Free DME & DFIR Resources

A producer for Discovery ID recently reached out to me looking for cases to research for the upcoming 4th season of Discovery ID's "See No Evil"program. They are looking for "cases whereby surveillance footage was key to cracking a mysterious homicide case."  This could be a case you recently worked on which has now been through the courts, or it might be a historical case from 10 or 15 years ago. At this stage, they are merely looking for interesting cases to research, and stated they'd of course go through proper channels to obtain media should the case pass their initial research stage.

For more information please log-in to the members area and see the related Forum post, which contains the producer's contact details.

Just back from vacation and read Jennifer Apple's post on this tool.  I keep this one with me on a thumb drive when I'm out and about.  If you're not familiar with it check out Jennifer's post at photoshopsupport.com.

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The last three or four weeks I have been absolutely swamped, and unfortunately have had little time to contribute to the Media-Geek community.  Despite my schedule others have kept things moving forward by adding articles and other content, and new members continue to join almost daily as the word spreads about our shared resource.  Although there are many things on my to-do list for Media-Geek regarding further development and maintenance, as well as several articles and blog posts I've been meaning to write, this weekend I spent some time doing a little Spring cleaning.

Initially I intended to spend a few hours addressing some maintenance tasks and reorganizing menus to simplify navigation.  Before it was all said and done I had spent nearly my entire weekend completely re-designing the site.  Go figure.  Anyway, along the way I made a few notable changes that are worth mentioning.

Medical experts, accident reconstruction experts, and other types of experts are frequently asked to interpret data from images that were obtained from video evidence. When these experts have no training or background in processing multimedia evidence, and/or make no effort to consult someone who does, bad things generally happen. Really bad things, like having all of their evidence thrown out of court, for one.

By Jon Stokes

Rival processor makers Intel and AMD may not agree on much, but they are of one mind about the future of the venerable VGA graphics port: it doesn't have one. The two chipmakers are joined by Dell, Lenovo, Samsung, and LG in an industry-spanning agreement to phase out VGA entirely by 2015, and to standardize solely on HDMI and DisplayPort.

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Those who have been recovering video evidence from CCTV systems for any length of time know that every case starts as a research project. In some cases DCCTV evidence is submitted with little or no information about the recording device. In other cases the entire device may be submitted, but more often than not it’s submitted without any manuals or documentation.

Tired of going at it alone, eh WiGig? The aforesaid Alliance has just teamed up with yet another organization -- a mere six months after doing likewise with the Wi-Fi Alliance. For those unaware, WiGig's 60GHz multi-gigabit technology has already begun to penetrate the higher-end AV market, particularly in devices that shoot 1080p from source-to-display sans cabling. But as we've seen, the adoption rate there isn't anything to write home about, and it seems as if the entity is branching out in an effort to broaden its potential profit portfolio. 

Full story:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/03/wigig-and-vesa-team-up-promise-wireless-displayport-gear/

I swung by a national discount department store the other day, and while walking through their electronics department strolled down an entire aisle of cordless phones on display. Interestingly enough I notice this enormous sign above the aisle that read "900 MHz Good - 2.4 GHz Better - 5.8 GHz Best".

I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised by blatant lies in marketing messages anymore, but this one got to me for some reason. So I thought I'd poke around on the Web to see what the manufacturers themselves were saying, and to my surprise found that they're probably the source of this marketing ploy.

POSITION INFORMATION -  Positions allocable to this class perform specialized photographic work for the District Attorney's Bureau of Investigation.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS -Takes photographs in various formats (e.g., still, digital, and black and white)
utilizing video and/or photographic equipment in order to assist deputy district attorneys with specific case needs.
Develops and prints photographs using the Noritsu photographic and film processing system for use as evidence in criminal prosecution.

For further information log-in to see the attached PDF file or contact Jack Nadelle.

Zdenek Kalal’s Predator object-tracking software is almost uncanny. Show anything to its all-seeing camera eye, and it will quickly learn to recognize it and then track it, whether it fades into the distance, hides amongst other similar objects or — in the case of faces turns sideways.

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Adobe has announced a new suite of mobile applications for content creators that will allow users to do graphical work on tablet devices like the iPad. Adobe is also launching a new Web service called Adobe Creative Cloud that can be used to sync and share content between devices.

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The first module in the very first course published to my new online training library is in the books! The course is on learning to use DME Resources. It will provide a basic overview of DME Resources through five training modules, the first of which is titled "Introduction and Overview". I should warn you, there's a quiz at the end, but I'm giving you two shots at passing it due to the level of complexity. ;)

Navigating & Using DME Resources Training Course