Free DME & DFIR Resources

The Scientific Working Group on Imaging Technology (SWGIT - www.swgit.org) has released a new DRAFT document that is open for public comment until September 14, Best Practices for the Analysis of Digital Video Recorders.

Click here to view the PDF >

Popular media player VLC has been pulled from Apple's App Store at the request of one of the program's original developers--in a move that's caused some hard feelings in the world of open-source software.

Full Story

I was out in Indianapolis last week to assist with the LEVA Level 1 training course. Another great week of forensic video and DME training provided by LEVA, and hosted by the University of Indianapolis.

It was an action packed week both in the classroom and out with students learning and practicing DME fundamentals, and the City bustling with NBA playoff and Indy 500 activities. Thank you to LEVA, their staff, my employer Ocean Systems, and the students for such an incredible opportunity.

Safe travels home everyone and have a great holiday weekend!

Maybe I'm showing my age here, but I remember way back when Norton products were actually a good thing for your PC. Okay, I suppose that's a little too harsh, but the fact of the matter is that Symantec has gotten awful fat over the last couple of decades. By fat I mean that their flagship products (Antivirus & Internet Security) have become more of a resource drain than they are of assistance to a small business or home user.

In the corporate world these products still dominate, and don't seem to be as useless as I feel they've become for the small office or home network. As a matter of fact, Symantec claims to have 99% of the Fortune 1000 companies as customers. Pretty impressive, huh? Remind you of anyone??? You see where I'm going here.

Complete Omnivore Training
Secured, Password Protected USB Drive - No Windows Administration Rights Required.

Omnivore is a secure, password protected 32GB USB thumb drive that contains specialized digital video & image capture software that runs directly from the drive so there are no administrative rights required to operate it. With Omnivore you can easily capture digital video and images into uncompressed formats directly from the system that recorded the media. With each capture, Omnivore generates a complete, easy-to-read capture report, which documents your work.

Learn the following:

CCTV cameras across London help solve almost six crimes a day, the Metropolitan Police (Met) has said.

Det Ch Insp Mick Neville, who heads the Met's identification unit, said CCTV images were "treated like fingerprints and DNA" by the force.

The number of suspects who were identified using the cameras went up from 1,970 in 2009 to 2,512 this year.

Full story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12080487

* Updated with Corrected Images & Explanations. 

After the break you'll find several images of a bogus Person of Interest (PoI) that were recorded by a DCCTV system. Two different analog CCTV cameras with built-in IR illuminators were connected to the black-box, h.264 DVR. These JPG images were exported from the DVR’s proprietary player. All of these images exported at 704 pixels by 480 pixels. When the recorded video is played back via the proprietary player it is displayed at 630 x 455; however, analysis of the proprietary file and exported AVI files reveals both of those contain a 704 x 480 video stream.

Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to:

• Describe the PoI’s clothing items from these images as you would for producing a BOLO. Note any issues that may affect your description.
• Identify the single most important correction that should be made to these images prior to printing. (BONUS - Why does this correction need to be made, and what tipped you off to it?)

If you’ve taken one of my recovery classes or attended one of my presentations on the topic at a LEVA conference or other event, you may have seen these examples.

Locating forensic DME resources just became a bit easier with the introduction of the Media-Geek Forensic DME Resources Map. Several DME related geo-tagging resources are currently being developed, to include a Media-Geek membership geo-tagging feature. Members are encouraged to log-in and update the contact information in their profile, which now includes an option for permitting inclusion in the membership maps.

Forensic Video Analysis - FVA 101
dTective/ClearID/Avid - 4 Days

Forensic Video Analysis using Ocean Systems dTective and ClearID is 4 day course that provides a comprehensive approach to your casework for both digital and analog video evidence with a primary focus on our the stream-lined workflows and digital media processing.   It is intended for anyone who is new to the field of FVA or persons who have not been formally trained using these tools. 

Ocean Systems just announced that the Anaheim Police Department will be hosting our DVR Assessment & Video Recovery training course September 16th - 18th in Anaheim, CA. Seats have been filling up fast in our DCCTV Recovery classes, with next month's class at the New York State Police Academy already sold out!

If your agency is looking to standardize your video evidence recoveries based on industry best practices, and you'd like hands-on training for those officers collecting your video evidence out in the field, get a quote from us today and then reserve your seat! Hope to see you in class soon. Be safe out there my friends.

Need to download a web video from YouTube, Facebook, etc. Here are two Freeware tools that can help, one of which you likely already have. 

Let's make it a great Friday, my friends. 😎

Any member OR visitor can now leverage the new Bookmark feature incorporated into my Downloads & File Sharing area.  

Self-explanatory really, but just to clarify Bookmarks are essentially favorites. 

There is now a favorites/Bookmark feature in the Download & File Sharing area...and you don't need to be logged in to use it.