Player for .dat file from security DVR

[Richard_G]

I've got some video files taken from an H264 security DVR and have no idea wht I can use to play them. A Google search came up with a number of different players (MPC, Total Video Player and GOM) but none work. Now it may be that I don't have the required codec installed on my laptop but as I don't know what codec I need, I'm not clogging it up with a codec pack in the hope something will work. Anyone got any idea what I need to play it or something that will convert it into a playable format.

[DB83]

Try loading dat file in mediainfo.

[Richard_G]

It would appear to be AVC?

[DB83]

Ok. You can try simply renaming the file to .mp4

If that fails, try loading it in avidemux. Select copy for video and selct mp4 as output format

If that fails, try mp4box

Or before any of that try vlc

It is not very big so it may even be a failed recording. Or even a bad transfer from the source.

[Richard_G]

Thanks, I'll give it a go. I've been playing with video for years but all my stuff these days is DV-AVI or DVD compliant mpeg (nothing I do warrants HD) so this is new to me. That is one of about 30 motion detected clips so they are all fairly short anyway.

[Richard_G]

This is getting silly.

Renaming to .mp4 and vlc can't open it.
latest version of avidemux won't open with a missing dll error, version 2.5.10 runs but won't open it.
mp4box from the official download installs something called GPAC with an application called Osmo4 that I can't figure out how to load the filer into it.
vlc won't open it.
Gspot (which I already had installed) doesn't recognise it.

Now what?

[Richard_G]

and just found I have Handbrake installed too and that doesn't recognise the file type either.......

[DB83]

Makes me think then that you have an empty file. Just a header.

Since it is quite short, for a giggle upload it here as an attachment. If you have another similar one, upload that as well. another pair of eyes might help.

[Richard_G]

Fair enough. Just checked and there's 20 files, all roughly 120MB in size giving me a couple of GB so I can't see that they are just the headers.

See if anyone can make any sense of this

http://files.videohelp.com/u/46172/00000001.dat

[poisondeathray]

rename the extension to .264 , then you can use mkvmerge or mp4box to put it into a container. It will then play in any media player like VLC etc..

(This is an unencrypted elementary stream, and most video players cannot play elementary streams. You can actually play it as-is with ffplay, but it's a crappy "player" eg. ffplay -i 00000001.dat or just drag and drop onto ffplay)

[Richard_G]

Excellent thanks! mkvmerge works fine and I can then play in VLC.

Now I've just got to trawl through them all to find the one with the shot I need......

[DB83]

Hopefully that will not involve reading a number plate

[poisondeathray]

I think the doggy did it ... with the candlestick in the study

[Jack.EME]

This is a very nice thread. I am facing the same issue, but after opening the videos, I noticed that this DVR, puts 2-3 seconds of each camera together, there are 7 cameras, it creates 27 second of recording in one file. Someone was checking a playback, and they changed something and the hdd became unreadable from the dvr (it had a DBerror sign) since this recorder is very old and cheap it does not have support software, or tools for these errors. I have the whole recording and an index.bin file, which tells which recorded sequence is where to the dvr, anyway i can put the two together so that i can view the recording as a full? Thank you, I doesn't let me upload the .dat file. so i uploaded a mkv version of it, and a link to the dat.
https://gofile.io/?c=rH797l

[DATproblem]

Hello Jack.EME,
I have the same problem with *.dat file. In my case only 4 cameras are recorded in to one file and can't find any player for pc. Mediainfo (MediaArea.net) says that my file is HEVC. Are you solved your problem how to play separate channels ?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Zd2GptC2izxsKhlVn0GZBj2E_8ojxUZe/view?usp=sharing

[Cornucopia]

Best way to temporally demultiplex (what last 2 were referring to, I think) is to process through AVISynth or similar, and use "SelectEvery". See: http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Select. Make the step size = # of views. You will need to create a clip - with its own offset - for each view.
Note: this WILL entail re-encoding, which likely WILL result in quality loss (which will vary, depending on your settings).

Also - PLEASE DO NOT GRAVEROB. Instead create a new thread.

Scott

[DATproblem]

Best way to temporally demultiplex (what last 2 were referring to, I think) is to process through AVISynth or similar, and use "SelectEvery". See: http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Select. Make the step size = # of views. You will need to create a clip - with its own offset - for each view.
Note: this WILL entail re-encoding, which likely WILL result in quality loss (which will vary, depending on your settings).

Also - PLEASE DO NOT GRAVEROB. Instead create a new thread.

Scott

If this message to me - its too difficult. I am looking for h265 player like this https://www.unifore.net/ip-video-surveillance/h-264-h-265-video-files-player-playing-c...ge-easily.html