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PDR / Legal and insurance work / Export files, containers, players

Video exhibits · making the file open in the first place

CCTV exports and players, Plymouth. The disc turned up; no program you own will open it.

CCTV is not ordinary video. The recorder puts the picture into a container it wrote itself, indexes it by channel and time, and supplies its own player for reading the result back. Those players tend to be Windows programs; a few insist on the recorder that made them; on a Mac they do nothing at all. So the disc stays on a desk and the matter goes nowhere. Our answer is unglamorous and it works: identify the true format from the structure of the file, copy the stream into something every machine opens, leave the original untouched, hash the pair, and write down what was converted and how, so another examiner can test it. None of it makes the footage better. Where the recorder belongs to somebody else, we need that owner's authority.

On most jobs, no files means no fee An exhibit from the start The recorder is overwriting it

A quiet word first?
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Why no player touches it.

This is not ordinary videoWhat a recorder writes is not a file your computer has ever met. The picture goes into the maker's container, with stream markers that were never published and frames arranged by time. Aim a general player at that and the frames land in the wrong order.
The recorder's own fileIt holds the timestamps the recorder wrote and the channel data with them. Re-encode and both disappear, taking a little of the picture quality along.
The disc's playerNormally a Windows program burned onto the same disc. It does not run on a Mac, the odd one insists on the model of recorder it came from, and frequently no player is supplied at all. That is where the disc goes into a drawer and the matter stops moving.
What happens hereThe format is read from the file, converted without re-encoding, the original left alone, both hashed, and the method written out so the conversion can be checked.

Format, player and clock in turn.

Not on this list? Call us →
What is in front of youWhat that points toWhat to do
A file ending .dav or .264Picture data inside a container the maker devised and kept to itselfInclude the player when you send it
A disc that came without a playerHappens often. The format then has to be read out of the fileSend the entire folder over
An .exe that only runs on WindowsNo use on a Mac, and frequently no use on a recent PC eitherRequest a converted version
A phone recording of a screenThrough a monitor, a lens and a second encode, it is no longer the recordingGo back and ask for the export
The clock in the recorderThey drift, they are set wrong on installation day, and nobody moves them when the clocks changeMeasured against a reference clock, stated as a figure, never assumed
Sending it in: the intake lab takes tracked, insured post, and we pay for the journey home. Ring us before the box goes if you want the packing talked through with an engineer. There is more on the contact page.

Each stage, in turn.

Every job written up →
01

A number on arrival, then the free diagnosis Free

Whatever arrives is booked in under a case number on the day it reaches the bench. An engineer then works out the actual fault, and that part is free. You get a plain answer on what can come off the drive and what cannot, followed by one price in writing. Nothing further happens until you have read it and agreed.

Diagnosis at no chargeA single written figureYou owe nothing yet
02

Establish what the file really is

An extension settles almost nothing — .dav, .264, .dat, .vid, or an .mp4 whose contents have been rearranged. The format comes from the structure inside. Encrypted exports need the password file that belongs to them; without it, nothing will open them at all.

Format taken from the fileAn extension proves almost nothing
03

A version that will play

Rather than re-encode it, the stream is copied across into a standard container, so nothing gets added and nothing gets discarded. The file as the recorder produced it stays here as well.

Stream copied across, not re-encodedThe original stays
04

The clock is measured, not assumed

The recorder's time is compared with a reference clock and the difference written down. Most of the trouble comes from British Summer Time. Whatever that difference works out at, it appears in the report as a number, so nobody has to estimate it later on.

Measured against a reference clockRecorded as a figure, not assumed
05

You give the word, and it ships back

Thinking it over costs you nothing. Everything the drive gave up is listed for you before any invoice exists, and the bill only follows your go-ahead. Files travel back on media bought in for your job, with return carriage paid at this end, and the case stays on the bench until you confirm they open on your own computer.

You see the list and decideWritten to fresh mediaWe pay the postage home

What the work keeps showing

  • Nothing is wrong with the file, only the player — recorders bury H.264 or H.265 in a container nobody documented, marking the streams their own way and ordering by time rather than by stream. A general decoder pairs frames with the wrong neighbours and the errors spread.
  • The maker's player is not the way out of it — it may change the picture in ways it never tells you about, and where it reads past the disk index you end up with pictures that carry no date or time whatsoever.
  • A re-export is a different file — an AVI produced from an H.264 recording came back two frames short across an hour boundary while its metadata still matched. Footage recorded at 944 by 1080 is displayed stretched into widescreen, and every proportion in it changes.
  • Redaction is separate work, and we keep it small — where people with no part in the matter have to be hidden before a clip is handed on, faces and number plates can be blurred across a short export, and that masked version leaves under an exhibit reference of its own, never as the master. Hours of multi-camera material is not work we take.

What goes back in the parcel: the recorder's own file, untouched; a second copy that any ordinary machine will open; a hash value for each; the clock offset as a figure; the player itself, or a written description of the container where none was supplied; and a note on the origin of the footage and every pair of hands it has passed through. The report says on page one that this is not an accredited laboratory.

A job out of the casebook.

PL · PLY-2026-0872LOGGED ✓

Two weeks from a licensing hearing, and nothing would open it

A bar on Union Street gave its solicitor a disc a fortnight ahead of a licensing hearing. On it were four video files, plus a player that refused to install, in an office where everybody works on a Mac. The format was identified from the files themselves, the stream copied into a container that plays, the original left alone, and both hashed. The recorder's clock was more than half an hour ahead of the real time and had never been altered when the clocks changed, so the offset went into the report.

Claim settledCourt-ready export

Before you seal the box.

Get these done

  • Ask for the export itself, not a clip
  • Have the player put on the disc as well
  • Write down the recorder's make and model
  • Copy the entire folder across, not just the video

What to avoid

  • Re-encoding it so that it plays
  • Filming the monitor and passing that off as the file
  • Renaming the files into something tidier
  • Expecting the conversion to sharpen anything

The questions callers ask most.

My computer will not open the disc. What is wrong?

Because what is on it is not ordinary video. The recorder wrapped the picture in a container of its own, with stream markers nobody ever published, and an off-the-shelf player cannot interpret them. The file is generally fine. The software aimed at it is the wrong software.

Nothing happens when I run it on a Mac.

That is usual. Nearly all of them are Windows programs, and one or two only work with the model of recorder that made them. Send the disc here and back comes a copy any machine opens, with the original exactly as it arrived.

Will converting it improve the picture?

No — and treat anyone who says otherwise with suspicion. Detail the camera never captured cannot be added afterwards. A conversion done well is faithful to the recording and nothing more. Done badly it loses frames or distorts the proportions of what is in the picture, which is why the original travels back with the copy.

Can I trust the time on the footage?

Often not. Recorder clocks drift, are frequently set wrong on installation day, and hardly ever get put forward when the clocks change. The difference against a reference clock is measured and written down as a figure.

Pages people open after this.

Footage off a recorder → Dashcam and bodycam clips → Expert witness reports → Evidence and reports →

Every minute it runs, less is left.

Every minute the recorder runs, the clip you need moves closer to being written over, and your deadline has not moved. Start it here. The first look is free, and what you tell us goes no further.

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