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MAC CCTV DVR Software Surveillance Video Playback & Export

Mac CCTV Surveillance DVR Viewer Software

The Mac DVR viewer software (CMS Lite client for Macintosh) for iDVR-E surveillance DVRs lets users remotely search, playback, and export CCTV camera footage that has been recorded to their DVR's hard drive. Users can run the Mac software on the same network as their DVR or from remotely over the Internet. The video export process lets users playback surveillance video footage from a file.

In addition to these instructions, you can also watch a video demo here.

Download Mac DVR Viewer Software

You can download the latest Mac DVR viewer client software here. The software is called CMS Lite for Mac. Please note that this software will only work with iDVR-E CCTV DVRs from CCTV Camera Pros.

Surveillance Video Recording

First, we are going to observe an event being recorded on the DVR using the Mac software. Open the CMS Lite application on your Mac. Enter the domain or IP address and port for your DVR. The default port is 7000. The default User ID is "admin" and password is "000000" (six zeros). You can save this DVR connection information by clicking on the "New" button. Press Log in when done.

Mac DVR Software Login

After you log in to your DVR, the first screen that is displayed is the live security camera view. In this case, we are connected to a 4 channel iDVR-E4, so the initial view is the 4 camera grid view. Users can easily switch to a single camera view by double-clicking on the camera they want to view full screen.

Mac Software Live Security Camera View

CCTV cameras 3 and 4 are set up for motion detection recording. The record status indicator in the lower left of each screen indicates each camera's recording status. The "Event" text indicates that motion was detected and the camera's motion detection recording has been triggered.

Mac Surveillance Software Motion Detection


Video Playback

Next, we are going to playback the motion detection events that I triggered by walking in front of cameras 3 and 4. First, log in to the DVR again using the Mac software. This time, I want to mention the Download field on the login screen. This field is used to specify a location to export video footage files. Since we will be exporting video of the motion detection events that took place, I am going to set a file download path by clicking on the browse button.

Mac software surveillance video file path

This opens a standard finder window in Mac OSX that you can use to browse to the directory location of your preference. Then click the Choose button.

Mac DVR software set video export directory

From the live camera view window (the default window when the client application starts), click on the remote search button.

Mac Software Recorded Surveillance Video Search

Select the day, hour, and minute(s) that you want to playback, then click the playback button. I already know the events that I want to playback occurred at about 12:28 pm on April 21. Please note: on the search screen, the minute blocks colored yellow indicate a continuous recording time and the blocks colored pink indicate motion detection recording.

Mac CCTV Software Playback Video Recording

The player begins playing the recorded video footage at the beginning of the time frame that was selected. There are player controls in the lower right of the screen that allows you to playback the video in forward and reverse at normal and fast speeds. You can view multiple cameras on the screen (as seen below) or switch to single camera enlarged to full screen. The recording status is also indicated on the lower left of each screen so you can see if an event was detected.

Mac DVR Software Surveillance Video Playback


Export Video to File

To export video surveillance footage to a file, click on the remote search button again. Then, select the date and time frame that you want to export (just as you did previously). Then click on the download button.

Macintosh DVR Software Video Export

The download status window will open to show the progress of the video export.

Macintosh DVR Software Surveillance Video Backup


Playback Exported Video on Mac

The CMS Lite Mac software can also be used as a video player to open and playback video files. Click on the open backup button on the top menu and browse to the location of the file that you want to open, then click open. In our case, it is in the location that we exported to. Please note that in a real-world scenario, users can browse to the file if it is on a USB thumb drive or another storage drive.

Mac Surveillance DVR Software client

The video player opens and looks the same as playing back video directly from the DVR's hard drive. Viewers can see all their cameras in a grid view. There are player controls in the lower right.

Mac DVR Viewer Software For Security Cameras

Viewers can switch to a single camera view by double clicking on any of the camera screens. There is a grid icon just below the main menu that allows you to switch back to the multi-camera view.

Mac DVR Viewer Software Single Security Camera


Video Demo

Watch this video to see the search, playback, and video export process described above put into practice.


About the Author

Mike Haldas

This article was written by , co-founder and managing partner of CCTV Camera Pros. If you have any questions about setting up the Mac DVR viewer software for iDVR, please email me at mike@cctvcamerapros.net.


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