Temporal Synchronisation
Definition
The process of aligning the timelines of two or more camera recordings so that events captured from different viewpoints can be placed in the correct chronological order.
- Goal
- Align timelines of multiple camera recordings
- Common cues
- Timestamps, audio waveforms, shared visible events
- Field
- Video and multimedia forensics
- Failure mode
- Clock drift or missing metadata between sources
Common questions
What if the cameras were never clock-synced?+
An examiner can align the streams using a shared visible or audible event captured on both recordings, such as a door closing, a flash, or a distinctive sound, and then calculate the offset between the two internal clocks from that common point.
Why does synchronisation matter for a court exhibit?+
Without it, an analyst cannot say with confidence which camera's footage of a person or vehicle happened first, which can change whether two clips show the same event or two separate ones.
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