Free DME & DFIR Resources

DME stands for Digital & Multimedia Analysis, but it also stands for Digital Multimedia Analysis. They are two separate things.

Digital & Multimedia Analsysis includes all things digital, including multimedia.

Digital Multimedia Analysis is specific to multimedia.

I know what you're thinking..."Thanks, Captain Obvious!" 😄

Or something like that. Listen, I play fair and expect you to do so too. You're grown adults, most of whom are in law enforcement and/or government, which in my personal opinion sets a higher bar for your behavior.

Downloading It All...So I Never Have to Pay You Again!
My terms don't prohibit it, so if you're a bit type A or even a complete ass, knock yourself out. Remember my terms of use though, the ones that have rarely changed. Share & Share Alike. You must prominently attribute DME Resources as your source.

I'm not going to write the entire damn terms out here or document the Creative Commons licensing you've agreed to. I'm fairly certain you can read and click the links. What I will say is that if you're building your own database and storing all the available files and information from here for it, you'd better be intimately familiar with your legal obligations.

Also, what the hell do you have against me making a living? A cup of Starbucks coffee each month is too much for 20 years of my time, knowledge & experience coupled with our collective knowledgebase? You see me as a greedy, arrogant ass? If so, do us both a favor and don't renew your subscription. I don't need more people like you in my life. Just sayin'.

Thanks for understanding, and good luck out there my friends.

Headed out to Cincinnati, OH today for the IAI's 101st Forensic Educational Conference. If you're attending, stop by the Ocean Systems booth (#513) and say hello! Safe travels my friends. - LC

"VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images."

Just a heads up that I will be doing some planned maintenance on DME Resources this weekend, so the site may be momentarily unavailable at times throughout the weekend. I will be adding some new functionality to provide users with more control of their content, along with a consolidated area where they can manage content and preferences.

As always, if you have any questions, suggestions or concerns please don't hesitate to contact me. Thanks for your continued participation. Have a great week!

Maybe I'm showing my age here, but I remember way back when Norton products were actually a good thing for your PC. Okay, I suppose that's a little too harsh, but the fact of the matter is that Symantec has gotten awful fat over the last couple of decades. By fat I mean that their flagship products (Antivirus & Internet Security) have become more of a resource drain than they are of assistance to a small business or home user.

In the corporate world these products still dominate, and don't seem to be as useless as I feel they've become for the small office or home network. As a matter of fact, Symantec claims to have 99% of the Fortune 1000 companies as customers. Pretty impressive, huh? Remind you of anyone??? You see where I'm going here.

Although disc-based storage is not as widely used as it once was for digital evidence archiving, it remains a viable solution when properly implemented and managed. In fact, many of the world’s largest technology companies are using and/or exploring disc-based storage systems for long-term offline storage of petabytes of customer data (e.g. Facebook uses 10,000 Blu-ray discs to store 'cold' data). They do so, however, in a managed environment with a thorough understanding of the medium’s strengths and limitations.

Many in law enforcement use write-once disc-based media for MASTER evidence storage, as it continues to be recommended via various industry best practice documents. Unfortunately, not everyone involved in the evidence chain understands the limitations and best practices as they relate to the care and handling of disc-based media. Adhesive labels, permanent markers, and ballpoint pens have destroyed more evidence than I care to even think about.

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.

Forensic Video Analysis - FVA 101
dTective/ClearID/Avid - 4 Days

Forensic Video Analysis using Ocean Systems dTective and ClearID is 4 day course that provides a comprehensive approach to your casework for both digital and analog video evidence with a primary focus on our the stream-lined workflows and digital media processing.   It is intended for anyone who is new to the field of FVA or persons who have not been formally trained using these tools. 

LEVA has officially published the latest version of their Best Practices for the Acquisition of DME, version 3.0 dated 4/14/2010.

Click here to download the PDF (77KB)

Less than two weeks away from the official launch, and I'm making some significant progress in what will be the new, secure member's area.  This area of Media-Geek.com will not be available to the general public, as its purpose is to provide a secure place for forensic media related professionals to share information.  Membership will be open to current or retired law enforcement forensic media related professionals and prosecutors.

The new members area will provide a number of "social networking" tools, such as secure community forums, file sharing, messaging tools, a community calendar, and more.  Members will be able to submit articles, news, event information, links, and other content to share with the group.  There will be a membership directory, and users can choose what information they'd like to provide (if any).  Members can create "Connections" or "buddy lists" and use Private Messaging (PM) to communicate with any member throughout the entire site. Want to receive an email or PM when there's a new post to a forum?  No problem.  Want an email when someone sends you a PM?  Can do.  Want to keep your email address private, yet allow members to send you an email?  We can do that too!

Brooks Photographic Imaging, LLC has two current openings for Visual Imaging Specialists.

We are looking for two dynamic and creative individuals to work for Forensic Training company. We need talented professionals with experience using Adobe Premiere, PhotoShop, Illustrator, Acrobat, and Dreamweaver at a minimum. Candidates must also possess strong video editing, producing, camera, lighting and sound operations skills to help create training videos and for live broadcasts.

For more information on these opportunities or to apply click here.

Several other things I should be doing on a Saturday morning, but I find myself anxious to continue this discussion. Maybe it’s because although multiple industry Best Practice documents talk about correcting Aspect Ratio, none of them discuss the proper way to do it. It could also be my new coffee maker, which I'm hypothesizing has increased my caffeine intake substantially, although I have not increased my coffee intake. Who knows. Anyway, let’s start by recapping Part 1.