Dear CSI writers

[iainjclark]

Dear CSI writers,

Just a few things to help you on your way...

Radio-monitored shopping tags used to track individuals?

Fingerprints analysed for clues to lifestyle

DNA could be used to predict your surnameIt's amazing how many of these stories keep popping up. You'll note that not a single one of them says "Laws of physics changed - now

Comments

[veggiesu]

You'll note that not a single one of them says "Laws of physics changed - now possible to zoom into reflections 300 times using grainy CCTV footage". (Something they did on the episode of Bones we just watched, despite scoring highly a few minutes earlier by referring to the impossibility of enhancing the resolution of an image.)

Ooh, that really annoyed me when they did that on Bones. I mean, aside from the 3D Holoprojector, they're not normally too bad with the fauxscience stuff; and when they explained that you couldn't enhance the image I thought "wow, *finally* a TV show that gets it". And then they went and enhanced the image :-( What is it about CCTV footage and photos that TV shows just can't resist?

[ajp]

One word.

"Lazy writing"...

what do you mean "that was two words"? ;-)

[iainjclark]

What bothers me is that they don't even leave the image looking blurry, or pixellated, but still understandable. They just can't resist showing a crisp new unprocessed photo. It's like they're not even trying!

[majuran]

Did you catch any of the "unaired" eps of The Inside on ITV4? They zoomed in on something t'other day and was all pixelly \o/

[iainjclark]

Nope, but I was very impressed by the first few episodes of The Inside. It was all about character and very little about the plot, which is a refreshing change for the genre.

Sadly we never caught up with any more episodes, and then it was cancelled, and you know how these things go. I should really track down the remaining episodes. Mr Minear gives good television.

[ajp]

Indeed. They might as well cut strait to the conceit that they need a CCTV picture of the perpetrator/victim/lost puppy/etc, and have an obliging camera pointed in the right direction...

[majuran]

Just as a semi-related aside, I've always wondered what kind of resolution you'd get out of a decent 35mm camera. I mean, I get it can't be infinite but it must be pretty high... I'd imagine only really limited by how high the dpi on your scanner is.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that even then zooming into the reflection on someone's eyeball would be feasible :P

[ajp]

I think it would depend on the speed of the film, and thus the grain size of the silver halide particles.

I don't know the answer; but I seem to recall reading somewhere that (a true) 11MP digital camera was broadly the same as 100ASA 35mm film. At least that's a pair of numbers I have in my mind. I can't seem to find any sources to confirm or deny that right now, though.

[iainjclark]

enhancing CCTV footage from Woking station?

No but I'm assuming the end result wasn't a brand new 6 megapixel photo taken from two feet away...

[iainjclark]

Oh, I don't doubt it - but they're probably constrained by the laws of physics - at least for the majority of the time.

There's a difference between painstaking enhancement to identify a make of car, and tapping a button to read a taxi driver's name badge in a reflection on the windscreen from half a mile away. :-)

But yes, actual photo enhancement like most forensics is a cool and interesting thing. It's the lack of realism in the TV depiction that I object to.

[iainjclark]

I was really talking about CSI. Bones just strayed into the same field of fire. :-)