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It is an ancient binary file extension, actually a video file created by Inter-Tel Web Conference software. It contains a screen recording video and voice audio, and also can capture the keyboard chat log, attendees and the document manager window during a conference. It can be played with Inter-Tel Collaboration Player, a standalone application included with the Web Conference software package.

What I am trying to do now is finding a way to play these files on mobile, although Inter-Tel Collaboration Player offers exporting the files in AVI format, I want to know how to make a command line script for that because the application have lots of problems with Windows 7,8,10 and don't have a Mac OS version.

What is the way to create a new player for that kind of extensions?

tinyCoder
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    What is the real question... **(1) You want _LREC to AVI_ conversion?** _"Inter-Tel.. offers exporting the files in AVI format, I want to know how to make a command line script for that"_ So does it (Inter-Tel Collaboration Player) accept command line inputs or is this just a hope that it could somehow be possible? I mean is there an example in the manual you need clarification for usage?... **(2) You want to make LREC file decoder?** _"I am trying... a way to play "LREC" files on mobile"_ For that you need the format specifications. If you don't have them then you could try reverse engineer. – VC.One May 06 '17 at 07:42
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    PS: _"What is the way to create a new player for that kind of extensions?"_ Since we may not all have access to the software, Is it possible to add a small (few megs) example LREC file? Add relevant info (about contents) then might be easier to advise how to handle the bytes. – VC.One May 06 '17 at 07:52

2 Answers2

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"Linktivity stopped support on this app, http://linktivity.com even disappeared from the web..."

It seems they were bought out by Mitel Software so now everything is under the Mitel brand name.

"I just want to find a way to manipulate this file extension, a new good player for mobile and computer"

To open/edit those .lrec files with modern software you'll have to look at their :

I tried :

  • To contact them just to double-check facts but they expect a realtime phone conversation with a salesperson so it wasn't an option. I'd be a fake potential customer, but you can provide a real-world issue (with background details) to see if they can solve it.
  • Also downloaded for Android the MiCollab app but it needs login details before even starting anything (so no progress to just check if an .lrec file from PC would open within Android).

Export videos for mobile playback :
I've tried the desktop software. Unfortunately it does not accept external commands so there is no way to make a script that takes multiple lrecs and gives back multiple AVI.

The only option is to extract frames from .lrec bytes and use a tool like FFmpeg to combine the images (since appears to do image grabs as frames) into one .MP4 video. MP4 is then playable on mobile devices.

Also any of your existing AVI files should be converted with FFmpeg to MP4.

You can download FFmpeg for Windows here (just the big blue button, ignore other options).

  • Copy the ffmpeg.exe file to some folder like c:\ffmpeg and put your avi's there.
  • Now open Command prompt and do cd C:\ffmpeg to reach folder, then type :
    ffmpeg -i filename.avi filename.mp4 (replace filename with preferred for input and output)
  • If you know how, just include ffmpeg.exe path to Control Panel PATH settings so that FFmpeg can be accessed from any folder (no need to move files to its own folder).

PS:
I am still researching how to get the frames it's an akward format without the specs (bytes order is Big Endian but then entry values are filled as Little Endian, then also not sure whether to reverse every two or four bytes cos it's mixed up like that etc and the pixel bytes themselves seem to have compression but it's not JPEG more like ZIP or whatever). Only confirmed bytes so far are for video width and video height. It seems doable though if the .lrec only contains screen recordings.

