MPEG-4 Video Is Not Visible In The e-Watch Camera Configuration Utility

.MPEG-4 video may not be  visible in the e-Watch Camera Configuration Utility. Instead, the video window is black. If you try to open the video URL in Windows Media Player, you may receive the message "Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The player might not support the file type or a required codec might not be installed on your computer."

Playing MPEG-4 video in the e-Watch Camera Configuration Utility  requires a DirectShow* MPEG-4 video codec. An MPEG-4 video codec is not automatically installed by the SiteWatch server installer or by the e-Watch Camera Configuration Utility installer.

You can install any DirectShow MPEG-4 codec of your choosing, or you can follow these steps to install the FFDSHOW** codecs.

1. Locate the FFDSHOW installer file. This file is named "ffdshow_install.exe". It is located on the SiteWatch CD in the folder "\installed files\server\filters". After you install SiteWatch on your e-Watch server, you can also find the file on the server in the folder "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\ewatch\filters".
2. Double-click the file name to execute the installer. When installing on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, you may need to right-click the file and then click "Run as administrator".
3. Follow the prompts to install the codecs.

* DirectShow is a Microsoft multimedia framework for playing media files and streams.

** FFDSHOW is a set of  audio and video codecs released under the GNU General Public License

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