NCAVF is the National Center for Audio and Video Forensics

NCAVF provides full-service consulting, investigation, forensic enhancement, and media preparation for audio and video evidence used in mediations, arbitration, hearings, and court. We are nationally recognized and court approved with proven results – we are trusted every day to assess and clarify recorded audio and video evidence, keeping videos and related evidence private, creating clear courtroom presentations, and always maintaining a clear chain of custody.

Our audio and video evidence preparation and expert witness testimony has consistently proven in post-verdict jury interviews to be crucial to a jury’s understanding of the facts of a case.

Audio and Video Forensic Experts

Speaking engagements and video/audio training seminars include the national convention of WEVA, the annual meeting of PORAC (the Police Officers research Association of California), and numerous Bar Associations and Public Defender Offices across the state. We have assisted with presentations made to LA County District Attorney’s Office and to the Los Angeles Police Protective League. We are approved by the California Bar as an MCLE provider to provide continuing education to attorneys, and we have presented this CLE class many times. We are on the Panel of Expert Witnesses of Los Angeles County Superior Court, the Los Angeles Public Defender’s approved experts list, and on numerous public defender lists throughout California.

With over 25 years of audio and video production in television, feature films, and corporate productions, our award winning work, from producing news to mixing sound for feature films, makes us uniquely qualified to work with all aspects of digital media evidence to find strategies and approaches for any case involving video and audio.

Based out of Los Angeles and serving across the United States, NCAVF is known for first class customer service, careful attention to detail, constant education in the newest video and audio technologies, and creative thinking inside and outside the box. Our samples show examples of our areas of expertise. The founder of NCAVF is David Notowitz.

The founder of NCAVF

David Notowitz presents at a national seminar of video experts

Mr. David Notowitz is the founder of NCAVF, based in Los Angeles. He is an Emmy award winning producer and multi-faceted video and audio forensic evidence expert. His specialties include news, documentaries, and commercial video production. In 1986 he started Notowitz Productions, and in 1989 was hired to produce daily segments as a reporter for the Financial News Network (since bought by CNBC).

He has produced and edited corporate productions for clients such as Fox Broadcasting Company, Yahoo!, GM, The Learning Channel, Rhino Entertainment, Miller Beer, IBM, Disney, Fandango, Frigidaire, Pepperdine University, University of California, City of Santa Monica, and UBS Investment Bank.

His company produced award winning films and documentaries, including Voices Of The Shoah: Remembrances Of The Holocaust for Warner Bros., and the Emmy-nominated Carpati, which was named by the San Diego Union Tribune as one of the top ten films of 1997. He was also the editor of the nationally acclaimed 1992 documentary The Last Klezmer.

Professional awards include a Los Angeles Emmy and two nominations and three CableACE nominations.

Recent forensic audio and video seminars attended include the Conference of the Audio Engineering Society (AES), Law Enforcement Video Association (LEVA), and American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS).

Mr. Notowitz has worked as a forensic video expert witness on cases investigated by police officers, detectives, private investigators, insurance investigators, public defenders, and criminal defense attorneys with cases across California and the country, including San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Ventura, Palm Springs, Whittier, Reno, San Francisco, Sacramento, Emeryville, Irvine, and Pomona. In addition, he works for private civil and criminal attorneys and large corporations across the country — from Texas to Chicago and from NY to California. His largest clients have included Target, Kroger, Stater Bros, State Farm, Home Depot, and McDonalds.

Prominent court work includes his involvement as a video expert with the nationally covered Ivory Webb case. Television, radio, and print coverage of the case included major national and local news outlets, from the Today Show to CNN to the New York Times. Details of his contributions were written up in the PORAC Law Enforcement News. He also was a video forensic consultant for the television program The Insider as well as WGN Chicago, USA Today , ABC Network News, Inside Edition, KCBS Radio & TV, and The Young Turks.

In late 2013 and early 2014, Mr. Notowitz was the sole audio and video forensic expert on the team defending Fullerton police officers Jay Cicinelli and Manuel Ramos in the death of homeless man Kelly Thomas. After a six week trial ending January 2014, the jury returned a not guilty verdict for both officers, after 6 hours of deliberation. He worked the civil case for the same defendants and Joe Wolfe, a third officer named in the civil case, until the case settled in November 2015.

Mr. Notowitz’ most recent high profile criminal case was the March – April 2017 trial People v Downey, Phelps, and Foster, in which three police officers were charged in the pursuit and arrest of a suspect after a two hour, high speed car chase that ended with the suspect stealing a horse and riding it into the high desert. The arrest was captured in high definition by a news helicopter flying overhead.

David Notowitz operates NCAVF, the National Center for Audio and Video Forensics, a full-service audio and video forensics company based in Los Angeles and providing all levels of consulting and media preparation for evidence used in mediations, arbitration, hearings, and court — from 3D recreations of crime scenes to video production, and from forensic video enhancement to testifying in court as an expert witness.