Earlier today I released an open-source (GPL 2) PHP class for interacting with Hikvision IP Cameras, you can find the code on GitHub.

The PHP Class works with Hikvisions IP Camera index files which get created whenever video footage is stored on SD, SMB/CIFS or NFS. It’s needed since Hikvision stores multiple recordings (known as segments) inside a number of MP4 (H.264 and MPEG4-AVC) files.

This will allow you to read the index file (usually named “index00.bin”) and extract information about the files that have been created along with the recording segments they contain. You can then extract the video and thumbnails you’re interested in.

A sample application is included that allows you to search recordings and extract footage.