Just got through watching an episode of CSI NY. In tonight's episode they had someone take a tiny battery from a PDA type device (obviously a Lithium Ion cell), and then break it open to release sulphuric acid, to use to eat through a 1 1/4" steel bar in a prison cell door.

First, Lithium Ion (or even Lithium Polymer) batteries do not contain sulphuric acid. That's going to be a lead acid battery, AKA something from a car or a UPS. The "paste" they got out was obviously supposed to be a lead acid gell composition.

Second, they managed to extract maybe 1/4 teaspoon of it, which is not going to eat through that much solid steel. They'd be lucky to get through the paint. And even if they had a stack of car batteries to use, that still wouldn't be enough.

My favorite thing from cop shows is when they zoom in on surveillance footage. Then they hit the magic button that cleans it up to a crystal clear image.

I cant tell you how many times i have had to explain it to people. A few times i have started out the conversation by saying things like "you know how in the movies sometimes dogs can talk? Its sort of like that."

It's just lazy writing really. Usually the entire episode's resolution depends on taking some photo from a cell phone, zooming in to a car's rearview mirror that has about 5x5 pixels worth of data, blowing it up to reveal the car behind the car in question, and then reading the VIN number off the front windshield of THAT car. Complete fantasy la-la land.

I'm usually very impressed when a show blows up a photo and nothing usable happens. I remember the first time I saw that on TV - it was an episode of The District. They were using some traffic cam footage to track some car. They had a blurry shot of the car they were looking for, and tried to blow it up to read the license plate. They got an extremely blurry shot of the license plate - nearly useless. But very realistic. The characters were trying to guess what it said - "Is that a D? No, maybe more like an O... or a Q..."

CSI, however, gets Mr. Wizard-grade science wrong. There's no excuse; there's this big thing called the Internet to quickly check facts if they're too lazy to pay an expert to do it. It's like they get some tiny grain of something right (ie. some batteries contain sulphuric acid), and they apply it in a completely inappropriate place (cell phone batteries do not contain sulphuric acid) with completely impossible results (even if it did, it would not eat through steel like that).

A better application, even if still completely impossible? There was a prison riot going on. Power was out, emergency lights were on, and they got trapped in a cell by another prisonor. Why not have one of the emergency lights ripped off the wall earlier and thrown into the cell. Those use lead acid batteries, and he could have taken that apart. There still wouldn't have been enough acid to do anything, but at least they'd be only mostly wrong instead of entirely wrong.

Thanks for posting! This got me too, I was surprised at such blatant chicanery--would have expected better from that show. This is followed by Hawkes unscrewing a section of water pipe with his bare hands to obtain a pry bar--give me a break! Not likely...

Indeed - that one was also discussed in my household. First of all the connections would never even be made accessible to the prisoners...

Even before you deal with the McGyver and Mr Wizard details, what about the room lighting? What is with the blue lights and /or no lights?

Having worked in hospitals and police stations and laboratories I can assure the producers that these facilities are well illuminated and in the case of courtrooms, MUST meet minimum ft/candle illumination in all areas.

Why when the scene shows entering a house IN THE DAYTIME with lots of windows, do the techs need flashlights and why are there shadows every where at 12 noon?

And how about the scene with everyone working on the giant touchscreen table monitor. Busy shuffling documents around, and multi-touching them larger and smaller. Over and over and over.

Plus how about when they dump the contents of a camera into one of their fancy computers, and it results in a pile of photographs all on top of each other that they have to then manually separate? Woo, convenient!

Not to mention the impracticality of CSI Miami's big transparent screens. "Is that the killer in the background of that photograph?" "No, that's just Ted coming back from the washroom."

Now, regarding the flashlight use, I've heard it explained that it "forces them to focus on a small area so nothing is missed". Of course you'd maybe want to do that after first going over everything with stadium lighting.

I can't stand watching any of the CSIs. I used to be a cop down in south Florida years ago before my common sence kicked in. There are soo many things wrong with those shows they should be called sci-fi's not dramas.

