Free DME & DFIR Resources

Tomorrow's the official launch of Media-Geek.com and we've added another great feature to the new members area, a categorized events calendar.  The new calendar will be viewable by all visitors; however, only registered members will be able to add and manage events listed in the calendar.

The concept behind the calendar is simple - to provide a consolidated calendar listing the multitude of forensic related training events, conferences, and meetings.  The initial categories implemented include Photography Training, Image Processing & Analysis Training, Forensic Video Training, and Forensic Conferences & Meetings.

The new Media-Geek.com members area is officially open!  If you've already resgistered, take a moment to check out the brief Getting Started tutorial.  Additional, in-depth tutorials and other documentation will be developed over the next few weeks.  In the meantime, if you have a question about any of the features provided in the members area you can post it to the Media-Geek.com "Help!  How do I..." forum, send me a PM, or submit your question via our contact form.

The concept is simple - a team effort, a community resource.  The more people who contribute, the more we all benefit.  If you're a forensic multi-media professional and haven't registered yet, sign-up today!

You've seen it in countless movies and television shows: A forensic video analyst magnifies and clarifies grainy surveillance footage of a person's face or a license plate to get the key piece of evidence to catch the killer. While some of the details are exaggerated in Hollywood scripts, such tools do exist and they are frequently used to identify and prosecute offenders.

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DMEpod, the new Digital Multimedia Evidence video podcast, will not be released this weekend as originally anticipated. Unfortunately, I just haven't had the time that I had previously planned to work on this project the last few weeks due to a number of variables. As it stands I'm hoping to pull off an early October launch.

Haven't heard of Microsoft Media Platform? A tech evangelist explains that it combines several well-known applications.

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I've posted a new tutorial on Submitting & Managing Articles and Newsflashes, which registered members will find on the Tutorials page under the Help menu after they sign-in.  Additional tutorials are always being developed, so be sure to check back soon for more.  As always, if you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to post them to the member forums, shoot me a PM, or send them to me via our Contact Form.  Have a great weekend everybody!

Canon grabs the headlines yet again with the EOS-1D C DSLR which will feature 4K high-resolution video capture capability, making it more than ready to usher in the next generation of digital cameras.

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By Nate Anderson

The Britain of today is watched constantly by CCTV cameras, is preparing for a national ID card, slaps a "crown copyright" on most government data, and can now censor websites and eventually boot people off the Internet.

According to the new Liberal Democrat/Tory coalition government, that's all about to change.

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Assumptions can be dangerous things. Let’s say you assumed your software was displaying your AVI video file at the proper aspect ratio (ratio of width-to-height). Well, chances are pretty good you’d be wrong…no matter what software you’re using. What!? So the perp in my video evidence may be thinner and taller OR shorter and pudgy-er!? Yep.

Fact – the AVI file format does not provide a standardized way to report aspect ratio. Due to this shortcoming, applications cannot calculate the proper Display Aspect Ratio (DAR) if it is supposed to be different than the Storage/Sample Aspect Ratio (SAR). Therefore, applications "assume" a square Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR) and display the video at it's SAR, even if that's not correct...which is generally the case when dealing with DCCTV evidence.

Moral of this story? Don’t assume.

The Association for Forensic Multimedia Analysis (AFMA) officially announced the results of their first ever board of directors election. The five members elected to the board of directors were Dorothy Stout, Sam Burgiss, Chuck Pruitt, Laura Teodosio, and Craig Thrane.

Those interested in becoming an AFMA member should send an email with the subject AFMA MEMBER REQUEST to info@theafma.org. After your request is made via email you will receive an invitation to the AFMA member's website.

This year I helped Ocean Systems introduce a new 3-Day training class titled "Fundamentals of Video Evidence Recovery & Processing (FVRP)".  The course is designed for anyone who recovers, handles, processes or disseminates Digital & Multimedia Evidence (DME), regardless of prior video evidence training or experience. 

The course is based on industry Best Practices and focuses on obtaining the Best Evidence, and learning how to quickly get accurate images & video out for investigative leads.  It is predominantly hands-on, and will expose students to various Ocean Systems and Open Source solutions that can help.

Join me July 23rd through 25th at our offices in Burtonsville, MD or for one of our future training dates.  Hope to see you in class.  Have a great weekend my friends!

"Who designed this user interface, Stevie Wonder?" Actual statement from a LE technician and point well taken when it comes to proprietary DCCTV players. They're often horribly designed, and like all multimedia players/editors/tools regardless of who makes them, they are time & resource dependent (e.g. hardware resources, drivers, frameworks, codecs, etc.).

Thank you so much, seriously.  ? 

Listeners are up by double digits for our podcast this week already, patrons by a single digit.  And get this, some of our family still hasn't even heard the show yet.  We don't advertise.  We don't want to.

How Can You Help?
You already have!  Seriously, if you're reading this, you have.  If that's not enough, consider joining us in the following experiment:

• Do NOT share our show or Patreon Community via Social Media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, whatever else the kids do these days)

It's how we roll.  We want to take the long road, thank you.

Word of Mouth
It's what we're banking on.  It works.  It attracts those that are most likely to absorb, laugh, teach, and learn together.  Suddenly, it's spreading like an infection, if you will.

Open minds.  Minds willing to work together to solve problems, not blow on about how they did it all themselves.

No, You Didn't!
You didn't do it all by youself, more than likely.  There are few things in this world that we get to accomplish all by ourselves.  

I'm not taking away from your greatness by saying that, but you are not the only reason you're great, jackass.

Just sayin'.

Smile More, It's Contagious 
You want to know what's infectious?  Laughter & Love, my friends.

That will always catch on.

Hoping you & yours are safe, and surrounded by love during this pandemic.

Let's just do what we do, and try to make it another great day for those around us. Cheers! ?