Channel 4 takes everyone for a ride

by Ranil WIJAYAPALA

It is quite explicit that the camcorder video was transferred to a computer for editing and sound was dubbed later and gun shots were not in synchronism with the video and normally audio is always way ahead of the video since video processing takes time and in this case the audio is very late INDICATING a very amateurish video and audio editing.

The controversial video footage shown by the Channel 4 news in UK and later reproduced by various media organizations across the globe has once again sparked war crimes charges against Sri Lanka. It has given oxygen to resuscitate the dying criticisms of war crime charges against the Sri Lankan state, its President, Defence Secretary and the Security Forces.

Once again the Channel 4 news, has televised this video footage without verifying the authenticity of the piece provided to them by a group called “Democracy for Journalist”, a set of Sri Lankan journalists in exile.

Therefore, as a responsible Government and as the party which has been charged with allegations has carried out investigations and it has been proved beyond doubt that it was a doctored one.

The expert comments on the authenticity of this video footage done by a veteran in the field on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, is carried here to provide the details

First it was Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara who had responded to these allegations who had said the footage “broadcast by Channel 4” was a fabrication designed to discredit the Security Forces.

He said: “This video has been made to discredit the Armed Forces. This was said to have been filmed at a time when the Tigers too were operating dressed in Sri Lankan military uniforms.” In fact, whatever the authenticity of the video footage the news presentation of the Channel 4 was aimed at discrediting the Sri Lankan military. It was totally biased reporting, aiming at tarnishing the good image of the Sri Lankan soldiers and the Government in the aftermath of the unprecedented victory over the most ruthless terror outfit in the world.

They were so systematic in their presentation as they first showed the video clippings of the Victory Parade where thousands of valiant soldiers saluting their Commander-in-Chief and the President and then the news presenter shows some video clippings to give an impression the way Tamil civilians were suffering during the final stages of the war.

It was totally biased news presentation because, the so-called news channel which has so many contacts to obtain video clippings to give the impression the way Tamil civilian had suffered due to the humanitarian operations of the Security Forces, were short of contacts to obtain the video footages where Sri Lankan soldiers were treating so humanely the hundreds of thousands of civilians under difficult circumstances when they flooded into the Security Forces controlled areas at the last stages of the battle.

Had they wanted to highlight those circumstances, they could have easily used the images of the suicide blast that took place among the thousands of Tamil civilians gathered at a transit camp in Uthyarattu, in Visuamadu on March 25, 2009 where dozens of innocent Tamils including innocent children were killed. If those who had seen this fake video footage were shocked, then they would have fainted had they seen the images of the children who were killed in the suicide blast inside a transit camp, by the LTTE.

And on the other hand they had failed even to mention about the way the LTTE kept those civilians as a shield against the advancing Security Forces.

So the news presenter Jonathan Miller, had once again violated the media ethics, when he highlighted the ethnicity of the Sri Lankan Security Forces, by being biased towards one ethnic group and setting one ethnic group against another.

What he wanted was to cover up the unprecedented victory over the brutality of the LTTE. If such a miracle happened in those so-called western nations it would have been the topic for the western media for months and years, to shower them with praises about their bold initiatives but not about the miracle that had happened in a country like Sri Lanka.

Channel 4 news has valid reason to be biased towards the Tamils as it was the only media channel which had the opportunity to interview the self appointed leader of the now defunct LTTE, Selvarasa Pathmanathan before his arrest in Malaysia. It had taken bold steps to whitewash a most wanted man by the Interpol throughout this interview by asking one sided questions.

Therefore, the role played by the Channel 4 news at the last stages of the war and in the aftermath of the LTTE’s total defeat is doubtful.

Therefore it makes one to wonder whether they have undertaken a contract from the now defunct LTTE and the self appointed Tiger leader Selvarasa Pathmanathan.

A video clipping claimed to have been filmed in January this year has been released to the media after eight months, even after the arrest of Selvarasa Pathmanathan by Channel 4 news of UK.

The existence of a group called “Journalist for Democracy” in Sri Lanka is also questionable, as the blog they have hosted is apparently a hurriedly created one to give a cover for the controversial video footage which has been proved to be a doctored one by the experts.

Sri Lanka which has set examples to the entire world today has become one of the victims of a vicious campaign by the West.

So it is totally out of context when they try to find fault with the Security Forces; not surprising that they would use a video footage that could tarnish the image of the Sri Lankan Security Forces and the Government, without verifying the authenticity first.

However, we should be thankful to them for mentioning the fact that they could not verify the authenticity of that video footage given to them by the group “Democracy for Journalists”, a blog hosted by a set of Sri Lankan journalists in exile. So it creates a fine combination of people to tarnish the image of the Sri Lanka.

The journalists in exile, must be self exiled as their conscience is aware that what they were doing was totally set against the Sri Lankan nation.

Therefore, the calls by international agencies including that of the United Nations to conduct war crime investigations based on a video footage and also based on unverified statistics given by certain media about civilian deaths has to be evaluated on the basis whether any legitimate Government is bound to allow any international agencies to conduct independent investigations on those allegations proven to be fake and false.

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C-4 video created from a video camera, not from a mobile phone:

Sound dubbed: a case study for gutter journalism.

In video coding or broadcasting to create a final video for any occasion it is the practice to start with high quality video first while transcending with editing for a final product. Mpeg4 is a compressed format.

If one considers the Channel- 4 video: It says it came from a mobile phone video source. There are only two formats in mobile video formats. One is an old 3GPP format and the other an advanced Mpeg4, H-264 part 10 which is MP4 format which is highly processor intensive encoding and due to this issue, mobile phones in the present markets does not produce high quality videos.

Such processors are not that powerful to take good quality video that Channel- 4 claims since channel - 4 video is much high quality than existing Smart phones can create TODAY.

Within H-264 coding we also have extra component called Motion Vectors (VMC) which are used to predict motion on temporal and spatial domain. The Channel - 4 video have quite high quality VMC(Motion Vector) and this VMC came from a video camera and not from a mobile phone source. Also Mobile source also tend to be blocky in nature when it comes to motion.

Since original video is from AVI and QuickTime format, the whole video scenario indicates that ORIGINAL video is of high quality that came from a video camera source since mobile formats does not use AVI or Quicktime which are high quality video formats.

If they changed the mobile format to AVI or QT then the final video will be of poor quality. In the analysis it was found that the AVI and QT formats are of very high quality.

Also it is quite explicit that the camcorder video was transferred to a computer for editing and sound was dubbed later and gun shots were not in synchronism with the video and normally audio is always way ahead of the video since video processing takes time and in this case the audio is very late INDICATING a very amateurish video and audio editing.

ORIGINAL VIDEO 1:02.781 EDITED Video stopped at 01:02.312 Audio dub stopped at 1:02.125

Siri Hewawitharana, former head of Cisco’s global broadcast and digital video practice, has held a number of significant business development and technical leadership roles with some of the world’s most successful telecommunication and broadcasting organisations.

These include head of systems engineering for Star TV Hong Kong, head of visual communication for OTC and director of engineering for WIN TV.

As chief architect of Optus’ Network Systems Design Broadcast and Satellite TV operation, Hewawitharana was responsible for creating and operating Optus’ $47 million Pay TV Video Operations Centre.

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