping from the transcoding. So I can rip really fast and just queue up the transcoding.
Large portion is not all. It's relevant because it's an element of a popular news story. There isn't some mystery agenda here as it was voted up by the community.
The backdrop is the defense alleges the prosecution gave the defense a lower resolution copy of the original video that showed about 4x fewer pixels, so they did not have the ability to examine it. The jury has already seen the video and is currently in deliberations. They have asked to view the video again.
This whole trial, well, just seems riddled with big time issues. I tried to present this in a non biased way, but I don't think this is a good trial no matter what side you sit on, if any. It's been tainted in several places, even 5th amendment violations numerous times. At a minimum, I think it needs to be tossed out and retried with these evidentiary issues ironed out and with no last minute springing of evidence.
Without addressing the rest of the post: I've seen plenty of non-engineers use Handbrake. In fact, I've seen more than one lawyer use it. It occurs to me that it would actually be pretty common for lawyers to have it installed, particularly if they're reviewing and copying evidence that was delivered to them by DVD or other physical forms.
I mean, HandBrake is pretty simple software if you just stick with the defaults.
Furthermore, I think the prosecution has been terrible, and at times, downright malicious (trying to get a mistrial after their start witness flopped, etc).
HOWEVER I really do agree with this take. I'm fairly computer literate (sysadmin for a microscopy facility, daily drive Linux, couple years of web development under my belt) and recently spent a non-insignificant amount of time trying to create a video from a bunch of .tif files and embed them into a PowerPoint. It was not simple or easy. Working with video is always an annoying, expensive, black box. Sometimes I'd do things, and it would just come out a blurry mess. Or balloon in file size for no obvious reason.
How many excuses do people have? It seems to be widely acknowledged that prosecutors widely railroad and use unethical and even illegal tactics against defendants and that this is a problem. It also seems to be the idea that black defendants tend to be disproportionately on the receiving end of this behavior and that is a problem. And yet there's astounding difficulty connecting these things. A lot of people I've seen here and all other social media platforms seem to be hoping Kyle gets convicted and the prosecutors are not held to account because he is white and they think a black boy would have been convicted.
This is called (racist, but also) cutting off your nose to spite your face. Kyle being sent to jail by unethical prosecutors will not help the next black boy who is unethically prosecuted or wrongfully convicted.
Hold them to a high standard. Do not find excuses for them, they must be made to justify their own actions. If they are going to use technology to prosecute somebody and they don't know how the technology works, that is not an excuse it is incompetence and highly unethical at best.
I don't understand. Are you saying that my idle speculation somehow grants positive evidence to the claim that there's been prosecutorial misconduct in the case?
The fact that you or I can identify a likely source of error doesn't mean that (1) that is, in fact, the source of error, or (2) that the prosecutor is aware of it. The rest of your post is overly wrought given the information we actually have.
This isn't just a lawyer. This is an Assistant District Attorney, officially representing the government. They, all lawyers, are trained in handling evidence and know full well what their obligations and duties are. Even if it was somehow a "mistake," it's the type of mistake that trials are dismissed over, with prejudice, and rightly so, because it potentially biases every piece of evidence the prosecution handled.
Besides, using handbrake doesn't completely change the filename, and we're not talking about appending "(1)", "(2)" or "(copy)" like an OS would do for files with the same filename in the same directory.
His last attempt at claiming clean hands was that he was too technically incompetent to do so maliciously. But that's BS. Even if he doesn't know what handbrake does, if he uses it he's using it to somehow modify it. that's not allowed defense is allowed the exact copy the DA has.
Also, I have a lot of trouble believing that anyone, having used handbrake, hasn't noticed a drop in quality in the video.
Also, I'm not sure that the screenshot is of the jury's laptop. Isn't it Binger's after he turned it around to show something?
Either way, doesn't matter. Someone in the DAs office fiddled with the laptop and their laptops are loaded with this software. The DA is responsible for his office. The DA is responsible that the defense didn't get the proper copy.
> A review of previous video testimony from PBS's live feed showed that he (Kraus) had Handbrake in the directory that he was showing the video from
So someone who is technically illiterate (let's take their claim at face value) has evidence tampering tools visible on their machine?
Where's the chain of custody on the original file content?
Big-time issues or big time-issues? I read it as the latter initially but I think the former makes more sense.
