Trouble downloading video from NVR? Change recording length to minimum (30 mins)

[Ben L_363180304232580]

I had about 5 hours of footage from four cameras I wanted to download (to make a time-lapse montage). You may already know that the phone app and web UI are limited to downloading no more than a few minutes of video, you're supposed to use the PC app.

I did - latest version 8.7.1 - but had very unreliable results. The direct 'download' function plain didn't work - it would claim success but each video segment was cut short, usually by more than half.

I found partial success by using the 'snip/trim/scissors' function to select the period of interest in the playback window, then select download; this seems to work at least some of the time. It can take a few attempts (3 or more), but the files were downloaded to the PC. Unfortunately these videos are only the low-resolution stream - 640 × 480.

I then changed the recording length to the minimum of 30 minutes (was 60) and that seems to have made a big improvement for new footage since the length change - the entirety of the full-resolution files now download directly (don't have to use the 'snip' tool).

[update]: well, ymmv... some other downloads just failed, so it seems to still be unreliable

[Reolink Fiona]

@ben-l_363180304232580
Thank you for giving us this feedback. I have let our tech look at the download issue and see if it can be better improved.

[Ben L_363180304232580]

Hi @reolink-fiona - I do have an existing ticket open for this: #799504; I've provided some more details to Reolink on that ticket.

I've also tried the macOS app as well, there are much the same problems - downloading full-resolution video always fails when the recording length time is 60mins, it's a bit better but still hit and miss when it's set to 30mins.

Also, I've had the app lock up frequently too - I thought this might be due to my old, slow Windows 10 laptop but it also happens on a current-gen M1 Macbook Pro. Often when trying to download lots of video it just hangs and I have to quit the app and restart it.

I'm guessing downloading large amounts of video (~10-20 segments of about 0.5-1GB each, depending on recording length!) isn't well tested by Reolink: it would be good if it worked!

[Reolink Fiona]

@ben-l_363180304232580 Thank you for your feedback and update. We do have some room to improve the reliability of the download. You can keep updated with our support team and we will follow this.