4. Creating an Incident

In MediaWorks DX™, an incident contains a group of related recordings. To find recordings, see Browsing for Recordings and Searching for Recordings. Once a set of recordings has been found, the next step is to group them into related sets known as “incidents.” New incidents can be created from a selection of recordings, and additional recordings can be appended to existing incidents. Incidents form the foundation for many of the other MediaWorks DX™ functions, such as exporting recording data. Incidents can also be shared with other users by emailing them or saving them to a shared location on the Eventide recorder.

Incidents can be stored remotely on the recorder. To create a new incident, select New Tab from the File menu and then select Incident from the drop-down list. An empty Incident tab labeled “Untitled” will be created. To create a new incident with an initial set of recordings, first select the recordings from the Record view or Timeline view. Then right-click and select New Incident from Selected Records from the drop-down menu. A new incident tab labeled “Untitled” will be created containing the recordings you selected.

Fig. 4.1 Incident

An incident can also be populated with recordings in several other ways. From the Browse or Search tab, a group of recordings can be copied to an incident tab using drag-and-drop. With the Browse or Search tab open, select one or more recordings. Then click the selected recordings and, while holding the mouse button down, drag the recordings to the new Incident tab. Release the mouse over the Incident tab and the recordings will be added to that incident.

4.1. Adding and Removing Recordings from an Incident

Once created, an incident can be further expanded or reduced. To add recordings to an open incident, first select the desired recordings from the Browse or Search tabs, or another Incident tab. Once selected, click and drag the selection to the destination Incident tab and then release it. The recordings will be appended to that incident.

Alternatively, after having selected the recordings you wish to add, right-click the selection and choose Add to incident from the menu that appears. A submenu lists all possible destination incidents. Select the desired incident and the recordings will be appended to it.

To remove recordings from an incident, select the recordings you wish to remove from the Incident tab they are associated with and select Remove from the Edit menu. Alternatively, you can right-click the recording selection and choose Remove from the menu that appears.

4.2. Saving an Incident

To save an incident to the recorder, first make sure the Incident tab is selected, then select Save Incident from the File menu. If this is a new incident, when the Save Incident dialog box appears, the Recorder tab will be automatically selected.

The Protect Calls in Incident option will automatically mark all recordings as protected when saving the incident; this is turned on by default. Optionally you can edit the incident properties and permissions here too. When saving an incident with a large number of calls with this option on, a progress bar will pop up to provide feedback while the system is protecting calls.

Enter an Incident Name and then click OK to save.

4.3. Download an Incident Locally

Incidents can be also be saved locally to your computer. By default, one usually wants to save an incident remotely, which means on the recorder itself, for use on that recorder. But if you need to share an incident across different recorders, you can save the incident locally to your computer as an <incident name>.eti file. This file can then be shared and opened with the Open Incident file menu option.

To save locally, you must first save the incident to the recorder. Once you have saved it to the recorder, select Save Incident As from the File menu, and choose the Download tab. You can optionally enter a password here that the incident will require to open.

Fig. 4.2 Local Incident Save

This file can then be shared and opened with the Open Incident file menu option, by clicking the local tab and clicking Add File. Select an .eti file, click ok and then click OK in the Open Incident dialog. If there is a password, you will be prompted to enter it and if that succeeds, the incident will open with all of the calls, notes, attachments and metadata as seen on the original recorder.

4.3.1. Pack and Go

License Required

This feature must be licensed to be used. Contact your Eventide Dealer for assistance.

When licensed, Pack and Go allows you to export an offline incident with a built in player. This is useful for allowing a user to explore an incident’s content without access to a recorder.

The Pack and Go player is portable and does not need to be installed. It does not require any network access and can be opened by anyone with a Microsoft Windows 7 or newer PC. The player can optionally require a password.

4.4. Incident Renaming

Incidents can be renamed by right-clicking on the incident either in the open incident menu or on the tab of an open incident.

Fig. 4.3 Rename Option in Tab Right-Click Menu

Fig. 4.4 Incident Rename Pop Up

4.5. Incident Properties

The Properties button (at the top of the tab and in the Save window) opens to an Incident Properties window that allows for a searchable text description of the incident, as well as fine control of which permissions each user on the system has for this incident.

