Free DME & DFIR Resources

The Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Video Association is providing a free course — Video Essentials for First Responders — for attendees of its 2013 LEVA Digital Multimedia Evidence Training Symposium, which runs Sept. 9-13 in Asheville, N.C

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CNET - Older hard-drive enclosures may be limited in the size of drive they can present to your system.

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Turns out I may just know a thing or two about Mass Video Evidence Collection & Processing.  Who knew? 😎

I have worked several cases that were comprised of thousands of hours of video evidence collected from dozens of sources, including the Vancouver Stanley Cup riots.

Forensic Video Analysts from around the world were brought to Indianapolis to work together, and although I wasn't there, I was responsible for supporting the infrastructure and solving the DME workflow issues that couldn't be resolved efficiently on-site.

A peer recently shared this article, as he is one of the co-authors, and I personally feel it contains vital fundamental information for those who testify as Forensic Experts.  Hope you find it helpful.

"The following material was revised from an original article, “Survival Checklist for Medical Experts,” written by Deputy District Attorney Michele McKay-McCoy, Solano County District Attorney’s Office. With her permission, it was revised for forensic experts by Deputy District Attorney Michael S. Groch, San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, and Deputy Attorney General Robert M. Morgester, California Department of Justice."

Survival Checklist for Forensic Experts (PDF) 

If you have a PSP and aren't using its video playback capabilities other than via UMD, you're missing out on one of its best features. The PSP can basically serve as your personal wide-screen video player, which comes in quite handy for those who travel frequently. A 1GB Memory Stick Pro Duo card can hold several hours of good quality video and still have room for your music, pics, etc.

The only problem with this is that the PSP is very finicky with regard to MP4 files. It'll balk on image sizes, frame rates, bit rates, file names, file locations, and just about anything else you can think of. And to top it all off, each firmware release for the PSP seems to handle things differently. But then again, I suppose if it were a simple standard process that remained consistent, Sony wouldn't be able to market and sell software to manage this process for you (a.k.a. PSP Media Manager).

LEVA has announced that they will be providing their Photographic/Video Comparison Course May 18-22, 2009 in the LEVA DME Lab at the University of Indianapolis. The Photographic/Video Comparison focuses on the science of comparing known objects, vehicles, clothing and humans with CCTV images of questioned objects, vehicles, clothing and humans.

For LEVA's complete training schedule - click here.

This article appears in the February/March issue of Streaming Media magazine.

Unless you intend to only stream live video to the web, you need video editing software. To be specific, you need a nonlinear, computer-based editing system that can ingest, edit, and then save video files for distribution online or via DVD/Blu-ray.

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But I've damn sure known quite a few. Worked with many. Met more than most even, I dare say.

I recently published my autobiography, on a special day with a special significance. It was time to share it with my son, first and foremost, but also to put the pieces together for a few others that truly care.

I am extremely fortunate, despite some sad parts to my long, yet actually very abridged story. Maybe not despite them though, right?

Maybe because pushing through troubles and mistakes, and trying really hard to always do the right thing...even when nobody's around or looking...has made me who I am.

A very proud husband & father. Very comfortable in my skin, because I know what my intentions have always been, and that my best is good enough.

We are all works in progress, my friends.

If something in my story has offended you, even if it's just the way I've told it, I understand.

I'm a very understanding guy. 

Either way, do yourself and everyone around you a favor, and make it a great day my friends!

Well, maybe you are, but not if you're basing it on not being able to enter the proper Captcha code on our forms.  I was notified of an issue with our Google ReCAPTCHA yesterday and am working to resolve it.  I hope to have the issue resolved this weekend and will update once I do.  Thanks for your patience and understanding. ;)

Computerworld - Microsoft's free previews of Windows 8 will expire next month, giving users about three weeks to upgrade to a paid copy or face hourly restarts.

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onOne Software today announced availability of Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture. Tackling specific problems within a photographer's preferred workflow, the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 offers simple yet powerful solutions for color correction, image resizing, masking and professional photographic effects in one affordable package. With support for Photoshop CS5, CS4 and CS3, the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 includes FocalPoint 2, PhotoTune 3, PhotoFrame 4.6, PhotoTools 2.6, MaskPro 4.1 and Perfect Resize 7 (the next generation of Genuine Fractals). The Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 will also include the recently announced Perfect Layers, which will be available in early 2011.

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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.

If someone uses the phrase "DVD Quality Video" in their marketing literature it usually means one of three things; (1) their product is crap, (2) they haven't the slightest clue about DVD-Video standards, or (3) they do understand the standards and are simply trying to mislead you...and their product is crap.

Now maybe I'm being a bit harsh here, but I take offense when companies attempt to mislead the "typical" consumer by using generalizations. The fact of the matter is that there are several standards for DVD-Video, along with other variables that can impact DVD-Video picture quality.