Free DME & DFIR Resources

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Over 20 proprietary DVR players were added to our downloads area this week, along with a few proprietary codecs and other resources.  The DVR file extension listing was updated to include nearly two dozen additional listings as well.

We hope you find these updated resources helpful.  Next time you come across a proprietary codec or player that's not listed on Media-Geek be sure to take a minute when time permits to share it with us.  Thanks for participating!  All the best - LC

Locating forensic DME resources just became a bit easier with the introduction of the Media-Geek Forensic DME Resources Map. Several DME related geo-tagging resources are currently being developed, to include a Media-Geek membership geo-tagging feature. Members are encouraged to log-in and update the contact information in their profile, which now includes an option for permitting inclusion in the membership maps.

Samsung Semiconductor Monday introduced a handful of new hard disks and optical drives, including a 3.5-inch desktop PC drive which it bills as the world’s fastest Blu-ray drive on the market.

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The FREE Windows File Recovery app is in the news again this week, with The Verge, ZDNet and others reporting on this "new" utility/tool.

Although it's not "new", as it was released in January, you likely haven't had a version of their OS that can run it until recently, unless you're an insider or developer. It is command line tool, but pretty simple to use (think PhotoRec/TestDisk). It can be used to recover from internal drives, HDD or SSD drives, cameras, USB and flash card storage. You'll need Win 10 version 19041.0 or higher.

The Law Enforcement & Emergency Services Video Association has announced the introduction of a new certification. LEVA will now confer Certified Forensic Video Technician (CFVT) status on students who have performed video evidence processing for at least one year and successfully complete its three core courses within a five-year period:

• Basic Forensic Video Analysis & the Law,
• Intermediate Forensic Video Analysis & the Law and
• Advanced Forensic Video Analysis & the Law.

The courses, totaling 120 hours of lecture and hands-on instruction in LEVA’s Digital Multimedia Evidence Processing Lab at the University of Indianapolis, are designed to lead students to an advanced level of competency, knowledge and skills as Technicians in the science of forensic video analysis.

More Info...

The combination of Ubuntu Linux's growing popularity with all the big changes coming up in the next version mean that Natty Narwhal, or Ubuntu 11.04, might just be the most widely and anxiously anticipated release of the open source operating system ever.

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At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show today, Intel announced the release of its new series of processors, codenamed "Sandy Bridge." Loaded with features catering to games- and video-hungry users, the changes reflect that fact that consumers are responsible for 66 percent of Intel's revenue, a reversal from 2000, when enterprise consumers provided 71 percent of revenues.

Full story:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/26226/

By Ryan Paul

Developers Ronald Bultje, David Conrad, and Jason Garret-Glaser are creating a native VP8 video codec implementation for the open source FFmpeg project. The aim of this effort is to bring first-class VP8 support to FFmpeg and demonstrate the feasibility of producing an independent VP8 implementation.

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Yesterday I received my copy of the Adobe Creative Suite CS3 bundle, and although I just installed it I'm already very impressed. Adobe has made great strides with integrating their various design products, making it easier than ever to create, manage, and edit content for any medium. As a matter of fact, I've been using Adobe Contribute now for approximately five minutes with no prior experience, and I'm using it to publish this very post.

Police officers in Aberdeen will wear CCTV cameras mounted on their uniforms from next month.

The force will operate 18 of the cameras across Aberdeen for a trial period.  Strathclyde is currently the only force in Scotland which uses the system.  Senior officers claim it will help reduce anti-social behaviour and improve evidence gathering.

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The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) recently launched an entire website related to law enforcement's use of social media tools and resources - www.iacpsocialmedia.org

The new Center for Social Media has all kinds of information on planning and implementing Web 2.0 and social media tools for your agency, including case studies, white papers, directories, and more.  Be sure to take a minute to check it out by visiting www.iacpsocialmedia.org

Adobe on Wednesday announced a major redesign of its free online editing tools at Photoshop.com, giving consumers one less reason to BitTorrent the real McCoy. The suite of rich Web apps has been redesigned, renamed, and reorganized to make sharing and editing photos online easier. But the real improvement to these tools is easy access: The Photoshop Express Editor is now open to all visitors--no sign-up or sign-in required.

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Did you know you can preview your encoding output before writing it to a file with FFmpeg? Just call on your old friend ffplay and use the same encoding options/settings you're considering with FFmpeg. When you do you'll see exactly what the output will look like without having to wait for the entire file to be generated and saved.

Easy peezy lemon squeezy. 😎