Fig. 4.5 Incident Properties and Notes

This window contains a variety of information and options for this incident, including Permissions, Description, Notes, File Attachments, and an Incident Link URL.

The “Protect Calls on Save” checkbox in the upper right corner controls whether or not calls added to this incident after the initial save will be protected when the incident is saved.

4.5.1. Incident Properties and Notes: Description

The Description text box at the top of the Incident Properties window can be used to describe the incident and highlight anything particularly interesting about it. This description can then be searched for in Open Incident dialog, making it easier to find specific incidents on systems that have many.

4.5.2. Incident Properties and Notes: Notes

Notes can be added by anyone with read/write permissions for the incident. Each note will include the creator, the date created, and if media is attached to the note, a file name. Short notes will be fully visible but for longer notes, you can right-click and select View Note from the context menu to see the full text of the note. If there is a document attached of a supported type (text, jpg, wav, mp3, etc), you will be able to see it in this pop up as well. From this context menu you can also choose to edit or delete the note or download the attached file. The paper clip icon next to Add allows you to attach media (or any kind of file) to the note.

Fig. 4.6 Incident View Note

4.5.3. Incident Properties: Permissions

The Properties button (at the top of the tab and in the Save window) opens to an Incident Properties window that allows for a searchable text description of the incident, as well as fine control of which permissions each user on the system has for this incident.

Fig. 4.7 Incident Properties - Permissions

The default for new incidents is Read Only: only the original creator of the incident can make changes, and everyone else can open it to listen to calls and read notes.

The radio buttons in the top line allow you to assign permissions for all users at once, and can also be used first to set a default state before assigning specific permissions to a few users. For example, you may want only two users to have access to this incident, so you click the All Users Owner Only button and then click Read Only for the two users you want to share it with. Owner Only is the same as No Access for users other than the user that created this incident.

Note that the Owner of an incident always has Read/Write permissions.

4.6. Redacting Recordings in an Incident

Redaction is an umbrella feature allowing for modifying part of a call’s audio, either by replacing it with silence or a tone, or by applying an effect such as obfuscation or automatic gain correction. Obfuscation transforms the original speaker’s voice into something clear but not recognizable as a specific person and aims to make identifying a source difficult.

Fig. 4.8 Redaction in Context Menu

Redaction points are available only for calls organized into an incident. Right-click on a call record to add a Redaction point. This will show up as a purple highlighted space in the call, with a smaller square in the upper right corner. Clicking that square gives the redaction space focus, so you can adjust its duration by dragging the start and end times, or adjust its location by click in the center and dragging it from side to side.

Fig. 4.9 Redaction Area

If you right-click the Redaction area, a Redaction specific menu will pop up. From here, you can open an options menu for this redaction, change the kind of effect to be applied (Mute, Tone, AGC, or Obfuscate), “Move” the redaction by giving it mouse-focus the way clicking the upper right corner would, or remove the redaction entirely.

Fig. 4.10 Redaction Area

The Options for a Redaction include the maximum gain of the AGC, or the kind of Obfuscation. A lower value for Obfuscation modulates pitch downward, and a higher one moves it upwards.

4.7. Incident Clip Management

Incident Clip Management is a feature intended for systems that use analog recording with imperfect call stop and start recording criteria. On systems relying on Vox or TRV thresholds and hold times, sometimes a single call will be recorded as two, and other times two calls can be recorded in a single call.

Incident Clip Management allows users making incidents to join or split audio calls in an incident so that the calls are played back correctly. The original call records remain on the recorder in their as-recorded state.

A split or joined call record is called a clip.

4.7.1. Incident Clip Management Configuration and Permissions

Incident Clip Management is an optional feature: for anyone on the system to use it an Admin user must turn the feature on in Configuration Manager under Users and Security: System Security. When enabled, this will add two custom fields required for Incident Clip Management, is_clipped_media and clip_details, if they do not already exist. At that point, any Admin or Researcher user can use Incident Clip Management.

Fig. 4.11 Enable Incident Clip Management in Configuration Manager

4.7.2. Joining Calls with Incident Clip Management

Once configured, the tools to split and join media are relatively straight forward. Note that this function is only available for use on call records in an incident. Below is an example image showing a call that split because the volume of the audio dropped too low for too long, causing it to be broken into two calls.