Some of the many things wrong with the CSI shows:
-They drive work vans or trucks, not Hummers.
-Most of them don't carry guns, just like the meter maids.
-They don't interview suspects, witnesses, or anyone else, that's the DETECTIVE's job.
-They don't go searching underwater for anything, that's the dive-team's job.

If you want to see what they really do, watch the first 10 minutes of any Law & Order, they are the ones in the jumpsuits taking pictures, dusting, and searching for evidence at the crime scenes. Hence the name Crime Scene Investigator.

Arghhh, I really hate that show.

How about those genius scenes where they are intently looking at the monitors, and the information on those screens is projected onto their faces?

That's about the stupidest thing I've ever seen.

That line about a dog talking -- that's the best.  When someone I'm sitting with criticizes plot details, I mention "it's just a movie."

A friend installs in the CSI Miami studios.  It's comforting to know that there's a weekly pool among the staff as to how many times redhead what's-his-name dramatically takes off his sunglasses while posing.

I'm sure all versions of CSI miss the mark in some regard, but it seems to me that the original, Vegas, is the only one that could have some realism to it. Well, it's at least the only one that doesn't include far fetched SW or random shell casing tosses to find that missing one the killer left behind.

Miami is easily the worst one, and was totally turned off when I discovered the main character's name is Horatio Caine. I mean...come on Horatio Caine? I'm proud to say the only episodes I watch are the ones that promote the death of a character.

I was surprised at how bad NY was. I've always been a fan of Gary Sinise, and that show killed any desire to see anything current from him.

Vegas is definitely the best and "most accurate". Miami is typically Technology: Impossible, while New York is Bad Science.

I have always been amused at the bright reflections off someones face from a TV monitor or, in the old days, film projection. Especially the strobing effect when the film is running at a smooth 24FPS and there is no strobing.

Anyone catch this past Monday's CSI Miami? They butchered technology again.

Grain of truth: on video tape, sometimes if the erase head wasn't working right you might be able to see a visible ghost of the previous recording.

Improper application: the team was analyzing a tape from a modern consumer camcorder and they somehow saw a ghost of the previous recording in the background. After fiddling with some knobs, they were able to produce a near-perfect version of the previous recording, complete with audio.

Technical impossibility: this was a modern camcorder, it at least looked like MiniDV. Digital camcorders can't leave visible "ghost images" of previous recordings, even if the erase head is bad. It's recording and later decoding 1s and 0s, nothing like an analog recording - you either get perfect reproduction, or it's a garbled mess. The most likely symptom of a bad erase head is dropouts and other corruption on playback. When they started to work on this, I was initially considering giving them a SLIGHT pass... I mean perhaps this couple really was using some ancient 8mm camcorder. But then the tech had to go a talking about how he was "recovering digital data"... destroying that possible out.

Even if...: Let's say that the erase head was bad. Let's say that there really was a "digital ghost" in the background. And let's say that they pulled off the impossible and were somehow able to isolate most of the original recording's faint 1's and 0's from the much stronger 1's and 0's made by the new recording. Optimistic, let's say they somehow managed to get back at least half of that original data. There is still no way they would get near-perfect video and audio reproduction from that. On digital recordings, when a little bit of data is garbled, it affects a much larger area (as soon as the error correction is even slightly overwhelmed). When a larger amount of the data is garbled, you'd get a horrible mess. Moving items in the wrong place. Flashes of color and other corruption as bad keyframes come up. Basically it would barely be recognizable as video, never mind what they presented which was 98% perfect with just slight pixellation. They also had absolutely perfect sound - in reality it would be nothing but a mess of loud snaps, pops, crackles and static.

With the modern compression algorythms you usually have a key frame every so much seconds, and difference frames in between. Any "ghost" bits would be reproduces as artefacts in the normal movie.

Forget it it's just a TV series. The sad thing, a lot of it's viewers believe it's really doable, and is practicised by the real CSI.

Yeah, but they try to present themselves as science. CSI: Original isn't nearly as bad at this sort of thing - sure they occasionally mess up, but with CSI Miami it's routine that the ENTIRE plotline ends up resting on something that could never happen.