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Video format question

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Hi all, I own a system made by LTS and I have a question about the format of the video that the DVR saves in.

 

I read that it uses H.264 conversion, and while I'm familiar on the term, I cannot view it with any sort of player (windows media, vlc, quicktime). I would like to convert it into a file that my computer can play, but the extension that the DVR saved the backup files on my computer ends with ".264". The system came with a converter program but it doesn't work at all. No instructions and all it did was put my computer on ice. After a couple of tries it was a no go with that program for me!

 

Is there a way to rename the extension or perhaps a program out there that could convert it to either a .mpeg or a .avi?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice!

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If the file format and compression do actually follow common standards, you should be able to simply rename the file with a new extension. Some players will still look at the extension to determine what video format is actually used, and still won't work if you rename it to the "wrong" extension (ie. they may play both .mpg and .avi, but won't play a .mpg file that's been renamed as .avi), but many use the extension only for their program association and look at the internals of the file instead to determine how to handle it.

 

Renaming a file is easy - in Windows, right-click the file and select "Rename", then just change the extension.

 

Try a player such as VLC (www.videolan.org), and if necessary, add in K-Lite Codec Pack.

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Yes, rename the file to an mp4 extension and make sure you have an H.264 codec installed on your PC. You'll know when you get an error saying something like invalid codec.

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I've tried renaming the extension to both .h264 & .mp4 but nothing plays. They are opened by VLC (using the newest version 1.1.4) but nothing plays. The screen just shows VLC's icon.

 

I've also downloaded the latest K-lite codec pack for my system (using Windows 7 x64)

 

Tried converting using SUPER, but it doesn't seem to recognize. I'm slowly wondering if I'll have to depend on the software given to me in order to play, which wouldn't be such a problem if it actually had some sort of controls to it.

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