The Digital Video Authenticator (DVA) addresses law enforcement concerns for a means to authenticate digital video (DV) so that it will be admissible and trusted as evidence in court. The DVA is a peripheral device attached to a commercial digital video recording device whose purpose is to generate and record authentication data simultaneously as DV is recorded by the video recording device. Verification of the authenticity of a DV sample will be accomplished using non-real-time software tools. The DVA system and method reads digital video (DV) data from a digital video recording device; parses the DV data into elements representing video, audio, control and timing data; and creates digital signatures that can be used to validate the original DV tape. The combination of secure digital signatures and repeatability of the DV data stored on tape provides the basis for proving the original video has not been modified.