Amcrest Forum

Melvin wrote:Hello,
Unfortunately there is no option for that at the moment other than using an online converter program. We are in the process of updating the device firmware that will enable recording videos in MP4 format.

Melvin: Any update?????

+ 1 more request for other formats than DAV.

mp4 please.

Add me to the list - any standard video format would be great! mpg, avi, etc..

This is really pretty sad. I have a few Foscam cameras and just picked up my first Amcrest expecting basic features like this to be fully functional.

Hi everyone I found a workaround that allows me to watch the dav videos on my android tablet. It's not perfect but at least now I can view my videos without converting them first. I haven't tried this on any other platforms yet but I can't imagine why it wouldn't work.

Kodi is the solution I've found as it can play the dav videos natively although it doesn't know what to do with .dav files by default. So the first time I tried this when I browsed to the Amcrest video folders they were all empty. I discovered that you can create a custom xml file (advancedsettings.xml) which Kodi reads on startup and in that file you can specify additional video file extensions. I created the file, restarted Kodi and voila - all my dav files suddenly appeared and they play just fine albeit a bit faster than they should, like maybe 1.5x speed. One of the big benefits of using Kodi is that it's been ported to almost every platform imaginable.

I realize this isn't the most elegant solution, and it requires some technical expertise but I wanted to share it in case others might find it useful while we wait for a real solution from Amcrest.

Here's a starting point with info about creating the Kodi advancedsettings.xml file:

http://kodi.wiki/view/Advancedsettings. ... extensions

Forgot to add one other benefit to this workaround.. Since Kodi doesn't recognize .idx files by default you won't see them when you browse through the folders through Kodi

Hello I thought that mkv files would be more of an advantage than mp4 for ftp

Morgon wrote:Just a note that the switches mentioned in Erik's post are largely unneeded with recent versions of ffmpeg. In version 3+, it's adequate to simply use:

ffmpeg -r framerate -i inputfile.dav outputfile.mp4

Where framerate is whatever your camera is recording at - e.g. 20, 30, etc.

Using this method or the one from Erik I end up with no audio in the MP4 file. Any ideas why? The .dav file has audio when played ion "Smart Play"

Hello, I recently bought 2 cameras a IP2M-841W and a IP3M-943W, both setup to store on FTP. IP3M-943W save on MP4 format, but I can´t get the IP2M-841W to save on MP4 format it only saves on DAV format, How can I change so it saves on MP4 too?