Free DME & DFIR Resources

Wow, who'd a thunk it. We're officially 400 strong..."and groooowing"! That would've been hilarious if you could hear me sing it. Well, maybe not. Anywho, a big thank you to everyone for their support and participation in the Media-Geek community so far!

A small investment of time and knowledge from a great many, typically far exceeds the value of a large investment of time and knowledge from a select few; some of you have already helped to prove that point here. On behalf of myself and all of the other members who have benefited from your contributions to our community, thank you! (I know, you would've preferred cash. No need to write in and tell me.)

Stumbled on a blog post today about this topic, which is worth the read IMHO - "Why I moved away from FOSS as my main toolset". The author, whom I first met when he was a student in a LEVA Level 1 and/or 2 class I was teaching the better part of 10 years ago, raises some valid points about leveraging FOSS in DME workflows; training, support and documenting FOSS tools being the points I agree with. To that end, keep your eyes & ears open for news about professional training & support for FOSS solutions related to DME.

With that said, I'm going to make a few comments and pose a few questions to the community based on the above post, so if you haven't read it...the rest of this post is probably moot.

It looks like Verizon might have underestimated the amount of iPhone 4 subscribers they would be getting on their service. It has just been reported that Verizon will be preventing users from downloading entire videos at once to help “ease capacity burdens on the network. "They will also be reducing the quality of the videos by eliminating colors and data “not visible to the human eye.”

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I stand corrected. First, I did find a reference to Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR) and down sampling uncompressed NTSC video in the joint Forensic Imaging and Multi-media Glossary (PDF) published by the IAI and LEVA, the final version of which was released in July, 2006. Second, in an effort to simplify this discussion, I’ve over simplified the Interpolation Methodology I described in Part 2. I will be expanding on that in this post, in far more detail than I had originally intended.

http://media-geek.com/images/myblog/frontpage/leva-lab2.jpg

There are still seats available for the next LEVA Level 1 training course, which will be held at the LEVA DME Lab September 28th - October 2nd.

Some more offline comments and testing recently have raised a critical issue; the use of Square Pixel Sampling and Non-Square Sample Formats. Before that though, let's talk about validation testing. When we get to this level of detail especially, it is important to validate our processing, tools, and complete process. Correcting Aspect Ratio is certainly no exception. In fact, I think we would all agree that when this level of detail really matters, you must validate. Lots of great resources out there about that topic.

Mozilla developer Michael Bebenita has released a JavaScript-based H.264 decoder that is intended to run natively in Web browsers. The decoder, which can display video at 30 frames per second on conventional hardware, is yet another compelling demonstration of JavaScript’s performance potential

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One thing I really stress when training video evidence Technicians & Analysts is to stay in your lane. Don't go beyond your training & experience levels on any topic/tool/etc., no matter who is asking you to.

A related one is that an expert's job at trial is to leverage their expertise to make sure the Trier of Fact has accurate evidence & information, not to be an advocate for one party or the other.

I've had several students over the years tell me that my passionate articulation of one or the other has saved their case or even their career. Two rather recently.

Honored & proud, of course, but I always like to point out to them that they are the ones that did all the hard work and stood their ground.

Keep being great & doing great things my friends! 😎

I've had a handful of inquiries this week about the frequency of our relatively new automated newsletter, so I thought I'd post a brief note for everyone on the topic.  The automated newsletter sends the five most recent articles and five most recent forum posts out to registered members once per week, once every two weeks or once per month.  Members can change these settings or completely unsubscribe from the newsletter by logging in selecting "Newsletter" from the "Community" menu options.

The automated newsletter was implemented to help keep members abreast of site activity.  Changing your preferences is easy and only needs to be done once.  I hope you find the service helpful. - LC

The new Documents & Downloads library is quickly growing and we've recently added a new category for members to post Forensic related job opportunities, and their personal CVs if their currently looking to advance their career.  The new category is appropriately titled "Employment Opportunities & Member CVs". 😄

Media-Geek.com is just over two weeks old and we have over 150 registered members, with more joining every day.  If you're interested in a new position or your employer has a forensic video, audio, or image analyst opening, post your CV or the related position's details today! 

The Media-Geek site has finally been restored, and I just wanted to take a moment to apologize to everyone for the service interruption we've experienced over the last two days.

All is back to normal now and we have several things in the works for the near future. As always, if you have any suggestions or comments regarding our site and online community, please don't hesitate to post an article, through it in the forums or shoot me a private message to further discuss the issue.

Thanks for participating!

MPEG DASH is the latest hot topic in the online video space. Here we break down what it is, and what its implications might be for video delivery in the future.

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Just a quick note to say thank you to everyone who attended LEVA’s Annual Training Conference in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho last week. It’s always great to see everyone face-to-face, and as usual the information sharing and peer networking the conference facilitates was priceless. I only wish I could’ve enjoyed more of the evening social events, but unfortunately a few factors prevented me from doing so.