Video expert calls for judicial review of program

Internationally renowned expert in broadcast video systems and Executive Director IPTV Systems Australia Siri Hewavitharana in a brief interview with the Sunday Observer, said the British broadcasting industry, which was respected and produced the best broadcast technologists in the world, now going down the path that glorifies terrorists was a disturbing issue.

Hewavitharana, who has exposed Channel 4’s digital manipulation of pictures for its controversial ‘Killing Fields’ documentary, said the program consists of fake videos that were digitally altered, fake stills and a producer using false narratives that amounts to absolute dishonesty on the part of the producer.

“I was a product of British broadcasting and my teachers were the cream of British broadcasting. The company I worked for in London was one of the top broadcast companies in the world with two Emmy Awards. They produce amazing digital broadcast products used by all global broadcasters. I was very proud of my teachers and my team and also the fact that I was part of the technical team that produced the two Emmy-winning programs,” he said.

Hewavitharana, former Head of CISCO’s global broadcast and digital video practice and of Systems Engineering for Star TV Hong Kong, explained one of the fake pictures in the video, that of a boy’s head blown off and a pool of blood nearby.

He said the isolated pixel mapping indicates pixels that have been manipulated using a digital paint brush to show blood.

He said the video and stills were digitally paintbrushed to show blood from the boy’s face but the blood pixels do not match the surroundings of the video. “This has never come from a mobile phone. There are many other factors to prove the fake nature of the video. It is an attempt to give fresh breath for terrorism”, he said.

Hewavitharana said Ch-4 has non linear editors such as AVID.

If they cared to use them, they would have seen the metadata layer and the fake technical data. “The question is who did this digital alteration; was it by the Ch-4 producers or by the terror group that provided the fake video?”

The expert stressed the need for a judicial review of the video footage, witnesses and the so-called journalists involved.

- SS