Hikvision video format.

[scooby73466]

I hope this is in the right place. Would the Mods please move if it isn't. I have a Hikvision CCTV system that produces videos in MP4 format. But my Cyberlink Power Director video editing software won't accept the videos straight out of the NVR for editing. I have no problems with editing MP4, AVI, WMV, etc. videos from other sources. I have an app. called Video to Video which allows me to change videos from one format to another and if I change the Hikvision video to something else then the Power Director will work with it. But the quality is alway inferior to the video as produced by my Hikvision system. I suspect that it may be a codec issue but I am fairly ignorant about those. Does anyone have any ideas, help, thoughts, about my problem please ? TIA for any input.

 

[OICU2]

Try downloading and installing the K-Lite codec pack.

 

[alastairstevenson]

I suspect that it may be a codec issue

The NVR (which I assume is what's recording the video) will be saving the data direct from the cameras in whatever codec has been set in the camera itself.
Check the camera web GUI Video/Audio tab to see which has been selected.
I'd speculate that it's h.265+ which is an extension to h.265 that is proprietary to Hikvision.

Suggestion : Temporarily change the camera codec to h.265 and see if Power Director handles it.

 

[scooby73466]

Try downloading and installing the K-Lite codec pack.

Thank you for that. I'll come back to you about that later if I may.

 

[scooby73466]

The NVR (which I assume is what's recording the video) will be saving the data direct from the cameras in whatever codec has been set in the camera itself.
Check the camera web GUI Video/Audio tab to see which has been selected.
I'd speculate that it's h.265+ which is an extension to h.265 that is proprietary to Hikvision.

Suggestion : Temporarily change the camera codec to h.265 and see if Power Director handles it.

Thank you for the reply. Yes, sorry, the NVR is recording the videos. I presume that I can check the camera web GUI Video/Audio tab when I go into the Control Panel somewhere ? As an aside, if I change the GUI Video/Audio tab from h.265+ to h.265 does that detract from the quality of the video ?

 

[alastairstevenson]

if I change the GUI Video/Audio tab from h.265+ to h.265 does that detract from the quality of the video ?

It could do if other settings, primarily bitrate, end up at a differently equivalent 'quality' setting. h.265+ offers more compression, so the bitrate is lower for the same 'quality'.
But resolution and framerate will be unchanged.

 

[scooby73466]

I have just found this on my system. Am I in the right place ?

 

[alastairstevenson]

Am I in the right place ?

I believe so.
And on the face of it, the camera doesn't have h.265+ capability, and is set for h.264
I'd have expected that to be OK for general viewing and editing.
Unless when you are not accessing the camera directly via its web GUI, you don't see the true settings on the camera itself.

Do you have a small sample of a video export that you'd be comfortable enough to share, for analysis?

 

[scooby73466]

I believe so.
And on the face of it, the camera doesn't have h.265+ capability, and is set for h.264
I'd have expected that to be OK for general viewing and editing.
Unless when you are not accessing the camera directly via its web GUI, you don't see the true settings on the camera itself.

Do you have a small sample of a video export that you'd be comfortable enough to share, for analysis?

Thank you. Yes, I can do that. I have just grabbed 10 seconds of night view from one of the cameras. Is that enough ? It is 7.93mb. It is from a Hikvision DS-2CD2342WD-I 4MP EXIR Turret Dome Camera, 4mm. I do have a PTZ camera on the system but Power Director still doesn't like that either. I am using Power Director 15. Can I send the sample in a PM to you ?

 

[alastairstevenson]

Yes, please do, I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

 

[scooby73466]

Yes, please do, I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

Thank you. Have sent the PM but hit a problem as you will see.

 

[alastairstevenson]

You need to zip the file and then attach it.

 

[scooby73466]

You need to zip the file and then attach it.

Sorry but I am being a bit thick. I haven't zipped files for years. I do have 7-Zip on my PC but I downloaded WinZip anyway. But when I tried both utilities the resultant MP4 file was still 8129k in size, actually slightly larger than the original ! What on Earth am I doing wrong please ?

 

[alastairstevenson]

You are doing nothing wrong.
Video files are already highly compressed and don't reduce in size like text for example.
Just attach the zipped version, it will be fine.

 

[scooby73466]

You are doing nothing wrong.
Video files are already highly compressed and don't reduce in size like text for example.
Just attach the zipped version, it will be fine.

Thank you. Have sent a PM.

 

[scooby73466]

There has been a development ! I have been playing around with my Video To Video utility and have discovered that if I convert the video emanating from the NVR using the option M2TS option (as shown below) the resultant video quality is as good as the original but also that Power Director recognises it. The problem is that the converted rideo if slightly more than 3 times the size of what comes out of the NVR. I have just tried a bit of video from the NVR of 250Mb and the converted file was nearly 800Mb but PD was quite happy with it.

 

[alastairstevenson]

convert the video emanating from the NVR using the option M2TS option

So it looks like you are converting from the original h.264 (AVC) format to Mpeg2 format.

 

[OICU2]

Have you installed the K-Lite codec pack yet? It fixed all my issues of not being able to view raw Hikvision video in any app.

 

[scooby73466]

Have you installed the K-Lite codec pack yet? It fixed all my issues of not being able to view raw Hikvision video in any app.

No, for my sins I haven't tried that. I am always just a bit concerned about installing 3rd party software. But I think I will probably try it later. I should have probably mentioned that I am a desktop man using a Windows 8.1 64 bit machine.

 

[OICU2]

No, for my sins I haven't tried that. I am always just a bit concerned about installing 3rd party software. But I think I will probably try it later. I should have probably mentioned that I am a desktop man using a Windows 8.1 64 bit machine.

Give it a shot, I've been running the K-Lite pack for years dating back to Windows 2000. Always has worked for many file formats that I couldn't normally view.