Free DME & DFIR Resources

Techsmith has announced the release of Snagit version 1 for Mac users.  Visit http://www.techsmith.com/snagit for complete details.

Perian, the "Swiss Army knife for QuickTime," has decided to cease development after six years on the market. The Perian team posted a notice to its users this week, saying that the software is "as complete as it will ever be under our stewardship." Though we can't disagree with the team's reason for wanting to move on, Perian's retirement is a bittersweet reminder of the earlier days of Apple, when watching videos of different codecs was a challenge on the Mac.

Read full story >

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. 

Back in the days when mechanical hard drives with spinning platters were the norm, you could simply hand your old hard drive to a deserving relative or friend as an upgrade, get a thank you, and call it a day. It’s not so simple with today’s solid-state drives.

Full Story

Bugs are a way of life in software--fortunately, so are bug fixes. Earlier this week, Adobe released Photoshop 12.0.1, which brings a number of stability enhancements to the professional image-editing software, including several specifically related to 64-bit operation on Mac OS X.
Though Adobe says that CS5 is more stable than its predecessor, CS4, there's always room for improvement. The 12.0.1 update addresses a number of issues that could cause slow performance, as well as several common crashing bugs, user interface and workspace issues, font-related crashes, and several painting-related issues, including problems with video layers.

Full Story

One thing I really stress when training video evidence Technicians & Analysts is to stay in your lane. Don't go beyond your training & experience levels on any topic/tool/etc., no matter who is asking you to.

A related one is that an expert's job at trial is to leverage their expertise to make sure the Trier of Fact has accurate evidence & information, not to be an advocate for one party or the other.

I've had several students over the years tell me that my passionate articulation of one or the other has saved their case or even their career. Two rather recently.

Honored & proud, of course, but I always like to point out to them that they are the ones that did all the hard work and stood their ground.

Keep being great & doing great things my friends! 😎

A great overview on the history of aspect ratio. I was going to link it to our library, but apparently I have to update the code for the Vimeo videos. Ugh. I'll get to it, just seems my to-do list is a bit like the NTFS $MFT...it only grows, never shrinks! ;)

The Changing Shape of Cinema: The History of Aspect Ratio from FilmmakerIQ.com on Vimeo.

Apple has just elevated the graphics chip to superstar status. Why focus on the graphics?

Read full story >

A pair of researchers from Dartmouth University have devised a metric for quantifying how much a digital photograph has been altered by digital photo-editing techniques.

Full Story

Wouldn't it be nice to see who else is logged in while you're online?  Well, now you can.  Check out the right-hand column on your profile homepage, and right under the "Status Center" you'll see a detailed listing of members currently logged in!

That's Roland and I, and the pic was taken by George. We were celebrating victory. We just dug & winched Grant's 6-wheeler out of a bind, that I put us in.

I wasn't worried in the least, even though we were in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, which none of us where very familiar with. I was upset with myself a bit and embarrassed of course. You'd think that would've made me miserable. It didn't.

I was in the mountains with a very accomplished and intelligent group of forensic video analysts, and we were accomplishing even more while there, like drafting a new Best Practices document for LEVA on the recovery of Digital Multimedia Evidence.

We weren't stuck there for long.  A little teamwork, which we're all very good at, and BAM! Problem solved and on to the next thing. 😎

Today I’d like to say Happy Anniversary to the 1,700+ verified members who continue to participate in our growing professional community. In honor of Veterans Day, I’d also like to share with you one of my favorite speeches regarding service to our country.