Being a company with over 20 years of experience building interview room systems and consulting for tons of police departments, we’ve gained a lot of valuable knowledge on the steps police departments should take when considering an interview room system.

We want to help you! No matter what system you end up with, you should feel empowered to make the correct choice. You don’t need a degree from MIT in order to have an understanding of the technology that can help (or hurt) the quality of your interview recordings.

Here are some tips we’ve compiled for you to make an informed decision on the best interview recording system for your police department.

1. Educate yourself on the differences and pros and cons of IP, USB and HD-SDI cameras.

The majority of interview recording systems on the market today are compatible with IP cameras. However, this has proven to cause issues with audio clarity and synchronization with the video. It’s important to have an acute awareness of your options so you know what to anticipate once you choose your preferred cameras.

2. Don’t skimp on the details. The more information you provide to your vendors, the more tailored the proposed solution will be.

We recommend you send the following information to the vendor you’re considering:

• Images of your interview room(s) and control rooms with square footage (this will give the vendor an idea of the current scope of your interview room), the placement of your furniture, current issues you’re experiencing that’s affecting the feel in the room, sound proofing, etc. They can then propose some solutions to solve your issues.
• The distance between the interview room(s) and the control room. This will help the vendor figure out the installation logistics and cable length requirements.
• The vendor/brand you used for your current system and why it’s not working for you. Is it complicated? Is it missing crucial features? It is time consuming to start, stop and export interviews? Be as specific as possible to ensure you get a demo that is tailored to how the software you’re considering can provide solutions for your issues.

3. Decide what factors are most important to you when choosing the recording software.

For example:

• Do you prefer a picture-in-picture camera layout or side by side?
• Would you like to record a phone, tablet, monitor, lie detector, or another device? Does your supplier offer a system that has the capacity to record these clearly?
• Will you be sharing your recordings with individuals outside of your police department? If you will, you want to make sure that the software you’re considering doesn’t require a software download to replay recordings on individual’s devices external from your department.

4. Check the warranty!

We can’t stress this enough. You want a system with a long-span or lifetime warranty. The day after the warranty is expired, you are in charge of fixing hardware and software issues. Most police departments end up having to complete the search for a new system all over again or put up with an outdated system with broken parts until they have the budget for a new one. Don’t let your police department end up in this predicament.

5. Decide who you want to install the system.

Do you have an IT manager? Would you prefer the vendor install the system themselves? You may be saving costs by having an internal employee install the system but, if issues should arise, you should ensure you have a plan for remote assistance from the vendor.

6. Attend the demo and, if possible, try the software before you buy it.

It should be easy to use and all of your coworkers should feel comfortable and satisfied with it once they try it.

7. Be disaster-proof.

Don’t forget to invest in a backup battery! If power issues should arise, you don’t want your entire system to be down and lose crucial recordings. Make sure you factor this into your quote request. In addition, it may be smart to invest in several computers to operate the software and media library. Relying on one device may cause a system overload and should the computer experience technical issues or shut down, all of your interview room systems will be impacted.

8. Decide whether you want a media library and educate yourself on how on-premise and cloud-based storage works.

Cloud storage gets a bad wrap for being “less secure”, however, this isn’t so. There’s no right or wrong way to handle your storage, it’s about the needs of your department.

9. Be transparent.

So you’ve gotten all of your quotes sitting out in front of you and your favorite vendor’s quote is higher than your budget! What do you do? Our recommendation: don’t settle for less. Go back to your preferred vendor and let them know what’s out of your budget. They just may be able to work with you on getting you your dream system for a lower cost.

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Seems like a lot, huh? We know! That’s why our CEO, Claude Turcotte used his audio/visual and broadcasting experience to write a guide that includes all of the information you need to know in order to make an informed decision for your police department.

