Free DME & DFIR Resources

Moments ago, I completed several updates and upgrades to the Media-Geek community. While most of them where behind the scenes type of stuff, there were some new features introduced that members might find interesting, such as:

• Photo and video support for groups - Group members can now upload photos and videos to be shared among fellow group members.
• Photo Tagging - Users can now tag their friends in any of their photos
• Community Content Sharing - Users can now easily share their videos, photos, group bulletins and discussions with all the major social bookmarking services (digg, delicious, Stumbleupon, etc) as well as social networks like Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, LinkedIn, and more!
• Friend Suggest - Users can instantly expand their network by adding friends with our 'Friend Suggest' tool
• Wall Post Notifications - Get notified when someone posts a new message or responds to an old message on your wall.

Various layout issues and minor bugs were addressed as well during the upgrade process, but as with all Web sites it will always be a work in progress. If you stumble across a problem or have a questions/recommendation, as always, simply shoot me a note or post it to the member forums. Thanks for participating!

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a new favorite browser, and it's lightning fast. I downloaded Apple's Safari 3 Public BETA a week or so ago to troubleshoot a log-in issue one of our members was having, and next thing you know I've installed it on all of my PCs at home and the office. Safari 3 provides tabbed browsing similar to IE7 and Firefox 2, which is nice for those of us that have multiple pages/sites open simultaneously constantly. The first thing that impressed me was its look and layout, but I quickly realized that its primary advantage was its performance.

Apple is quick to point out on the homepage for Safari its performance advantages. They claim Safari can load pages up to 3 times faster than Opera, 2 times faster than IE7, and 1.7 times faster than Firefox. Pretty impressive numbers, but what browser doesn't claim to be the fastest? As you can imagine, some of Media-Geek.com's member services are bandwidth intensive, and others require multiple scripts to be loaded by your browser. I did a few rudimentary tests accessing various features of Media-Geek.com using Safari, IE7, and Firefox and was simply amazed at the difference in load times.

It's been three years since we first heard about DARPA's ARGUS-IS, but thanks to a PBS Nova special entitled "Rise of the Drones," we finally have more information about the 1.8-gigapixel camera that is supposedly the highest-resolution surveillance system in the world.

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The Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC), which coordinates the development of standards and guidelines for the forensic science community under the auspices of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), will hold its first set of public meetings in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 16 and 17, 2015. The meetings will include presentation and discussion of priorities for developing standards and guidelines for each forensic science discipline.

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Two new features introduced this week allow members to easily share their profile with non-members, should they so choose.  Members can now choose if they'd like to allow non-members to view their profile by editing their profile options; the default is set to not allow non-members to view your profile.

Additionally, members can now create their own custom URL to their profile page.  The custom URL can be set right from the member's profile page, and can be changed to whatever you like (e.g. http://www.media-geek.com/larryc will bring visitors directly to my profile, which I've set to allow public view).  Furthermore, members can now choose as to whether they want visitors to their profile to be able to view their personal files/images via the associated settings tab when editing your profile.

Among the presentations scheduled for LEVA's International Video Evidence Symposium & Training Conference are two that will focus on video and imaging in Iraqi combat operations.

Resolution Video, Inc. recently announced a new course entitled "Courtroom Presentations Using Adobe Flash", which will be held March 10-12, 2009 in Tucson, AZ. The course will be taught by Paul Hartzell, who published a very well received article on the topic here on Media-Geek several months ago (click here to read the original article).

Digital video evidence is coming at law enforcement agencies hard and fast, and both the pace and quantity of digital video evidence continue to increase exponentially. There are so many digital video sources, each with unique challenges and issues when it comes to proper evidence collection, viewing, interpreting, presentation and management of the evidence. Training is critical for all of those involved in the entire chain of evidence, especially in a field or discipline that is constantly changing and evolving.

If you’re involved in the digital video evidence chain, below are a few training events that I’ll be at next month that you may find interesting. Hope to see you there!

May 13-15, DVR Assessment & Video Recovery, Burtonsville, MD

May 19-23, LEVA Level 1 – Forensic Video Analysis & The Law – University of Indianapolis, IN

For Immediate Release:
January 7, 2014

Digital Media Expert Larry Compton Joins Ocean Systems

Certified Digital & Multimedia Analyst and Former NYS Peace Officer/Municipal Police Instructor brings over 25 years of video experience to his new position with Ocean Systems

Burtonsville, MD January 7, 2014 – Ocean Systems, the market leading provider of forensic video analysis solutions, announced today it has hired Larry Compton to the position of Digital Media Expert. This hire further demonstrates Ocean Systems’ dedication to provide the Law Enforcement Community the best forensic video solutions for collection, clarification & analysis, as well as expert training and customer service.

My search for a high-definition camcorder came to an end recently with the purchase of a JVC Everio GZ-HD5.

There's no question that Creative Cloud has transformed the way Adobe does business with their customers. I've been a huge fan from day one, but enterprise and government customers...well, not so much. Here's your chance to provide direct feedback to the Adobe Product Manager of Enterprise Tools, Karl Gibson.

Click here for details.

It’s sometimes difficult for traditional Computer Forensic (CF) examiners to understand why they should treat video and multimedia any differently than other types of digital evidence. After all, a bit is a bit, and a byte is a byte. Right? CF examiners are typically highly trained and highly technical people. If anyone is going to understand how to recover and interpret multimedia data, one would think that a traditional CF examiner would be at or near the top of your go-to list. The problem with this assumption is that multimedia data is fundamentally different than most other types of data, and in more than one way.

In support of LEVA member agency the Vancouver Police Department and the Integrated Riot Investigation Team (IRIT), LEVA announces the activation of the Forensic Video Analysis Response Team.

IRIT investigators are inundated with over 1600 hours of video depicting criminal acts that took place immediately following this summer's Stanely Cup hockey finals, including arson, looting, and serious assaults.

Between September 26th and October 9th over 40 LEVA Forensic Video Analysts will converge on the National Digital Multimedia Evidence Processing Lab at the University of Indianapolis to undertake the mass processing of DME.

For further information please feel free to contact LEVA President Blaine Davison via email at president@leva.org