Witness CameraWitness for Professionals
How Witness Pro works, for journalists, documentary makers, investigators and legal observers.
The free app already does the part that protects footage: it records with the screen black, uploads every 15 seconds to storage you own, and hashes and time-stamps the result. Witness Pro adds picture quality and professional outputs on top of that. It never sits between you and the protection.
Who Pro is for
Pro is for people who deliver footage to someone else and need more than a phone's default picture: an editor, a broadcaster, an attorney, an investigating body. Typical uses are documentary and investigative work, planned shoots where you control the connection, and coverage that has to go through a newsroom's grading and verification process.
If you are filming an encounter as it happens and getting the footage off the phone matters most, you probably do not need Pro. The free 1080p setting uploads fastest, and that is the setting that survives a seized phone. The field guide covers that case.
What Pro adds
The two apps share one idea and differ where the platforms do.
| Capability | iPhone | Android |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 1080p (free) or 4K | 1080p (free) or 4K |
| Frame rate | 24 (cinema), 25 (PAL), 30 or 60 fps | 24, 25, 30 or 60 fps |
| Codec | H.264, HEVC 10-bit, ProRes 422 LT or HQ | H.264, HEVC 10-bit, or Mastering (very high bit rate HEVC) |
| Flat colour for grading | Apple Log on iPhone 15 Pro and newer, with HEVC or ProRes | 10-bit HDR (HLG) on phones whose camera supports it, with HEVC or Mastering |
| On-screen date, time and location | Yes | Yes, but not together with 10-bit HDR |
| One combined video from both cameras | Yes, on phones that can record both | Yes, on phones that can record both |
| Shorter cut with the dead air removed | Yes | Not at present |
| Evidence packages (PDF report) | Yes | Yes |
Android has no ProRes encoder on any device, and its public camera interface has no vendor-neutral Log profile. Mastering and 10-bit HDR are the closest equivalents, not the same thing, so an editor expecting ProRes or Apple Log files from an Android phone should say so up front.
What stays free
- Recording with the screen black, and starting it in one press.
- Live upload every 15 seconds to Google Drive, Dropbox, Nextcloud or WebDAV.
- SHA-256 hashing of every piece and the chain-of-custody manifest.
- Independent RFC 3161 time-stamping of each session.
- Sending every recording to an emergency contact as it arrives.
- Dual-camera recording at 1080p, 30 fps, H.264.
The hashes and time-stamp are in every recording whether Pro is on or off. Anyone can check them with OpenSSL, without the app.
The trade-off: weight and upload speed
Higher quality costs file size, and file size decides whether footage can leave the phone while you are still filming. The Pro page in the app shows these costs next to each choice. These figures use the same formula the app uses for H.264, HEVC and ProRes, on both iPhone and Android. They are estimates, and real bit rates vary with the scene. Android's Mastering codec is about 100 Mbps at 1080p 30 and scales with resolution and frame rate, so roughly 400 Mbps at 4K 30.
| Setting | Upload speed needed | Per minute | Uploads live |
|---|---|---|---|
| H.264, 1080p 30 | 8 Mbps | 60 MB | Yes |
| HEVC 10-bit, 1080p 30 | 13 Mbps | 96 MB | Yes |
| H.264, 4K 30 | 32 Mbps | 240 MB | Yes |
| HEVC 10-bit, 4K 30 | 51 Mbps | 384 MB | Yes |
| HEVC 10-bit, 4K 60 | 102 Mbps | 768 MB | Yes |
| ProRes 422 LT, 1080p 30 | 102 Mbps | 765 MB | No, stays on the phone |
| ProRes 422 HQ, 1080p 30 | 220 Mbps | 1.6 GB | No, stays on the phone |
| ProRes 422 HQ, 4K 30 | 880 Mbps | 6.6 GB | No, stays on the phone |
For comparison, typical LTE gives 5 to 10 Mbps up, and 5G varies a great deal with where you are standing. Below the rate you need, the queue grows for as long as you keep recording. Nothing is lost when that happens: every piece stays on the phone until your storage confirms it, and a small preview copy of each piece goes ahead of the full file so something of every moment is safe early.
ProRes and Mastering never upload. They run at roughly twenty times the data rate of HEVC, so they are saved to your photo library or gallery on the phone and are not sent to your cloud storage or your emergency contact. If the phone is taken, those recordings go with it. Use them for planned work, not for an encounter you might lose the phone in. The app asks you to confirm before switching to ProRes.
