Free DME & DFIR Resources

I recently cut the cable TV cord with the assistance of the Tablo 4-Tuner OTA DVR, so I thought I'd share a few thoughts on it.

Over The Air (OTA) HDTV

First I'll point out that I don't watch a lot of TV, maybe a few hours a week; however, my family does, and likes to keep up with several TV shows. We've always been cable TV subscribers, both with Time Warner back on the East coast, and Comcast out here on the West coast. We've used the DVR hardware and services from each since they began offering the option(s).

As some of you may know, we've been upgrading the Media-Geek community over the last few weeks; thank you for your patience during this process.  Most of the heavy lifting is done, and what we're left with is a faster, more secure, and more accessible community resource.  It's even easier to view and contribute to our community, and now you can access it all securely via your favorite mobile browser!

Log-in today and check it out, then invite your colleagues to do the same.  Thanks for participating!

I posted a new page last week under our Professional Community menu called Free DME & FVA Tools. Hope you find it helpful.

Obtain A FREE Ocean Systems dTective with ClearID Forensic Video and Image Clarification System Using A 2009 HLS Grant.  Register now to attend this FREE 1 Hour Webinar

Hosted On Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2009 - 2:00 PM EST

Assumptions can be dangerous things. Let’s say you assumed your software was displaying your AVI video file at the proper aspect ratio (ratio of width-to-height). Well, chances are pretty good you’d be wrong…no matter what software you’re using. What!? So the perp in my video evidence may be thinner and taller OR shorter and pudgy-er!? Yep.

Fact – the AVI file format does not provide a standardized way to report aspect ratio. Due to this shortcoming, applications cannot calculate the proper Display Aspect Ratio (DAR) if it is supposed to be different than the Storage/Sample Aspect Ratio (SAR). Therefore, applications "assume" a square Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR) and display the video at it's SAR, even if that's not correct...which is generally the case when dealing with DCCTV evidence.

Moral of this story? Don’t assume.

Ex-Stanford student Ren Ng is just about to launch a new kind of camera that will blow you away. Don’t believe me? Try clicking around on this photo of a Scuba diver standing in front of distant mountains.

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Who doesn't love free stuff? Even better, who doesn't love free stuff that actually works? Here's my Fab 5 list of Freeware programs, in no particular order. The quotes are from the respective Web site for each program. While I've found all of these programs helpful in one way or another, make sure you've read and understand my Web site Terms of Use before visiting any of these links.

brite-View’s Air SyncHD/DX device, also known as the BV-2822 if model numbers are your cup of tea, is a 1080p video/audio wireless transmission kit. To put it in plain English boys and girls, the brite-View Air SyncHD/DX is capable of sending Full High-Definition signals without the need to go through physical cables, hence lowering, nay, eliminating the chances of you (or some other member of the family) tripping over it. This purchase will feature a quartet of HDMI connections and two sets of component video inputs on the transmitter side.

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It's after 4:00 am in the morning and I'm writing about codecs.  That isn't right.  Just curious what lossless video codecs others are using or have used and/or compared for forensic screen capture?  I'm sure the most common answer will be TechSmith's TSCC, but there are others out there that work quite nicely and are priced just right....FREE.

I posted a new member poll on the topic, which you'll find on the right-hand side of your profile page.  Also recently added the free LZO and GZIP based CamStudio codec to our files & downloads library and have been fiddling with some others.    Are you using something else, or do you prefer to keep all captures uncompressed?

Prototype stealth device can detect movement behind a thick brick wall. U.K. military is looking into whether it can be used in "urban warfare" for scanning buildings.

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3D graphics have, for many years now, been based on the idea of polygons -- flat shapes fitted together to form three dimensional objects. There have been some experiments with other approaches -- volumetric 3D pixels or "voxels" became quite popular with some developers in the late 90s, but for the most part, polygons were seen as the way forward. New consoles and graphics cards were marketed based around how many polygons they could push around the screen at once, and it looked like the industry had settled on a good solution.

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You can’t say that the SD Association isn’t keeping up with the times. A good seven months after the association revealed the UHS-I specifications, it’s back again with the UHS-II bus-interface system that promises high-definition recording speeds of up to 312MB/s, allowing professionals to consider an SDHC or SDXC-based camera instead of having to rely on CompactFlash or SSD drives.

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I realized the acronym after I typed the title. Catchy, although suddenly I need to use the restroom.

Seriously though, buckle down. We will get through this. No need to be a fanatic prick, though.

Help others, when you can. Maybe that's just a smile, wink or pat on the a**. Who knows, but I can tell you the latter may be problematic, so stick with the first two...unless you receive a specific request.

Spread love. It's still okay to do that. In fact, I think it's required.

You're going to see some amazing changes for the better, I'm pretty sure of it.

It may not be easy, it may not always be fun, you will likely have days where you're wondering why you still even bother.

Don't make me smack you on the a**.

I will, but I prefer not to unless specifically requested. ?

Make it a great day my friends! Sending ❤