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PDR / Legal and insurance work / Overwriting, and why the clock runs the job

Investigations & evidence · how long a recorder holds

Overwritten CCTV footage, Plymouth. It is recording over itself; the mains switch stops it.

There is no delete step anywhere in this, and no bin to fish anything out of. The unit reaches the end of its disk, goes back to its first block and lays fresh video over the old, and carries on doing so while it has power. How many days that leaves you is not something anyone can work out at a distance. Stopping it, though, is a ten-second job you can do yourself.

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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What is happening on the disk itself.

How the loop worksThe unit fills its disk from one end through to the other. Arriving at the far end it returns to the start and puts new recording straight over the old, and it repeats that for as long as it is powered. Nothing is deleted, no bin fills up, and there is no undo.
No one can quote you a windowNot on the telephone, and not from a make and model number. What sets it is the disk fitted, how many cameras are writing, the resolution, the frame rate, the compression in use, and whether the unit records continuously or waits for movement. A figure offered without inspecting the system is guesswork.
Where the real answer sitsIn the recorder in front of you. Bring up the playback calendar and note the earliest date still offered on each camera. That is today's answer, and it creeps forward with every hour the unit stays powered. Write it down before you do anything else.
What written over actually meansAny block on a disk carries one value at a time. The moment fresh video takes that block, whatever occupied it before is gone; there is no buried earlier layer waiting to be lifted out. If the loop reached only part of your period, pieces commonly survive and we chase them. If it went right across, nothing returns, and a firm telling you otherwise is selling you something.

What each symptom points to.

Not on this list? Call us →
What shows upWhat that points toWhat to do
The unit still has powerEvery hour it runs replaces the oldest hour it holdsSwitch it off at the wall
Nobody has told you how far back it reachesCapacity, how many cameras, and the settings all shift itLook up the earliest date
Channels reach back different distancesMovement-only recording on a quiet view fills littleRead every channel separately
The unit died a fortnight backAnything that stopped writing stopped overwriting as wellKeep it off and post the drive
The date you need is no longer listedPieces often remain beyond the indexThe free check answers it one way or the other
Nobody has opened a claim or an enquiryPaper moves a good deal slower than the diskHave a copy taken today
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

Nothing further gets written

Step one is to stand the recorder down, before anyone plays footage back on it. The disk comes out and is cloned sector by sector through hardware that permits no writes. Once that clone exists your position is frozen: everything the loop had not yet reached sits inside the image and cannot be touched again.

Supply cut firstCloned behind a write blocker
03

Which dates came through

The image is then read for what it genuinely holds — the oldest recording present, the newest, and every hole in between. Where the loop caught part of your period, that reading shows which half-hours came back and which did not, and it reaches you as a written list before anything further is attempted.

Earliest and latest dates listedEvery hole named
04

Copied out and signed over

Whatever is readable goes onto new media as an exhibit: the native files as the recorder wrote them, a version that opens on any computer, MD5 and SHA-256 for both, and a dated note of who has held the media. Loss adjusters and investigating officers expect it in that shape. The other gain is permanence — from that day the footage lives somewhere other than the recorder, so the unit goes back on the wall and the loop decides nothing.

Hashed, catalogued, datedHeld away from the recorder
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

  • The admin always lags the hardware — claims and enquiries run to weeks. Get the footage copied, then argue about the bill.
  • A broken unit is often the lucky case — a recorder that quit a fortnight ago stopped writing that same day, so its contents are where they were.
  • Cameras use the disk unevenly — a door onto the street and a back stockroom write to the same drive at very different rates, and where recording follows movement the quiet one holds much older material.
  • Look for a second drive — larger recorders take two disks or more, and one may carry an archive or a retired group of channels holding dates the live disk has already passed.

The single thing that halts it: cut the supply. Not a menu option, not a setting, not a message to whoever installed it — the wall switch. It has to be your recorder, or one you hold the authority to have examined. Everything else then moves at whatever pace suits you. Where the site truly must stay watched, export the hours you need onto a USB stick before anything else, keep what the recorder itself wrote instead of a converted version, and speak to us before the drive is disturbed. Leaving it powered and hoping is what fails, because every hour of that spends an hour you still hold.

A job out of the casebook.

PL · PLY-2026-0875LOGGED ✓

A Cattedown industrial unit, off at the wall by nine

Someone had been through the place overnight. The manager arrived to a raised shutter, went to the socket and took the recorder off supply before unlocking, then telephoned. The drive reached the bench on Tuesday and was imaged before a single clip was played back. The night came through whole, with channel names and clock times attached, and the loss adjuster had it within five working days. What took them aback was how few days the disk had been carrying.

Footage came back intactVerified export

Before you seal the box.

Get these done

  • 1. Photograph the live screen and the clock on it
  • 2. Take the recorder off the mains supply
  • 3. Phone us before anyone opens the case
  • 4. Confirm to your insurer in writing that it is secured

What to avoid

  • Leaving it powered up
  • Waiting to be asked for it
  • Logging a call with the installer and sitting tight
  • Connecting the drive to an office computer

The questions callers ask most.

How far back does my recorder actually go?

Nobody can answer that blind. The window turns on the disk fitted, how many cameras feed it, the picture quality, the frame rate, and whether it records constantly or only on movement. Open the playback calendar: the earliest date on offer is your answer for today, and it moves.

Is anything left once it has been written over?

No. When fresh video lands on those blocks the older recording ceases to exist there, and neither a program nor a bench alters that. Partial cases differ: where the loop crossed only some of the hours you want, pieces frequently remain outside the index and are worth carving out. The free check settles which of the two applies here.

Do I pull the plug on it?

Yes, where the premises can manage a day or two without cover. Killing the mains supply is the only dependable way to halt the loop, and it costs you nothing. Where the cameras must keep running, pull the hours you need onto a USB stick first, save the recorder's own file format rather than a converted one, and phone us before the unit is opened.

My insurer has not requested it yet. Does that matter?

Put it beyond reach anyway. Claims and enquiries proceed over weeks; the unit proceeds at whatever pace its configuration sets, and that is usually the shorter of the two. Written requests have a habit of naming dates that have already come round again. A copy made today is cheap, and settles it whichever way it falls.

Pages people open after this.

Footage for a claim or the police → Camera cards, SD and CF → Flash drives and pens → 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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