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Imagine the following scenario:
You're the first responding officer to a crime scene and have just completed taking the victim's statement. You then tell the victim you have to leave for another call. Before you go you politely ask the victim to take photos of the scene and their injuries, collect all of the DNA and fingerprint evidence, and note that you'll either be back later in the day or maybe tomorrow or the next day to pick it all up. You note that they can just leave the evidence at the front desk for you.

This is exactly how many agencies have chosen to deal with the overwhelming amount of DCCTV evidence available to them today. "Oh, there's video? Okay, have someone export it and we'll come back to pick it up."

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.

It's the video millennium. Every modern mobile phone is a video camera and a video player. Video displays are everywhere, from taxicabs to endcaps. Webcams perch like pigeons on every major tourist destination in the world. So it's no surprise that video sharing has become an industry, and that legal controversy has followed. The Southern District of New York recently announced its much-anticipated decision in Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube Inc., 2010 WL 2532404 (S.D.N.Y. June 23, 2010), granting summary judgment in favor of YouTube. The decision breaks no new ground, but it continues a trend: Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, owners of copyrights to videos will have the burden of policing the internet.

Full story:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202466695461

The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, Ontario Provincial Police, is seeking a qualified individual to examine and analyze audio/video recordings for the purpose of developing, enhancing and clarifying evidence, and presenting, defending and supporting associated findings in courts of law as required; undertake research and maintain ongoing research and forensic studies related to the sciences of digital audio processing, digital image processing and video recording technologies, both analog and digital. To attend crime scenes and recover evidence using sophisticated audio/video equipment for examination as required and to provide training and guidance to colleagues/front line officers and assist Manager in equipment maintenance and policy as they relate to these sciences.

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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.

If you haven’t already downloaded the latest mandatory AVG 2011 Free software update, it may be best not to if you want your computer to turn on again. The December 1 update is causing 64-bit PCs running Windows 7 to totally breakdown.

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The Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Video Association (LEVA) has published the DRAFT version 3.0 of their Best Practices for the Acquisition of Digital Multimedia Evidence.  LEVA is soliciting community feedback on this document through March 31, 2010.

For additional information visit the official LEVA Publications page.

It's a hot topic, maybe not for the general public, but certainly for many of my peers lately. I have yet to meet a Digital Evidence Technician or Analyst who has complained about having too much, hi-speed, secure, expandable & redundant shared storage.  Just sayin'.  😎

Storage & workflow optimization go hand-in-hand when it comes to Digital & Multimedia Evidence. 

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--To ease the transition to next-generation video editing platforms for both professionals and entry-level editors, HP (NYSE:HPQ) today introduced desktop and mobile workstation configurations optimized for video editing.

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From the PhotoShopSupport.com blog:

Here's a free video tutorial from lynda.com — Setting Up Shop - Preferences, Color Settings, And Shortcuts — from the series Photoshop CS4 One-on-One: Fundamentals. Deke McClelland examines the essential capabilities of the application, from correcting color to retouching portraits. He also covers navigation, resolution, cropping, selecting, printing, and making web graphics. This course goes beyond basic tips and tricks and provides the in-depth information and real-world context needed by serious students who want to master the software.

View the full post & get the link to the video:
http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/10/cs5-03/video-tutorial-setting-preferences.html

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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It's been a very interesting and exciting year for Magnet Forensics.  New products, new acquisitions, new training opportunities, more awards & industry recognition, and still so many exciting things to come!  Don't miss the Magnet User Summit 2024, being held in Nashville, TN April 15th through 17th, 2024.  Be sure to also check out the pre-conference training opportunities.

I'm excited to announce that on July 1, 2013 I officially launched my own consulting business, and I will be transitioning to work full-time for the new business effective January 1, 2014. I will remain full-time with FVS throughout 2013, and I'm honored to say FVS has offered to keep me on board through a consulting and/or retainer arrangement thereafter.

For more information on my new endeavor please visit my LinkedIn profile.

I'd like to personally thank everybody here for your participation and support over the years. I'm excited about so many different possibilities of getting to assist you and/or you organization in the future! Stay tuned over the coming weeks for more. All the best! - LC