Free DME & DFIR Resources

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

Read full story >

NEW YORK—Prosecutions for cybercrime and identity theft in Manhattan have increased by 50 percent in the last five years, and criminals have been rigging ATM machines and scanning credit cards when no one is looking.

Full Story

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.

Wearable Camera Not Quite Ready For Its Close-Up

Warhol was only half-right. Sure everyone is famous these days, but only for 15 seconds and in 15 fps.

Full Story

Back in August I announced we'd be launching DMEpod, and I later stated that I hoped to have the first episode out in October.  Well, that ain't happening so get over it...'cause we've got LIVE streaming coming your way baby!!!

Media-Geek TV will be streaming forensic multimedia news and training content 24/7, and DMEpod episodes will be cut from the channel and distributed via podcast monthly (or so).  All of the behind the scenes stuff is going to take some time to get worked out, so I'm personally setting January as our official launch date, but we're already loading and broadcasting content, and periodically running LIVE test events.

I've got to tell you, the testing is just plain fun, and I'm really excited to get others on board and contributing.   While the channel will predominantly feature pre-recorded content (and a growing on-demand library), the possibilities related to the LIVE event streaming are endless!  Think association, working group, or committee meetings...round table discussions...LIVE training with multiple instructors...LIVE interviews with industry vendors, engineers, and analysts...and so on. Geek or not, that is just plain cool.

 Maybe I'm a bit naive, but I'm sticking to the all volunteer concept, and hope you'll consider participating.

The 25th Annual LEVA Training Conference is underway in beautiful Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. A quick thank you to those who attended yesterday's Ocean Systems presentations. Moments ago I emailed a PDF copy of my morning presentation, "Fundamentals of Multimedia & Screen Capture", to those in attendance who requested it. If you were in attendance and would like a copy, simply shoot me an email.

I'll be attending the afternoon sessions today, lecturing about DCCTV Assessment & Recovery tomorrow, and attending classes Thursday and Friday as well. It's been a great turnout at a great location. Be sure to stop by and see us at the Ocean Systems booth today. Hope to see you there!

On vacation, but thought I'd comment on this topic before getting on the Harley to go run some errands in the cold Pacific Northwest. As pointed out in someone else's recent blog post, MPEG-4 can leverage what is referred to as a Sample Aspect Ratio (SAR)...not to be confused with Storage Aspect Ratio (SAR) or Signal Aspect Ratio (SAR). It's important to note that in the case of MPEG-4, the Sample Aspect Ratio is the Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR); they are one and the same.

It's also important to note, again, that regarless of any of these numbers, the shape of the samples from an analog source ARE NOT DEFINED BY THE NUMBER OF LINES.

Oh, one more thing...most multimedia NLE and encoding applications provide precise control of all of these settings.  Just an FYI.  All the best my friends.

A new document is being developed by the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) entitled, "Best Practices for Handling Digital Photographs Taken by Law Enforcement." The author of the document is Keith Hodges, Esq., a legal instructor at the center. Keith is seeking feedback from the community regarding his document. The document is posted at http://www.khodges.com/digitalphoto/

Keith is requesting feedback be sent directly to him at the following email address: keith.hodges@dhs.gov

Earlier this morning John Nack posted the following video to his blog, which I'm sure many of our members and visitors would be interested in. There are a ton of great resources out there on the topic, but none carry more weight than those coming from the proverbial horse's mouth (Video embedded after the break).

Another new feature has been added for Media-Geek.com members that I hope will further facilitate information sharing and member communication - the ability to add comments to all articles & newsflashes.  But wait, there's more..not only can you add comments, you can subscribe to comment threads via email or RSS feeds!  Wouldn't it be helpful though if you could also leave comments on files and programs added to our new document library?  Well today's your lucky day, 'cause I had way too much coffee and managed to get that working too.  😲

I've added two links to manage your comments and comment subscriptions, one to the main member menu and one to the quick menu (right-hand side of the page).  This is also where members will manage their favorites.  For each article, file, or program added to the site member's will notice the "Set as Favorite" link located at the bottom of the post; simply click the link to add that item to your favorites list.  A few other notable updates include...

Last week I was back in Albany, NY to provide a free seminar on digital video evidence at the New York State Police Academy, followed by Ocean Systems 3-day DVR Assessment & Video Recovery training course. It was a sold-out class comprised of both students new to the field, as well as very seasoned digital and video evidence technicians and analysts. The end result was a really great week of training and peer networking. Many thanks to all of those who attended, and special thanks to the New York State Police (NYSP) for hosting both events!

The NYSP had a new academy class under way as well, with approximately 250 new recruits marching to-and-from the various classrooms within their renovated facilities. It was very cool to see so much activity at the academy again throughout the entire week. Best of luck to all the recruits in training. Hang in there and regardless of the outcome, thanks for stepping up to the plate!

By Joseph L. Flatley

Toshiba announced a new self-encrypting disk technology today, which is sure to be welcome news to the those of you who work with sensitive data, wish to keep your extensive True Blood fanfiction collection under wraps, or are just plain paranoid. The imaginatively named Wipe ships with the company's TCG-spec'd Self-Encrypting Drive models, allowing sysadmins to securely erase user data when a machine powers down, when an encrypted HDD is removed from the system, or when a leased machine is returned to its owner. And this ain't just for PCs -- the system is also designed to work with your copier and / or printer system. Interested? Of course you are!

Check out the complete PR:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/10/toshiba-wipe-deletes-your-encrypted-data-so-you-dont-have-to/

Lossless trimming is the ability to trim, cut or extract segments of audio & video without re-encoding the original multimedia streams, maintaining both the original frames/samples and their related metadata. It is a process as old as digital video itself, and one that can be extremely helpful when dealing with hundreds or thousands of hours of digital video evidence for a case.

Reduce file size, reduce duration and maintain the original frames & quality. Bonus, the process is even faster than traditional editing, as you don't have to wait for the video to be re-encoded!

Spatial vs. Temporal Compression

Spatial (Intraframe) compression is applied to each video frame independently, treating each frame as a stand-alone image. This is the type of compression leveraged by high-end video production facilities as it provides superior picture quality and efficiencies in the editing process. Every frame is a key frame.