TreyBear 0 Posted December 6, 2015 Have 4 channel DVR with h.264 compresssion and default encoding was D1. Watch playback on DVR monitor is fine. After I made backup copy on USB drive to give to police. I tried to open the files and the show to have .dat ext and Ive tried every codec player/converter but still no luck. Went ahead and changed hard drive in DVR and set to CIF. How do i view files from the original drive Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Boogieman 1 Posted December 6, 2015 Have 4 channel DVR with h.264 compresssion and default encoding was D1. Watch playback on DVR monitor is fine. After I made backup copy on USB drive to give to police. I tried to open the files and the show to have .dat ext and Ive tried every codec player/converter but still no luck. Went ahead and changed hard drive in DVR and set to CIF. How do i view files from the original drive Why do you think changing the drive or setting to CIF (which is much lower resolution than D1) will help with the file format? Most of these DVR's require you to use a proprietary player for playback... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
aibudo 0 Posted December 6, 2015 If you want to view the files on the original drive, then reinstall it! It would also be a great help for someone on the forum to help, if you would state what make and model of DVR you are using. The ".dat" file extension isn't a video file format. What backup file choices does the DVR give you? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TreyBear 0 Posted December 7, 2015 I think I figured it out. The DVR formatted the drive using FAT32 file system. I just need to format a backup drive that way after installing original DVR Hard Drive. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
