With no new evidence trickling in, I've taken another look back at the original video. I'm using the original
UIUC one on Youtube, which seems to be the best quality. It is 1 minute 10 seconds at 10 frames per second, and 1280x720 dimension.
Some observations:
1) From the beginning, people or news reports have mentioned that the video is edited, and that YY supposedly talked to BC for around 3 minutes. Others have mentioned that she talks to him for at least one minute. This is what I see:
a) At 0:14.5, car pulls over. YY immediately steps to the car as soon as it stops (as if she was expecting it?)
b) At 0:16.7 the scene changes to a different camera. There must be some time gap, since there is now a white truck passing BC in the other direction
c) At 0:23.7 a red car enters from bottom of frame, and passes BC
d) At 0:32.1, camera changes back to first scene. The red car is still in the frame, but has moved slightly back. Thus, there is maybe a 1/2 second overlap between the two cameras
e) At 0:40.5 YY starts to open the door. Ignoring the time gaps, she had been talking for 26 seconds before moving her hand to the door.
f) At 0:46.8 she closes the door
g) At 0:52.5 the car starts to move
h) At 1:01.6 BC's car leave the bottom of the frame
i) At 1:02.4, the scene changes to the "reference video", which was before picking up YY.
Regarding the time gaps, the shadows from the various structures move a tiny but perceptable amount. In the first 16 second sequence, the building shadow moves about 2 pixels. When the scene cuts over and back 15.5 (+/- unknown) seconds later, the shadow has moved about 4 pixels. Back with the original camera, the last 30 seconds the shadow moves 4 pixels. So it's _possible_ there are 15-30 seconds missing or so during the camera switch, but it doesn't look like minutes are missing. The affidavit mentions speaking for "approximately one minute".
2) The car pulls away less than 4 seconds after her door closes. This contradicts BC's statement that she showed him a map on her cell phone. He seemed to know where he was going right away.
3) Cropping and enlarging the original video to show just the car (
download here), you can see a small amount of extra detail but not much. It's somewhat clear to make out from the changing shadows that she sits down and looks at his face, then at her lap, then his face, then stares at his lap as he drives away. After the car starts moving, I can't make out anything from her seat.
4) I made a
quick gif of the car as it's driving (click for full size), centering the car on the image. It made it more clear to me that the blob in the window is the rear view mirror and not her hat. It also makes it more clear that he's looking to the right and slightly down as he drives past. But I still can't make out any trace of YY -- either she's slumped out of view or she blends in too well with the seat.
5) The last image before he moves out of frame looks to me like just a bad quality image. In isolation, it looks like a giant head looking straight out the window. It doesn't match at all the previous images showing him looking to his right. There has been a lot of attention paid to that frame, but personally I don't get much out of it.
6) The police used the cracked hubcap to identify the car, which means they couldn't read the license plate. So much for infinite zoom
![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
There was a recent news article announcing they will be upgrading cameras around the city to rectify that.
7) Per the affidavit, the police weren't aware of the cracked hubcap on June 12th when they first went to BC's residence. It was only on the 14th that they noticed it in the video, after which they got the search warrant. It's too bad they lost two days because of that oversight.
8) I was also confused about the last "reference view" at the end of the video. The video description does mention it was taken sometime before picking her up, but I initially assumed it was after. The shadows in that clip are much shorter. My rough guess based on the shadow angles are that it was about 1:15 to 1:30pm (the video with YY was at 2:03).