VC.One
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  • I don't want to keep using the current player, it has problems, you can't seek forward or backward sometimes, audio doesn't play sometimes, the whole file doesn't open sometimes, UTF chat characters from live recorded sessions appear as question marks... etc. – tinyCoder May 10 '17 at 20:55
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    @tinyCoder I've seen your email. It's going to be very expensive to get a custom-made data extractor. Minimum £1500 GBP, and that's when format specifications are available to make the tool. More expensive to also cover R&D about this mysterious format. I've already tried a lot, even decompiling the app, but source was unreadable. You need to find out what compression or format they use to store audio/video data inside LREC (before the export as AVI stage). It makes a few bytes for many seconds of video like as if data had `.bz2` compression. – VC.One Oct 20 '17 at 08:04
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    ... Basically I can isolate the video section. But if I recorded 12 seconds, why does it only make a mere 315 bytes? What to do with same bytes to get the (RGB) image of video frame? Since RGB uses 3 bytes per pixel, even at `320 width x 240 height x 3 bytes =` using 230400 bytes per second, how is it they make it less than 400 bytes for total 12 seconds??? It is this compressed data that is later exported to AVI (but how does Collaboration Player decode image and write to AVI supported codecs, when using "export" option?). I'll update you in 3 to 5 days. – VC.One Oct 20 '17 at 08:17
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    @tinyCoder check your email inbox and also respond via email. Thanks. – VC.One Oct 27 '17 at 13:59
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    I got your email, i will reply asap. – tinyCoder Oct 27 '17 at 14:49
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    Hi. Yes. I will continue offer. Give me a chance to prepare a testable demo. Also I don't do user interfaces in Java but can help with making Java functions that your own "player" can call to display LREC content. I made the Remote Controller in C#, now must prepare Player API in Java, plus the online demo will be coded in AS3... Checking the "chat text" thing. I always get beginning with **EGWZ[BC** so new thing to investigate there. Phew!! Takes time to create / test / double-check everything. Let me update you in 24 hrs. – VC.One Nov 05 '17 at 07:56
  • I extracted the classes out of the RC_DATA file, found some codes but didn't know if it might be useful to you: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47115863/extracting-java-classes-from-awt-executable, I appreciate letting me know if you are going to continue your offer or not. – tinyCoder Nov 17 '17 at 17:44
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    @tinyCoder you worry too much. It's not for me to tell you to give up or continue. On my side things change everyday with this LREC deconstruction. If you need hope I'll put an online demo of file decoding later tonight. It's 5.20 pm in UK, so maybe by 10-11pm I'll be back on my computer to make a link, PS: demo shows video frames only (no text and no sound yet). – VC.One Nov 22 '17 at 17:16
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    PS: Also with sound all I suspect is they use G.711 audio codec but I did not find such bytes yet. Text encoding is still a mystery. – VC.One Nov 22 '17 at 17:20
  • Hi Val! I have sent amazing news on your email! please check!! – tinyCoder Nov 23 '17 at 19:34
  • Hi, I have sent tons of emails to you, I appreciate taking a minute to check and reply back if you are going to continue your offer. Thanks. – tinyCoder Dec 03 '17 at 18:47
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    Hi, this is a progress update... (1) Any corrupted pictures are fixed and your sent "not working" files now also work okay. (2) I've managed to get sound working but only on my own new test `.lrec` files. (3) I'll give you all what I have so far in image/sound for same price (no worries) as you quoted in your latest email to me. Just trying to also extract your own file's audio. I'll try for one more day or just send what I got and, if known later, I can just email the new details. PS: my Paypal is same as the email you contacted. – VC.One Dec 11 '17 at 09:21
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    PS: The Java code will work like an API where there is an LREC parser to import then you call functions to `play`, `pause` and `seek` etc. Also I'm adding functions to extract data like `getNextVideoFrame` or `getNextAudioFrame` and you'll be able query details like `duration` or `total frames` etc... You'll tell me in email what else is useful to you. Only got picture and sound handling code (I can't figure out the text part just yet). Thanks – VC.One Dec 11 '17 at 09:35
  • Hi Val, please check my last 2 emails please. Thanks. – tinyCoder Dec 19 '17 at 20:07
  • @tinyCoder. Check your `@live.com` email inbox. I sent a message. – VC.One May 12 '18 at 21:54
  • @tinyCoder, I got your email. Everything went okay. I will send you some files before 6pm UK time. – VC.One May 25 '18 at 00:39
  • will you please answer any of my emails? – tinyCoder Feb 04 '19 at 22:46
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After some research, I found that Media Player Classic can play .lrec files. I don't know, if this helps you a bit.

For a own video player for your company, you would need the encoding infos or a decoder directly from Inter-Tel since they own the licences, without it you can't create one.

Edit: Deprecated info see comments.

Xervia
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    Media player classic said "Cannot render the file", you will need another program called "Collaboration Client" that replaces the player with a new player which can convert the file to an AVI video file. – tinyCoder Apr 21 '17 at 18:46