Both cameras, or the best picture
Recording both cameras at once is limited to 1080p, 30 fps and H.264, and cannot use Apple Log or HDR. If you choose anything above that, only the rear camera records. The app shows which setting turned the front camera off and offers one button to restore the dual-camera settings. When you do record both, Pro can also produce a single video with the front camera as a small inset, in addition to the two separate files.
Provenance: visible and invisible
Pro can burn the date, time and coordinates into the picture, visible to anyone who watches the video. Some outlets want that on-screen. It is separate from the invisible metadata every recording already carries, which is the SHA-256 hash, the manifest and the independent time-stamp. Turning the burned-in version off removes none of that.
Evidence packages
An evidence package turns a finished recording into something an attorney or an editor can read. It contains:
- A PDF report with the recording's start and end times, time zone, number of segments, capture device, first location fix, hashes of each segment and of any merged video, and the steps to verify them.
- The manifest.json the report describes.
- The time-stamp proof, where one was obtained.
It contains no video, so it can be shared without exposing the footage. It is built from the phone's own archive, so it works with no network and after the footage has been cleared off the device. Your recordings and their proofs are kept whether or not you have Pro. Pro adds the report.
What this establishes, and what it does not. The hashes and time-stamp show that a file is unchanged since the phone recorded it and that the manifest existed at a given time. They do not show that the footage is a fair picture of events, and they say nothing about whether a particular court or outlet will accept it. That is a decision for them and for your lawyer.
Three set-ups worth starting from
These are suggestions, not rules. Check each against your own phone and connection before you rely on it.
- An event as it happens. Free defaults, or HEVC at 1080p. It uploads while you film. This is the one that protects you if the phone is taken.
- A planned interview or a documented site. 4K at 24 or 25 fps in HEVC, with Apple Log or 10-bit HDR if you will grade it, on a fast connection or Wi-Fi. Switch on the burned-in timestamp if the outlet wants it.
- An archive-grade master. ProRes 422 HQ on iPhone or Mastering on Android, filmed from a stable position. It stays on the phone, so copy it off promptly.
Price and how to get it
On the US App Store, Witness Pro is $1.99 a month, or $19.99 once for a purchase that does not renew and is tied to your Apple ID. Prices vary by country and are always shown in the app. On Google Play, the price is shown in the app and on the listing. Subscriptions are managed or cancelled in your store account settings, and Restore Purchases brings Pro back on a new phone.
Questions
Do I need Pro to protect my footage?
No. Black-screen recording, live upload every 15 seconds, SHA-256 hashing, the chain-of-custody manifest, RFC 3161 time-stamping and emergency contacts are all free and stay free. Pro adds picture quality and a few output formats, nothing that protects footage.
Can I see what Pro does before I pay?
Yes. The Witness Pro page in the app shows every control. The controls are inert until Pro is unlocked, so you can read what each one does and what it costs in file size before buying.
Does 4K upload live during a recording?
It can, but only if your connection is fast enough. 4K records faster than most mobile networks can send, so the upload queue grows while you film and the last pieces arrive after you stop. Nothing is lost, because every piece stays on the phone until your storage confirms it, and a small preview copy of each piece is sent ahead of the full file. If getting footage out during the event is what matters, 1080p is the setting that does it.
What happens to ProRes or Mastering recordings?
They stay on the phone. They are far too large to upload live, so they are saved to your photo library or gallery instead and are never sent to your cloud storage or to an emergency contact. That trades away the protection the rest of the app is built on, so choose it when picture quality matters more than that.
What happens if I cancel Pro?
Capture settings that need Pro return to the free defaults, so 4K goes back to 1080p. Your recordings and their proofs are kept either way. A one-time purchase has nothing to renew or cancel.
What does an evidence package contain?
A PDF report with the recording's timeline, device details, first location fix, segment hashes and verification steps, plus the manifest.json it describes and the time-stamp proof where one was obtained. It contains no video. The footage stays wherever you already keep it.
Get the app
The free app is enough to see how everything works. Pro is unlocked from inside it.
Newsrooms, legal teams and production companies
For questions about formats, verification or how the app fits a workflow, write to olmaster13@gmail.com. The developer holds no copy of any recording and cannot retrieve, confirm or produce footage, because the app has no server. Help is limited to explaining the format and the verification process. Related reading: how Witness works, how to verify footage and apps for journalists and filmmakers.