I would like share with you the results of our research. Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Also, if anyone else has any recommendations on conversion software they prefer to use, please comment!

Try this out and see how it works for you. DO NOT CLOSE VLC, as this is the conversion process, which is usually second for second, so if you were to have 3 VLC players open with 3 conversion processes running, you should theoretically have them all complete within the 7 hours or so of recorded footage.

Now, you will see VLC open and run with a time bar underneath.

Next, select the codec type you would like and click 'start'.

Click on 'Add' to add your file, then click on 'Convert / Save'.

Select 'Convert / Save' near the bottom of the menu.

With that being said, if you can use VLC media player, test this conversion method yourself and see if it works for you, since it's the quickest file conversion I've seen / used. The tech told me to use third party software to convert the files, although when I asked what kind to use, he didn't give me a recommendation and said 'any converter should work'. AVE (which you already knew), and that their standalone media player can export. I spoke with Avigilon tech support, and they basically said that you could export the footage directly to.

Convert av to mp4