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General discussion

Unable to access file - can you help?

Sep 14, 2008 11:30PM PDT

At work I have been nominated the responsibility of supporting the DVR hardware and software, with no prior knowledge of the setup and use. My main issue is that when I create a backup file of the video image that I am interested in burning to CD, the process is successful in generating an .avi file but not matter what multimedia package I use, I am unable to view the recorded image. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to resolve it? I need to generate files for the police and time is fast running out.

The parameters are:

PC running Win XP
Software concerned ? Smart Viewer version 2.095
Data from Samsung DVR
Applications already tried ? Win Media Player, Nero, Cyberlink PowerDVD 6.0, VideoLan VLC and DIVX video player.

Any advice is much appreciated.

Discussion is locked

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Looks like you haven't try quicktime yet.
Sep 15, 2008 2:12PM PDT

But from what I know, I thought most DVR uses the mpeg format.

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Reply
Sep 15, 2008 7:27PM PDT

I checked the properties of the backup file that the software recreates and it adds the divx extension.
You are correct in saying that I haven't tried Quicktime yet, so I'll give that a try. Thanks.

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On a PC try...
Sep 15, 2008 8:34PM PDT

VLC PLAYER (free, found with google.com)

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Sep 16, 2008 5:39PM PDT

Tried it previously (one of my top three players for many different image formats out there) but alas, no joy.

I am beginning to think that the only way the images can be viewed is using Smartviewer itself; however, that would mean that any third party needing to view the images/data would have to own a copy of Smartviewer and have it installed on the viewing PC. Daunting thought when you think of the police, solicitors, courts etc etc. If this is true, I guess the designers/manufacturer dismissed this consideration.

It's a real nightmare! I am left wondering....surely not everyone else using this package is having the same problem?