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DVR Recovery Vinyard .mcg frame structure and header

November 5th, 2013, 22:22

Hi Guys,

I am trying to do a recovery from a drive that was in a IVR-Q8 CCTV system and was re-initalized.
Data is there but i can't find any tool that will curve it out.
It uses the Vinyard *.mcg file type as the recorded media but obviously at this stage i can't see the files.
Does anyone knows what is the header and frame structure of the Vinyard .mcg ????
I may need to create a new header to search manually but don't know how it looks.


Thanks

Re: DVR Recovery Vinyard .mcg frame structure and header

November 5th, 2013, 23:37

Hi,
There seems to be alot of this DVR stuff about recently. I thought I had read about that format recently, but I think after having a look it was a different system.

I wish I had time to delve into the file formats, I reckon it would be a fun project and useful.

I did however find this http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13335&start=15:
Found the solution... you need the Vineyard player (with it's own codecs built-in)

NOW if anybody has a problem getting files or viewing files from Vineyard's .MCG format (used mostly for cheaper CCTV home security systems) The person who can fix it is Eric from www.datarecovery.com.au I can't put it up on a download page as I don't have one, but drop him a line.

He also extracted the video recordings from the hard disk for me.

I spent a bag of money getting him to write a de-coder for this damn Vineyard CCTV, so others may as well use it too!


Not an exact answer but may help you.

Re: DVR Recovery Vinyard .mcg frame structure and header

November 6th, 2013, 22:07

Cheers Mate, Thanks for your reply but i already had the Vineyard player and managed to extract footage using it.
But i wanted to figure out a way to understand the MCG file.
I spoke with Eric and he can do that, he wrote the codec for it.

Re: DVR Recovery Vinyard .mcg frame structure and header

March 4th, 2026, 1:19

I'm also very interested to learn about the internals of the format.
Care to share the source code of the codec ?
Or a description (even better)
Or how to contact the author ?

Re: DVR Recovery Vinyard .mcg frame structure and header

March 6th, 2026, 12:59

Apparently you can not even decode the date of a forum message.

Re: DVR Recovery Vinyard .mcg frame structure and header

March 6th, 2026, 16:29

Cyber wrote:Or how to contact the author ?

I tried to track him down last year:

https://old.reddit.com/r/datarecovery/comments/1j1t911/global_data_recovery_alliance/

Re: DVR Recovery Vinyard .mcg frame structure and header

March 9th, 2026, 9:46

Can't find the software but only the manual for the PC Viewer software
Attachments
020785437.pdf
(426.37 KiB) Downloaded 13 times

Re: DVR Recovery Vinyard .mcg frame structure and header

March 20th, 2026, 13:32

Hi this is Eric.
I worked on this system quite a while back. I did a recovery for a client in Australia and one for DHS in USA.
Can I help? I still have the code I wrote and can remember the FS quite well
I sold the domain name datarecovery.com.au to Payam DR when I retired.
You can contact me here. I will watch for your response.

Regards,

Eric

Re: DVR Recovery Vinyard .mcg frame structure and header

March 25th, 2026, 0:29

Oops, I did not notice the follow up here, apologies, 'Notify me' is now checked.
I did follow up on the PMs of course. Thank you everybody.

Arch Stanton wrote:Apparently you can not even decode the date of a forum message.


Oh boy, Joep didn't have his coffee yet, LOL. What are you even implying, Joep ? I did see the date Joep, but age doesn't matter :) Be nice, it's me, your neighbor, now down under.

HaQue wrote:Can't find the software but only the manual for the PC Viewer software


Thank you for looking HaQue, I will have a look at the manual.

eric wrote:You can contact me here. I will watch for your response


Thank you Eric, I responded to your PM.

Thanks everybody
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