Thanks for your help but maybe we are talking about a different machine?
D1 according to literature, anyway certainly way more than CIF.
MPEG4 but not h.264 yep.. sadly was well aware of that.
I think you misunderstood what I meant by 'down the phone' - nothing to do with networks just an eight-digit numeric code generated by tech support from details given about the unit.
It has a built-in web server and presumably if I can be bothered to cludge together an XP box or some kind of VM can enjoy the ancient application support.