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Can we ID from CCTV? Image quality in digital CCTV and face identification performance

Keval, HU; Sasse, MA; (2008) Can we ID from CCTV? Image quality in digital CCTV and face identification performance. In: Agaian, SS and Jassim, SA, (eds.) Proceedings of SPIE. SPIE Green open access

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Abstract

CCTV is used for an increasing number Of purposes, and the new generation of digital systems can be tailored to serve a wide range of security requirements. However, configuration decisions are often made without considering specific task requirements, e.g. the video quality needed for reliable person identification. Our Study investigated the relationship between video quality and the ability of untrained viewers to identify faces from digital CCTV images. The task required 80 participants to identify 64 faces belonging to 4 different ethnicities. Participants compared face images taken from a high quality photographs and low quality CCTV stills, which were recorded at 4 different video quality bit rates (32, 52, 72 and 92 Kbps). We found that the number of correct identifications decreased by 12 (similar to 18%) as MPEG-4 quality decreased from 92 to 32 Kbps, and by 4 (similar to 6%) as Wavelet video quality decreased from 92 to 32 Kbps. To achieve reliable and effective face identification, we recommend that MPEG-4 CCTV systems should be used over Wavelet, and video quality should not be lowered below 52 Kbps during video compression. We discuss the practical implications of these results for security, and contribute a contextual methodology for assessing CCTV video quality.

Type: Proceedings paper
Title: Can we ID from CCTV? Image quality in digital CCTV and face identification performance
Event: Mobile Multimedia/Image Processing, Security, and Applications 2008
Location: Orlando, FL
Dates: 2008-03-18 - 2008-03-20
ISBN-13: 9780819471734
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1117/12.774212
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.774212
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright 2008 Society of Photo Optical Instrumentation Engineers. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibited.
Keywords: Security, Digital Cctv, MPEG-4, Wavelet, Face Identification, Task Performance, Video Quality, Video Compression, Recognition, Video, Own
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/19831
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