In three weeks, the NYPD will start a pilot program in which some officers will wear body cameras. The goal is to eventually have all city officers paired with a device. NY1 Criminal Justice Reporter Dean Meminger exclusively got his hands on some of the cameras to check them out.

As part of a pilot program, the NYPD will start rolling out body cameras for some officers April 24.

From our unscientific test, seen in the video above, the cameras, made by the company Vievu, produce high-quality video and audio.

A federal judge ordered the body camera program when she ruled that Black and Latino men were being unconstitutionally stopped-and-frisked by the NYPD.

One thousand officers in 20 precincts around the city will have the cameras.

Their interactions with civilians will be compared to police-community interactions in precincts that won't have cameras.

The city police department spoke about the program at a City Council hearing this week.

"We have some capacity to really understand…how effective the cameras are, whether our assumptions are good or bad," NYPD First Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Tucker said.

That assumption is that police and citizens will be more respectful of each other when they know the camera is rolling.

Some City Council members are voicing concerns about the police department selecting Vievu cameras, for a cost of $6.5 million, without any field testing.

"When we got our preliminary information about the vendor, there are other states that this vendor has operated in that have lost large percentages of data," Brooklyn Councilman Robert Cornegy said. "The loss of data, or the amount of time that it is stored, could be essential in a case."

"I am confident that the body camera program will roll out, but if we have to change course, we will," NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Technology Jessica Tisch said. "But I don't expect that based on what I've seen, myself, firsthand at other law enforcement agencies."            

The 34th Precinct, covering Washington Heights and Inwood in northern Manhattan, will get their body cameras first.