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There’s no doubt that large police departments and those who conduct hundreds of interviews a year can’t rely on their local hard drive to store, manage and share interview recordings and other proprietary files securely and efficiently. Thus, the evidence management system comes into play. When looking for the perfect system for your police department, the options are endless. A few questions to consider are the following:

• Will it integrate with my surveillance and/or interview recording system?
• Will I have to pay increased fees if my department grows or needs additional storage?
• What security features are in place? How can I ensure my documents are safe?
• How do I build a chain of evidence using the system?
• Which storage option should I choose – cloud-based or on-premise?

In this article, we will address these questions and point out some of the benefits for law enforcement entities using our Evidence Management System.

1. No extra cost for storage or per user fees

Don’t get ripped off by paying for each gigabyte of storage you’re using in your evidence management system. You will have absorbent expenses and never feel like you have enough space for all of your documents. MaestroVision’s Evidence Management software offers unlimited storage and users for one affordable fee.

2. Customization options are endless – pick what you want and leave the rest

Metadata information is used for classifying all media. It consists of information such as the date and time, the type of media, who recorded it, the location, the names of people involved and so on. The objective of metadata is to easily retrieve information. For example, trying to locate an interview, which occurred in San Diego between 2018 and 2019, concerning a murder that involved Bob Smith. Only if all the metadata information was entered correctly will the retrieval be successful.

The metadata fields in our media library can be configured to your specific needs. For example, if you want each of your interview recordings to contain keywords denoting different aspects that are indexed and searchable in the library, you can. Here are some examples of common metadata fields:

• Case number
• Interviewee (Suspect/Witness)
• LEO (Law Enforcement Officer)
• Nature of crime (can be a drop down containing different classifications: homicide, narcotics, theft, automobile collision and more)
• Date and time (will be automatically recorded in the system)
• Annotation keywords (if you’d like to search for a recording using a keyword you entered in a bookmark, this is possible) and more

3. User permissions (chain of command)

It is important to create different user configurations that control access. For example, group A only has access to content A, but not access to group B’s content; or limiting some user types to just having read- only access. With our evidence management system, configuration types can be unlimited, are very secure and can be connected to the active directory for ease of access.

Content from within the system can be shared to different users depending on your permissions.

4. Reports feature

Our evidence management system allows for ad-hoc reporting. It is important to have access to reports detailing the database utilization. The evidence management system holds sensitive information that needs to be controlled. Reports can include information about who accessed the database, timestamps of when information was viewed, what videos were downloaded and more.

5. Ability to manage any type of file you want

Our media library is compatible with all media files regardless of where they have originated. The media can be audio or video from interview recordings, surveillance cameras, smart phones, videotapes, bodycams, broadcasts and more. When specifically dealing with surveillance cameras, their file formats are often proprietary and cannot play with just any computer software.

Our video library system can manage two types of files, the original and the proxy. A proxy is a copy of the original in a particular file format, ideally h.264. The idea of the proxy is to have one common file type for monitoring and research purposes. Before a judge, the original file needs to be presented, but when conducting an investigation, avoiding time searching for video evidence is useful.

In addition, users can upload any types of files pertinent to their department or a case (PDF, DOC, PNG, JPEG, MP3 and more).

6. Add annotations, trim recordings and export downloads

Adding bookmarks during the interview can be a challenge for any law enforcement officer looking for clues to a case and trying to be 100% present to the interviewee. That’s why our evidence management system gives users the ability to add bookmarks post-interview. Also, recordings can be trimmed and exported to a DVD, USB or saved to a hard drive directly from the application.

7. Option to choose between on-premise or cloud based storage

We can install an on-premises video library as an application at your location or we can install a cloud-based system in our data center. The choice is yours. For more details on the pros and cons of on-premise versus cloud-based storage, please download our free guide on how to build or upgrade your interview room.

8. Maximum security features

Our system employs many security features such as: prevention of multiple active login sessions; access control based on each user’s privileges; protection in case of multiple invalid login attempts; automatic logout of inactive users after 30 minutes; enforcement of minimum password complexity; and using an encrypted secured connection to access the system. Any additional features you’d like can be implemented.

 

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