CCTV Converter — Help & User Guide

Everything you need to get the most out of CCTV Converter. Looking for the app? Back to the CCTV Converter page →

Download this guide as a PDF ↓

Getting started

Install from the Microsoft Store and launch the app. Then:

1. Pick a source — drag a folder (or your DVR's SD card) onto the window, or click Browse next to "Source folder". The app walks any date subfolders and lists every video file it finds.
2. Pick an output folder — where converted MP4s are written. Your last-used source and output folders are remembered for next time.
3. Filter and select — narrow the list by duration, date, time of day or filename, then tick the files (or whole days) you want.

Everything runs on your own machine; nothing is uploaded.

Converting footage

Tick the files you want and click Convert selected. Where the source stream is already MP4-compatible the app does a stream copy (no re-encoding, no quality loss, near-instant); otherwise it re-encodes to clean H.264.

• Parallel conversion — convert up to 8 files at once (set in Settings). A full day of clips finishes in seconds on a multi-core PC.
• Encoder — choose Auto, CPU, or a specific GPU (NVIDIA / Intel / AMD) in Settings. Auto detects the best available and silently falls back to CPU if a GPU encode fails.
• Date/time burn-in — tick "Add timestamp overlay" to burn a per-frame clock into the bottom-left of the output, useful for insurance or incident reports.
• Merge — combine a day's clips, or any selection, into one continuous MP4 in chronological order.
• CSV export — export the file list (name, size, duration, resolution, format, timestamps) for cataloguing.
• Optional cleanup — "Delete source files after successful conversion" reclaims space as you go (with confirmation).

The built-in editor

Select a converted clip and click Edit to open the in-place editor. From there you can:

• Trim — set the start and end points (down to a single frame) with the range slider or the I/O shortcuts, and mark multiple segments to export separately or merged.
• Crop & rotate — crop to a region of interest or rotate footage that was recorded sideways.
• Image adjustments — brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness and gamma, with a live preview, plus one-tap look presets (Night, Bright, Clarify, Vivid, Black & White) shown as thumbnails.
• Noise reduction — Off / Light / Medium / Strong, to clean up grainy night footage.
• Output size & quality — pick a resolution and quality level for the exported file.
• Presets — save a combination of edit settings and reapply it in one click.

Exports are written to a new MP4 — your original files are never modified. A progress bar (with cancel) shows the export as it runs.

Privacy — hide faces, plates & areas

In the editor, click Detect faces to automatically find and follow faces across the clip, then hide the ones you choose. Everything runs on your PC — nothing is uploaded.

• Detect & track — faces are found and followed as they move, each with a box that tracks it frame by frame.
• Choose who to hide — click a box to keep that person visible or to redact them; only the faces you pick are hidden.
• Blackout, pixelate or blur — choose how hidden areas look.
• Draw your own & track it — draw a box over anything — a number plate, a person, a screen — and click Track this area to make the box follow its subject automatically. If the subject appears at other times too, draw another box there.

Automatic detection is a helpful first pass, not a guarantee — always play the clip back and cover anything left exposed before sharing.

More ways to export

The editor's Export menu offers more than a plain MP4:

• Compress for email — re-encode to a small target size for email or messaging.
• Animated GIF — save a short moment as a looping GIF.
• Evidence report — a printable PDF with the source details and SHA-256 checksums for chain-of-custody.
• Deinterlace & watermark — smooth combing on older analogue cameras, and burn a case number or watermark into the exported copy.

Multi-camera view

Tick two or more converted clips and click Multi View to open up to six cameras side by side on a shared timeline. You can:

• Nudge each camera's sync offset to line up clocks that have drifted apart.
• Rename and rearrange cells, and solo a cell to hear its audio.
• Snapshot all cameras at once, or build a combined contact sheet.
• Export a synchronized composite video of the whole grid.

Continuous timeline

Right-click a day of recordings and choose Play as timeline to watch the whole day's files as one continuous video — scrub across the joins, jump between motion events across the day, and export any span without opening each file separately.

Motion highlights

Select footage and choose Detect motion to have the app scan for movement and extract only the clips where something happens.

• Sensitivity — Low / Medium / High controls how much movement counts as an event.
• Pre/post-roll — keep a few seconds before and after each event so nothing is clipped.
• Output — save each event as its own file, or stitch them all into a single highlight reel.
• Review — optionally review and deselect false positives before anything is written.

Results are cached, so changing the pre/post-roll and re-exporting doesn't repeat the scan.

You can also click Detect motion inside the editor to mark active stretches as segments and step between them with the prev/next-motion buttons.

Filmstrip & motion heatmap

In the preview, a thumbnail filmstrip sits above the seek bar for fast scrubbing, and hovering the bar shows a preview pop-up. After a motion scan, a heatmap is painted along the seek bar so you can jump straight to the busy moments; use the prev/next-motion buttons to hop between events.

Watch-folder mode

Turn on Watch source folder in Settings and the app monitors that folder, automatically converting new recordings as they appear — a hands-off workflow for an always-on DVR. It waits until each file has finished being written before converting, and can pop a notification when a batch completes.

Keyboard shortcuts

Troubleshooting

A file is flagged "can't convert"

A few formats are genuinely undecodable by any third-party tool — most notably Hikvision encrypted backups (.crypt), which need Hikvision's own player. Standard Hikvision H.264 backups convert fine.

A file won't convert because it's "in use"

Another program (Windows' Films & TV, an Explorer preview, or antivirus) may be holding the file. Close any preview windows and try again; the app retries automatically for a few seconds.

The preview won't play a source file

Some raw CCTV formats can't be previewed until converted. Convert the file first, then preview or edit the MP4.

Where are my settings and logs?

Open About → Open log/data folder, or browse to %LOCALAPPDATA%\CctvConverter\. It holds your config, the thumbnail cache and an error log — handy if you ever need to send a support report.

Updates & support

The Microsoft Store edition updates automatically. You can also choose About → Check for updates at any time. The app makes no other network requests; see the Privacy Policy for details.

Still stuck? Email info@davidarthur.app and we'll help. If the app saved you a headache, you can buy us a coffee — entirely optional.