Searching for the impossible

[Lynnzer]

Now, this one is really way off topic but I'm buggered as to where else to ask the questions. I know there are a lot of very knowledgeable people on forum who may just have the answer to my quest.

So, here's the situation.
I and my immediate neighbours are having a great deal of trouble from a neighbour 50m further down the street. Around February this year I became aware of extremely bright security lights shining up from his house directly into my bedrooms at the front of the house. They were, and still are, comiing on frequently during the night with either one of them, or both of them activating without any seeming cause. The impact of them is that it is making sleep difficult as they really are that bright, almost like zenon car headlights. My neighbours are also affected and it has even been suggested that someone borrow a .22 air rifle.......

It's almost beyond belief but he has bloody big flags flying in his back yard underneath the lights and their motion detector cameras. Like I said: bloody stupid.

The householder is an agressive idiot who just tells you to F.O. and mind your own business, so asking him to do something about it is useless.

The council has been sent an official complaint and they have sent a letter telling him to do something about it. Of course that has been no use at all and the problem is ongoing. The council have now asked me to write a diary noting the dates, times, length of light being on etc so they can look into legal action, BUT that's damn stupid. I can't possibly keep watch all night long for a week to take notes. So I have decided the best way to do this is by using a webcam left running all night to record the incidents.

That throws up another problem though. I would need to use a programme to look at the recordings and flag each lighting incident so that the council can easily zone in to see them. The only way I can do this is to run the entire video capture and mark each incident, but of course that entails many hours sat at the computer.

So, here's the question. Is there a programme out there that can compare the running video and automatically mark in a flag for any sudden change of light, similar to Movavi which I already use, detecting a change of scene perhaps?

The street is extremely quiet at night with little other movement or light intrusion and is also pretty dark. There should no external influences on scene changes except for the sudden explosion of these security lights.

Any help would be appreciated

[handrawn]

sounds like you are in the uk ?

council can only take action if it can be proved to be a 'nuisance' as defined by law; as it stands is a civil matter, not criminal

if you could position a camera such as the one you took your photo with and have it activated by a light sensor with each photo stamped with time and date that might be a good start I think

[handrawn]

you ought to be able to set your webcam up to do this

but thinking about it, if you just let the webcam run, ideally with the video datestamped, it would illustrate the problem from start to finish so to speak, would it not ? of course the council would have to watch it - you could watch it afterwards and manually note the times to save them time watching it all

even if it is not date stamped it's a start as long as the location is clearly identifiable which it must be anyway; a video diary with notes is as good as a written one here if not better ?

be good if some of your neighbours could do same...

[Lynnzer]

That's the sort of thing I'm going to do, but manually searching through 10 hours of footage for5 every night's recording is going to be - well- 10 ours of daytime work. Too make things easier, I need to have a programme that detects sudden incursions of light then marks the video or clips it at5 that point.
I'm working with Movavi right now and I think I may have it sorted somewhat.
The original video recording didn't see any scene changes to mark, however I've messed around with the image settings, ie brightness, contrast etc, and some scenes where thye light kicks in are now found and marked.
I'll do a bit more on that and see what comes of it.
Thanks for the comments

[handrawn]

I don't know movavi... if you have the right software you should be able to vary playback speed to make the task shorter, provided it has a reasonably accurate pause function; I am not convinced you need pinpoint accuracy in timing, more the frequency of the problem and it's times of day, and it's approx lengths, but I guess that is up to your council; ask yourself the question if you sat up with a notebook and a still camera how definitive is that and that is your benchmark

sory i cannot be more helpful, you have my sympathy, bad neighbours can be a curse

[wizard509]

130816[/ATTACH]

A UFO perhaps