Fig. 4.12 Enable Incident Clip Management in Configuration Manager

In order to fix this:

1. Add both calls to an incident and select one of the calls, right-click and select “Split/Join Media” from the context menu.

Fig. 4.13 Select Split/Join Media from Menu

2. The Split/Join Area will appear; this is very similar to the Redaction tools previously discussed.

Fig. 4.14 Split/Join Area

3. Drag the edges of the Split/Join Area to contain the call audio.

Fig. 4.15 Resize Split/Join Area to Include All Audio

4. And then click the green check box to merge, or the red X to cancel.

Fig. 4.16 Click Green Checkbox and then Click OK

5. You then get a summary of what will be joined, with the option to remove the original records from the incident. In the case like this, of joining two calls, you are going to want to use the default setting to remove the original two from the incident. The original calls remain on the recorder, but are replaced in the incident with the new joined call. The call grid will be updated with the new call as well.

Fig. 4.17 The Calls are Now Joined

4.7.3. Splitting Calls with Incident Clip Management

Here we will tackle the other common scenario: a pair of calls that are joined together because the Vox hold time was set too long and the calls were very close together in time:

Fig. 4.18 Example of Calls Improperly Merged Because of Vox Timeout

1. As above, click the call and use the context menu to Split/Join Media, and then adjust the boundaries to surround the first call, click the green check mark.

Fig. 4.19 Adjust Split/Join Area

2. In this case, we want to uncheck the default “Remove original record(s) from incident” option: we want the original to remain in the incident for the next step. We are going to crop a second call out of it and at that point we will use the default setting to remove the original.

Fig. 4.20 Uncheck “Remove original record(s) from incident”

3. Click OK. The selected area is now added to the incident as a separate call. The original remains.

Fig. 4.21 First Call Split, Original Call Remains

4. Again, use the context menu to click Split/Join Media and select the second call’s audio area.

Fig. 4.22 Select and Split the Second Call

5. Click the green check mark and click OK on the prompt (leaving the default setting.)

Fig. 4.23 Split the Second Call and Remove the Original Call from the Incident

6. Now both calls exist in the incident as separate call records, shown accurately in the timeline and call grid.

Fig. 4.24 The Calls are Split

4.7.4. More about Incident Clip Management

Calls that have been split or merged with Incident Clip Management will appear in search results at the same time as the original calls. Incident Clip Management calls are always displayed on top in the timeline; they are also highlighted with a yellow border, as seen in the screen shots above. Enabling the call grid column Is Clipped will also let you quickly see whether a call was modified with Incident Clip Management or not.

In an incident, you can quickly access the original version of a clip by right-clicking it and selecting “Restore Original Media” to bring all original calls involved into the incident. There is an option to remove the clip from the incident in the same step.

If a clip is no longer useful (or created wrongly in the first place) it can be deleted from the recorder by right-clicking it and selecting “Delete Clip.” It is important to note that if a clip is used in multiple incidents, it will no longer be available in any of them.

4.8. Pinning Media to an Incident

Multimedia in an incident can be “pinned” to the canvas, such that they are always shown when the incident is loaded. This is so that important events in an incident can be highlighted for future research. In an incident, a multimedia record, such as a screen capture, will playback in a panel that has these options in the upper right corner:

Fig. 4.25 Multimedia in an Incident (Detail)

The left most of these icons is the Pin to Incident button. If you click this, the frame around the media will turn grey and the Pin to Incident and the Pop Out to Application will disappear:

Fig. 4.26 Pinned Multimedia in an Incident (Detail)

4.9. Exporting an Incident

Incident Export exports the entire incident based on the export default. The only difference is that it always selects “All Media” on the first panel because otherwise it would only export the currently selected calls. If you want to modify the export settings from the default, you can click the Back button to adjust any of them.

Fig. 4.27 Export Incident

Exporting an incident with this button will also include all attached files in the resulting zip file rather than requiring you to download each one individually from the Properties and Notes page.

For more details on Exporting, see Exporting Recording Data from an Incident.