Beyond the speed of the trial is the fact that it is farcical from up, down, and the sides. It should be thrown out the window by spinlaunch.
The malicious explanation is that he intentionally downgraded the video quality with handbrake (or some other means) before handing over the evidence.
Keeping in mind that the video was the only thing shared with Kyle’s lawyer that was not shared via Dropbox, per his lawyer.
The problem is that in the trial, the prosecution actually said "Our versions are much clearer". They also used algorithmic enhancements and blowups on the bad copy to show to the court.
Here's the link (https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1461034426717122572) but I remember watching this in the trial and people were commenting on it in realtime. The defense even mentioned they weren't given the copy.
1. Prosecution receives the file via airdrop, direct data transfer.
2. Prosecution sends the file via gmail to the defense but it gets compressed in the process.
There are 2 ways to send a vid/pic from ios with gmail
1. from gmail app with attachment function, this pops up a window with "processing" (compresses the video, which is poorly worded imo)
2. from ios photos app > share > gmail, this shows a progress bar at the bottom with "compressing"
both ways are easy to overlook, first one is poorly worded and its a very fast process, my test vid with 25mb took <1s and video in question is only 4s/11mb
the real question is, why is there no proper evidence system in place to submit and review(for all 3 parties), using gmail and dropbox sounds very questionable to me.
Does Gmail automatically compress the video? I would presume it complains about size file first, and an inability to send it via email, and refuses to send.
The iOS mail app did the same for my test video 22mb > 458K, no questions asked. (unlike images where app lets you select resize options)
[1] https://www.scribd.com/document/540381079/211116-Rittenhouse... (page 3)
It was discussed extensively in the Rittenhouse court case today that the prosecution provided the defense with a much lower quality of a particular video file (one that was also possibly cropped) than what the prosecution possessed. The prosecution contends this was an accident and the transcoding occurred when they AirDropped it from one phone to another and then emailed it from their personal Gmail account.
Internet sleuths then spotted Handbrake on the prosecutor's laptop as he was preparing to show one of the videos. Those same sleuths are now speculating that the prosecutors deliberately transcoded/cropped the video that they provided to the defense, as Handbrake could possibly be used for that purpose.
how is there not some kind of startup centered around this specific use case?
What really shocked me was the carelessness in handling critical digital evidence in such an important trial - lots of discussion of Airdropping, emailing, Dropboxing, etc. You'd think critical video evidence would be controlled and only played back in an appropriately-vetted player without any software scaling (or at least only with known scaling) on approved devices. Checksums would be checked to ensure videos were unmodified, etc.
Instead, they're using random laptops, Windows Media Player at times, VLC at others, personal phones, 4K TVs that apparently the defense brought in, etc. And none of the lawyers in that courtroom understand that every single one of those can and will affect the way the video is presented.
Neither do some 'expert' witnesses.
And I have bridge to sell. It is tampering with the evidence. If prosecution was ever criminally charged for their misdeeds and fucking up person's lives as the result they would straighten out in no time. Meanwhile they keep abusing their position with no recourse.
I'm not familiar with all email clients, I mostly use Thunderbird, but almost all messaging clients, social media and similar service do compression when you upload media to them today. It's not super far off that an email client would do the same.
On the contrary, this is exactly how it works. The biggest pain point in sharing high quality photo or video content in 2021 is that every single service insists on quietly compressing or transcoding your content. Some, like iMessage, even do it inconsistently depending on things like current format and file size. To make matters worse, Gmail, iMessage, and friends will often show you, the sender, the original quality, so you don't even know that the content has been butchered.
Even here, in this incredible high-profile case, they apparently felt confident enough to give it a try.
Imagine now how easy it must be for them to do it to poor, mostly Black defendants who are relying on a public defender, when they don't have a (for better or worse) rabid political wing watching their every move, and when there are no screenshots of their laptop circulating the internet.
This is a concentrated drop of shame in the already shameful lake of fake justice.
It's an amazing example of how rotted justice in America is. But since it doesn't fit into the racial-power narrative it's ignored. This is the case that could teach middle America that their justice system is broken and needs reform.
Guilty or innocent, the DA has done so much BS that the case should have been thrown out w/ prejudice [1] a long time ago.
[1] mistrial w/ prejudice means Rittenhouse get's off. The argument for prejudice is that the prosecution is making too many serious violations for the mistakes to be innocent. And if they're not innocent mistakes, then prejudice attaches.