Help repairing/playing CCTV raw .264 + .idx export (1080p)

21st Sep 2025 12:35 #1

Member

Hi all,

I’m trying to recover and play surveillance footage exported as a raw H.264 elementary stream with a companion .idx index file. Standard players and remux/repair attempts aren’t producing a clean, viewable file. I’d appreciate guidance on a workflow or flags that can repair timestamps/bitstream issues, or any vendor tool recommendations that can open this format.

Source/context

Footage comes directly from a CCTV/IP camera/DVR export as 22-30-00(02898d38).264 with a matching .idx file.

Camera logs show typical CCTV behaviors (motion events, JPEG alarm snapshots, SD card file switches, day/night photosensor), so this seems like a vendor‑OEM raw H.264 stream without container metadata.

Resolution detected at 1920x1080; nominal framerate appears to be 25 fps (based on FFmpeg probe/assumptions).

No separate audio file is known; the .idx is likely an index used by the vendor player.

Symptoms

Many players show green/black image or refuse to open the .264:

[Attachment 88848 - Click to enlarge]
[Attachment 88849 - Click to enlarge]

VLC (even with H.264 demuxer selected and hardware decode disabled).

PotPlayer with external LAV Filters forced preferred (also tried disabling internal filters).

MPC‑HC/LAV, 5KPlayer, etc.

MKVToolNix GUI: adding .264 and setting Default duration/FPS produces an MKV that still doesn’t play reliably.

Shutter Encoder GUI (Rewrap to MP4/MKV and H.264/AVC re‑encode) tried; rewrap often fails, re‑encode yields black/garbled video.

What I’ve already tried

VLC:

Demuxer set to “H264 video demuxer.”

Hardware acceleration disabled; tried different video output modules.

PotPlayer + LAV Filters:

Installed LAV Splitter/Video/Audio; added as registered filters and set Prefer; disabled PotPlayer internal filters; tried software decode only.

MKVToolNix:

Added .264 as AVC elementary stream, set “Default duration/FPS” to 25, enabled “Fix bitstream timing info,” multiplexed to MKV.

Shutter Encoder:

Rewrap to MP4/MKV (fails/black).

H.264 (x264) re‑encode with CRF 18, preset veryfast; also tried “Conform”/FPS in Advanced features.

FFmpeg remux and re‑encode attempts (details below).

FFmpeg commands and result (exact log)
Remux to MKV (no re‑encode):
ffmpeg -fflags +genpts -r 25 -f h264 -i R:\1\2025-08-15\22-30-00(02898d38).264 -c:v copy R:\output.mkv

Key output excerpt:
[h264 @ 0000019fa6250f00] top block unavailable for requested intra mode -1
[h264 @ 0000019fa6250f00] error while decoding MB 5 0, bytestream 124866
[h264 @ 0000019fa6250f00] concealing 8160 DC, 8160 AC, 8160 MV errors in I frame
...
[matroska @ 0000019fa70c0d00] Timestamps are unset in a packet for stream 0. This is deprecated and will stop working in the future.
[h264 @ 0000019fa62de080] SEI type 240 size 192 truncated at 14
[h264 @ 0000019fa62de080] reference overflow (pps)
...
Input: 1920x1080, yuv420p, 25 fps, 40 tbr
Output MKV written, but playback remains black/garbled.

Also tried:

Remux to MP4 with AUD insertion:
ffmpeg -fflags +genpts -r 25 -f h264 -i input.264 -c:v copy -bsf:v h264_metadata=aud=insert -movflags +faststart output_aud.mp4

Full “repair” re‑encode to H.264/MP4 with CFR:
ffmpeg -r 25 -f h264 -i input.264 -vf "fps=25,setsar=1" -vsync cfr -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:v libx264 -preset veryfast -crf 18 -movflags +faststart output_cfr.mp4

Observed issues

Frequent H.264 decode errors: “top block unavailable…”, “non‑existing PPS referenced”, “SEI … truncated”, and “timestamps unset”.

Even after -fflags +genpts and setting -r 25 on input, files often remain unplayable or show black/green frames.

Re‑encode sometimes completes but yields unusable output.

Goals

Obtain a playable, forensically faithful file (preferably MKV/MP4) if possible without transcoding; if not, a visually correct transcode is acceptable.

Understand if additional FFmpeg flags/filters could repair missing SPS/PPS/AUD/PTS or otherwise normalize the stream.

Determine if this is a vendor‑specific/encrypted .264 variant that requires the original vendor player.

This is example source
https://mega.nz/file/FMRlkLKb#PbvYgorAs0hDcZIRJIgwd2eLzpIENLH-p6Hn05WGhqo