Proprietary DVR File System
Definition
A vendor-specific on-disk layout, neither FAT nor NTFS nor ext4. Records are stored as fixed-size segment files in a ring buffer with a timestamp directory; reading requires DVR Examiner, MD-Video, AmpedDVRConv or a reverse-engineered parser.
- Not compatible with
- FAT, NTFS, ext4
- Storage pattern
- Fixed-size segment files in a ring buffer
- Indexing
- Timestamp directory maps segments to time
- Recovery tools
- DVR Examiner, MD-Video, AmpedDVRConv
Common questions
Why can't a proprietary DVR disk be mounted like a normal drive?+
The vendor's ring-buffer layout has no standard partition table or file-allocation structure that a generic operating system recognizes, so ordinary mounting either fails or shows raw unallocated space, which is why dedicated recovery tools are needed.
What happens to old footage when the ring buffer fills up?+
New recordings overwrite the oldest segment files once the allocated storage is full, so seized DVR drives should be imaged as soon as possible to avoid losing the earliest footage to continued recording.
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