CCTV software links and downloads

There is a great deal of software that helps you get the most out of cameras and recordings, and Handykam kept a page of links to it. The company's own standing disclaimer applies in full and is worth repeating: it had no connection with or affiliation to any of the software or its developers, and you always need to check that a given tool actually works with your camera, computer or device.

The original list was last maintained around 2018 and a good deal of it has since gone: several of the tools have been discontinued, absorbed into other products or moved behind different names. Rather than reproduce a page of dead links, this version keeps what genuinely helps — the categories of tool you need and what each is for — with links only to things that are demonstrably still there.

1. Finding a camera on your network

The first problem with any IP camera is locating it. A camera that has just joined a network, or has been reset, needs to be found before it can be configured. Two approaches:

• Your router. The list of connected devices in a home router's admin page will show the camera and its IP address. This needs no software at all and works with any camera.
• A discovery tool. Manufacturers publish small utilities that scan the network for their own cameras, and there are generic ONVIF device managers that find any standards-compliant camera regardless of make. The generic ones are the more useful, because they will still work when the manufacturer's tool no longer runs on your operating system.

2. Viewing and managing

Most cameras ship with a mobile app, and that is the easiest route for one or two cameras. Beyond that, a desktop viewer or a video management application lets you watch several at once, review recordings, and configure cameras properly on a real screen.

The thing worth insisting on when buying is ONVIF support and an accessible RTSP stream. Between them these mean the camera is not tied to one company's software, and a camera can outlive the app it shipped with — which many of them have. See FAQ: IP cameras.

3. Getting an analogue camera onto a computer

An analogue camera cannot be plugged into a computer directly. You need a USB capture device, which digitises the AV signal and presents it as a video input, usually supplied with basic capture software. From there any recording or editing application can see it. Handykam supplied these for exactly this purpose — see How an analogue camera works.

4. Working out what a file actually is

Camera and recorder footage arrives in a bewildering variety of containers and codecs, and the first step in fixing a file that will not play is finding out what it is. Media information tools report the container, codec, resolution, frame rate and bit rate of any file, and turn "it will not open" into a solvable problem.

5. Playing anything

VLC media player is free, open source, available on every platform, and plays essentially anything a camera or recorder can produce — including proprietary formats that the manufacturer's own software struggles with. It will also open an RTSP stream directly, which makes it an excellent diagnostic tool: if VLC can see the stream, the camera and the network are fine and the problem is in your app.

6. Converting and editing

Trail camera and recorder footage often needs converting before an editor will accept it, and clips need trimming before anyone else will watch them.

• Conversion. FFmpeg is the free, open-source engine underneath most conversion tools and will convert or remux anything to anything. It is a command-line tool, but for the common case — changing a container without re-encoding — it is one line and no quality loss.
• Editing. Every major operating system now ships with a competent free video editor, which is enough for trimming clips, joining them and exporting something shareable. Paid and online editors add more.
• Large files. Video does not go by email. File transfer services are the usual answer.

7. Motion detection in software

If your camera does not do motion recording itself, software can watch the stream and record only when something changes. On a nest box this is the difference between reviewing four minutes and four hours, and it is the single setting that makes long-term monitoring practical. Many network cameras now do it internally, which is better — the camera is already watching every frame.

A word about compatibility

Check that any tool works with your specific camera before relying on it, and prefer software built on open standards. That is the whole reason ONVIF and RTSP are worth insisting on: the standards outlive the products. Cameras from this archive are long out of support, and the ones still working today are the ones that spoke a standard rather than a private protocol.

Related pages: FAQ: DVRs and NVRs · FAQ: IP cameras · CCTV glossary