VideoCleaner is a free, open-source application that can and does edit videos, and is also used by experts and police authorities to verify authenticity.
Technically, VideoCleaner is not an application in itself, but a script that runs on top of a different software, but to understand what it does and for brevity, let's call it a program.
VideoCleaner is a video enhancement tool that can be used for forensic purposes. It is not the only one of its kind, as there are various similar solutions, such as AChoir or OSForensics that we have previously presented or FotoForensics etc.
The program can be used to give you more detail from videos that are of poor quality, especially in terms of lighting. VideoCleaner is open source and is downloaded as a zip file containing an MSI installer package, an installation guide, and a user guide. There are a few steps listed in the installation guide that you need to follow to get VideoCleaner up and running.
The program is installed at the top level of drive C, in the folder C:\VideoCleaner and requires administrator privileges to install. It also installs the AVIsynth and FFDshow files needed for video editing.
Once installed, it opens an application called AvsPmod, which is the VideoCleaner screen. There, you will see shortcuts to install Camstudio, Lagarith Codec, and XVID Codec. All of these are optional of course, and all open source projects.
Warning: We should warn you that Camstudio has a bad reputation for containing adware in its installer. If you want to record video and audio, then we would recommend skipping it altogether and using something safer and more modern like OBS.
However, the remaining codecs (Lagarith Codec and XVID Codec) can be useful, as they add support for additional features, such as lossless video and support for the Divx format.
Let’s get to the main application. You can open it from the “VideoCleaner” icon in the Start menu or on the desktop. One of the first things you should do, and this might sound really strange, is not to use the menu at the top of the window. and that’s because the menu is AvsPmod, which is the host program that runs the VideoCleaner script. So forget about that menu completely.
When you click on the VideoCleaner shortcut, a Windows Explorer pop-up window will appear. Navigate through it to find the image or video you want to verify or enhance. It supports video formats such as AVI, MP4, MKV, WMV and image formats such as BMP, PNG, JPG. There are some sample images and videos included in the Samples folder of VideoCleaner, which you can use to learn how to work with the program.
After you place some media into the program, you will see a preview of the video or image, as well as playback controls, located just below the preview window. There is a panel on the right side of the screen. You can change the Properties, Specialty, and Finalizing sections using the check boxes. The remaining buttons are sliders. Move the slider left or right to adjust the corresponding value. The current value is displayed towards the right end of each line.
The four sliders at the top are useful for checking for differences between frames, but also for comparing the original video with the one you've edited. These can be useful for checking if a video has been tampered with.
Below are the editing sections. Each of them has a master toggle slider (at the top) that you need to toggle to apply the effects. The tools have various filter options that you can use to adjust Sharpness, Color Contrast, Saturation, Hue, Histogram, Denoise, and other settings.
The Curve section is for changing the lighting balance. Look at the image below, and you'll see that it shows some hidden details, like what's under the computer table.
The Forensic filters are a bit more advanced and allow you to adjust Edge detection, isolation, RGB amplification. The Analysis and Update tools have sliders for enabling Pseudocolors, noise, etc. VideoCleaner can be used to adjust color channels, add tones to an area, adjust the angle, etc. You can also use it to add timestamps or numbers to frames, annotate with text, add margins.
Right click to adjust the zoom levels. After finishing editing press F7 to save your work. You can also export it to Virtualdub using F6.
Overall, VideoCleaner is a powerful tool and could be useful for those who have videos captured by CCTV cameras or other low-quality videos. You can download it for free from here and you can also find several educational videos from here.
