Investigations & evidence · video recovery from DVRs
Every CCTV system is built to write over its oldest video, and the loop carries on regardless of what it just captured. So the one action that helps most after an incident is simple: shut the recorder down. Whatever we do next depends on somebody doing that.
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| The problem | What that tells you | First step |
|---|---|---|
| Someone cleared clips using the DVR menu | Only the catalogue was wiped; the video is likely still there | Power the unit off now |
| The recorder's disk was formatted, by mistake or not | New catalogue laid over untouched video | Carving can retrieve it |
| The box won't switch on | Video sits on the disk, not in the recorder | Disk removed, cloned, read |
| It happened several weeks back | Recording may already have covered it; we'll say so | A free check settles it |
| It plays on screen, but exporting fails | Closed file formats, plus a faulty export routine | We clone it and export cleanly |
| An insurer or the police must be able to use it | Ordinary playable copies, the original export, and notes | Our insurance page explains |
As soon as it lands with us, your device gets its own case number. An engineer works out the fault, says what can genuinely be pulled off, then puts one fixed price in writing — no charge for diagnosis, no obligation, and no chargeable work until you approve it.
The first thing we say on the phone never changes: switch the machine off, or take the disk out. While you read this, the loop is writing over exactly the footage you want back.
We lift the disk out and take a read-only copy. The recorder plays no part from there, so a dead one changes nothing. Every step afterwards runs on the clone.
Where the maker's own index is intact, we put clips back together with channels and timestamps. Where it has gone, H.264/H.265 frames get lifted off the disk and stitched into files that play.
You sign off a complete list of the recovered files first; only then does the recovery fee fall due. Everything returns on fresh media, postage paid, and the job stays open until you confirm the files open at your end.
About the '30 days' people repeat: no UK law fixes how long CCTV must be kept — the familiar 31 days is a trade habit, shaped by the storage-limitation principle in data-protection law, and plenty of systems come round well before their settings suggest. After an incident, assume time is already against you.
Nine days of looping had passed before the insurer requested the footage. We imaged the disk, read the index, and pulled the incident window out of sectors the loop had not yet touched — then exported it twice: one copy to watch, one for the claim.
Usually yes, provided the machine was switched off before the loop came round again. Deletion clears index entries only; the footage stays put until fresh recording writes over it.
No. Truly overwritten footage has had fresh video written over the top of it, and no lab can reverse that. It is why shutting the recorder down decides everything.
Rarely. The footage sits on the hard drive within the unit; we take that out, image it, and work from the image. The recorder is only the housing around it.
That varies with disk capacity, how many cameras run and the quality settings — a busy system can loop round within days. Until the recorder is switched off, treat any footage case as urgent.
Loops write over themselves, traces fade, deadlines run out. Start a case early — scoping it costs nothing and stays confidential.