How to bring security camera footage into FCP7

[Dave Farrants]

It’s always worth trying to replace the .extension with .mov .mp4 .mpg or .avi etc and use VLC or Mpegstreamclip to open them – but probably best to work on a copy.

Web – https://www.foxvideo.co.uk
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[Ryan Holmes]

[Richard Hendrick] “I have some security camera footage with the extension “.D01″ on a disc. Also on disc is a dcs.exe file.”

Security camera footage is typically proprietary in format. You’ll need to see if the app that opens those files also exports out to a more commonly playable format – wmv, h.264, mp4, etc. Once you get the file into a more commonly playable format you’ll still need to convert it to somethng that FCP7 can handle – ProRes or DNxHD. Those security apps don’t interface with pro editing software much, if at all. So, in my experience, it’s usually a 2-3 step process to get it in. If all else fails, do a screen capture of the video playing in the DVR Player app on the PC. Then bring that file into FCP7 (or convert that screen capture for use in FCP7).

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Mark Suszko]

All very good advice. These security systems often use a proprietary format for their timelapse but sometimes you get lucky and it’s h.264.

The last time I was in this situation, we did screen capture from the actual machine at the business location, by attaching a scan converter to the output and recording off to a portable deck. I was then able to play that stuff back in slomo to find the one frame out of every eight (this is how one recorder can record eight or more cameras at once in one file) I needed, to paste all those files together from the one important camera viewpoint. If you thought hand rotoscoping was tedious, this is worse.