A few days ago a friend of mine had his bike stolen out of the back of his truck. He managed to obtain CCTV footage from the building outside of which his truck was parked.
Now here's the problem: The video is encrypted/encoded in some weird format (file extension is .mp4). It doesn't play on any computer (including the computers at the police station) and when I tried to convert it to DivX/WMV format using Any Video Converter (http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/) the video comes out all weird and unwatchable. Also VirtualDub doesn't seem to recognize the video.
I also tried downloading GeoVision (http://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.free-codecs.com%2Fdownload%2Fgeovision_cctv_mpeg4_codec.htm&rct=j&q=CCTV%20codec&ei=wNVcTujjGYXChAee6ZHfAw&usg=AFQjCNEKx5PN7CaHVl4ZmQrJABR5vq4KDw&cad=rja) codec, which is apparently used for viewing CCTV footage, but alas that did not work either.
So I phoned the people who own the CCTV cameras and they have no idea about their technology. They couldn't give me model numbers/the company's name or anything, but I doubt that matters as apparently according to them the company who installed the cameras went belly-up a few years ago.
The videos however do play on their PC, as the company who installed the cameras was kind enough to give them the software/codecs to play the video files.
I have thought about going over there, playing the videos on their pc and using some screen capture software to capture the videos, but before I do that does anyone know ANY way at all to convert these videos to a readable format?
Thanks in advance!
There's a tool (somewhat awkwardly) called GSpot (http://www.headbands.com/gspot/) that allows you to identify the codec used in many different video formats. That might help you find something that will play it.
mp4.... did you try H.264 (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/DivX_H264_decoder.htm) codec?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC
I still don't get it how nothing would play an mp4 unless it's a custom codec or something.
Quote from: Snarky on Tue 30/08/2011 13:57:22
There's a tool (somewhat awkwardly) called GSpot (http://www.headbands.com/gspot/) that allows you to identify the codec used in many different video formats. That might help you find something that will play it.
Thanks, that might help, I'll give it a try.
Quote from: InCreator on Tue 30/08/2011 14:03:32
mp4.... did you try H.264 (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/DivX_H264_decoder.htm) codec?
I already have it and most other codecs installed.
Quote from: anian on Tue 30/08/2011 16:16:39
I still don't get it how nothing would play an mp4 unless it's a custom codec or something.
I'm beginning to think it's encrypted.
You could try downloading theCombined Community Codec Pack (http://www.cccp-project.net/) and downloading Media Player Classic (http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/). I use these and whatever Windows Media Player can't play, Media Player Classic will.
Try also naming it .avi. Who knows?
Also I'd try naming it .3gp and some player/codec for this
And since it isn't homemade porn video, how about posting a file to some specialized forum to see if anyone can crack it?
Such forums are usually accomodated by people who pirate DVDs and such and do some magic stuff so it becomes times smaller so they're quite experienced with encoding and decoding I think.
Just a random suggestion. Did you try playing it with VLC?
I know that my post might seem a tiny bit shity, but even if you get to play the CCTV footage... then what? Even if you assume you recognize the thieves... Then what? Will you face them? Go beat them up? Get the police? Just curious I guess...
He's already called the police I suppose (as he mentioned that even the systems in the police station couldn't view the clips).