How Helpful Are Video / Image Forensic Analysis Tools?

A good portion of the IPVM forum discuss the tools, technologies and methods involved in the production and generation of the final video and images. Its good stuff. Designing and engineering the systems right in the first place saves time, money and overall headaches.

However, not a lot of discussion concerns the 'post production' analysis tools available to us mere mortals trying to perform forensic analysis of poorly recorded, poorly lit and poorly designed video from systems already out there. How many of us have had to try and extract the best video frame or image from bad original recordings? (and still be relevent in courts of law if needed?)

I recently ran across a tool called, dTective by Ocean Systems. Although I havent used tried it yet but it looks promising.

So I pose this question to the forum; " what other video and image tools have you run into in your travels and were they successful in providing you with the needed results?"

thanks ahead of time....

Joel

ps - end user not a vendor