FORENSIC IMAGING NEWSLETTER

ISSUE:No. 4-2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------February 5, 1996

STORAGE UPDATE While INTEL continues to make new and faster processors and motherboards with advanced chipsets, the really great advances have been made in the ways and means used to store DATA. While the increased speed of the processors allows us to handle data and do things to it like compression or FFT's in a much more efficient manner, we still have to have some place to put the data or image files if you prefer. As was mentioned in my newsletter on Storage, the hard drives in our computers are getting bigger, actually much bigger, and the price is about the same. However, there always comes a point where the hard drive just doesn't hold any more. There is some computer nerd axiom that says no matter what the size of the hard disk, one will load software and collect data files until the disk reaches 90% of capacity. When we run out of space on the hard disk, we are forced to clean off "unnecessary" files by either deleting them totally or putting these seldom used files on some type of "BACKUP". Tape has been around for years but it's such a pain to use, that many people would just as soon not use it even though it's right there on the computer. [ if you do like the concept of tape, there is a new unit on the market, which i just ordered, that is a combination double-speed 1.4MB floppy disk and a QIC-80 tape "backup". So what.? The tape acts like a "drive" so you can just copy files to it or from it without the lengthy procedure of performing a conventional and SLOW backup/restore ] Of course the CD-ROM is a convenient and inexpensive method of storing a LARGE amount of data (currently 650 MB, but its size will be increased in the near future to 2.3 Gigabytes). CD-ROMS have gone from a 2X speed to 3X(briefly) to the current "standard" 4X. Of course 6X drives and even 8X are available. What's perhaps more interesting than just buying a faster drive every year ( the 6X and new 8X speed drives are intended for multi-media video clips)is the ability to have multiple CD's in a drive such as NEC's 4X4 drive which holds 4 CD's in a single half height drive slot. With a price of $279, it costs just a little more than a single quad-speed drive and allows the user to juggle four CD's! Another interesting product is the combination of a 4X CD-ROM reader with a rewritable optical disk. For the rewritable optical, phase change technology is employed. Under phase change, the recording head directs a tiny, multiple energy laser across the disc. Because the surface of the disc has a different reflective characteristic when heated, the drive head can read the difference states of reflectance as ones and zeroes. To write over existing data, the laser heats the spot on the disc to its melting point, eliminating the information. Simple, huh ?? What's Ahead The major players, Sony, Toshiba, & Phillips, have agreed on a new CD format which will allow full length Hollywood movie to be recorded onto a CD-ROM. Hollywood and Blockbuster are set to distribute CD-ROM movies which will be superior to the VHS format. Look for these CD Players for your TV set later this year!!

WINDOWS UPDATE For those of you who have NOT upgraded to WIN '95, wait a little longer. WINDOWS '96 will be shipping soon. REALLY. Code named NASHVILLE, the new version which is really like a WIn 95.1 will include various bug fixes and a few features that didn't make the August deadline...like a built in personal information manager, better Internet support, improved ISDN support, conferencing ?, and better/more multi media support. The "REAL" operating system, WIN NT 4.0 is coming but not as soon as we had hoped. Probably , the third quarter of '96!!

NEW PRODUCTS For those of you interested in the enhancement of video tapes, IBIS does offer tape recorders & players which are suitable/compatible with imaging systems. The bad news is you will have little if any luck if you go "cheap". You cannot got to Best Buys or another consumer store and buy a $400-$600 tape player and expect to do significant enhancement. If video enhancement on an occasional basis is necessary, there are several players that are suitable. You need a commercial grade unit with built-in Time Base Correction (TBC). TBC's can be bought separately for existing tape players, but it is easier and probably more economical to purchase the units integrated. Some tape units also have "digital slow", for a price. We recommend/sell S-VHS units even though the tapes you want to enhance are normally plain VHS. The S-VHS units have more features and produce a better "signal" than plain units. One "trick", if you can afford the price, is to copy the VHS tape you want to enhance to a S-VHS tape, and then digitize frames from the copy. Of course, you have to purchase a Recorder and Player combination. A suitable high end Recorder is over $7000 with the Player only being about $5700.00. A new mid-range Recorder unit is approximately $4800.00 with the Player only being the $4000.00 price range. Even with these units, you will not be able to do "MAGIC"! The first step is being able to digitize a "good" frame from the tape. The digitizer board in conjunction with the Tape Player must allow for the compensation of the video coming from the VCR. It is not like the video from a camera since the heads and motor of the VCR introduce considerable timing "jitter". Having successfully captured a number of frames of video , virtually any imaging software has the primary "tool" for enhancing videotape frames with that being the adjustment of brightness and contrast. Other common tools are splitting the frame of video into two fields for the elimination/reduction of blurring. The Fast Fourier Transform is also sometimes useful for "clearing" an image. We can supply you with names of individuals who routinely process tapes and who will share their experiences with you.