MJPEG AVI file corrupted – how to repair?

[James Brooks]

Hi Paul

It is possible to write a program to search out the MJPG frames and save them off to another container, but I don’t know of an ‘off the shelf tool’ that will do that.

Cheers, James

[Chad Pearson]

I vaguely remember using a program called VirtualDub that could parse through a video file and extract out the good frames. It’s also a good transcoder software too.

[Paul Randall]

I did try VirtualDubMod but it did not work. I did a “Create sparse AVI” file then did a “Expand sparse AVI” file but the Expand sparse AVI was about 15GB smaller but still did not play. I am not sure if what I did was correct so any advise on using the program is appreciated

FYI when I try and play the file from Media Express the display says “Media Offline”

[Paul Randall]

Have you got any ideas on where I can find such a program?

[Russ Froze]

Hello,
Have you tried Avidemux? Or what does Davinci Resolve have to say about it?
https://avidemux.sourceforge.net/
Let me know if this resolves your problem or not. For I am keenly interested for but for the grace of God, there go I.
Russ Froze

[Paul Randall]

Avidemux says “Attempt to open video.avi failed!”

DaVinci Resolve lite 11.1.1 – I have not used this software before. I tried to add some different MP4 and AVI video files to the media bin but it would not take them. I am not sure if I am doing this correctly – any suggestions?

[Russ Froze]

Yea Da Vinci is a real pain to set up and for some reason my instal has quit working. I doubt it would open the file anyway but it is a close cousin of Media Express so I thought maybe. Anyway try this
https://sourceforge.net/projects/divfixpp/files/DivFix%2B%2B/v0.34/

Warning do not click on anything after you click on the DivFix++_v0.34-Win64.zip link. It will take you to another page instantly and confuse you into installing something else. If using Chrome wait for the download the open in download folder. After that you can handle the zip file and extract tit where you like. Do make a copy of the original file(s) and work with the copies not the original.

Let me know of success or failure.
Russ froze

[Paul Randall]

OK DivFix++ gave a lot of errors like:

Processing file : Rage P2.avi
Four CC is : MJPG
Warning: Frame size is too big! Dropped
Error detected at byte: 9870
Skipped 1228240 bytes.
Warning: Frame size is too big! Dropped
Error detected at byte: 1238118
Skipped 1228170 bytes.
…

So did not work.

I did try Digital Video Repair V2.2.4 from https://www.risingreasearch.com

It did actually go right through but at the end WMP could not play it but VLC sort of did after “Fixing AVI index file” but only played about 40 min but should have been about 5 hours long. So not sure what to do now as Adobe Premiere still cannot use the “fixed” file anyway.

[Russ Froze]

Now use VLC or avisynth to render it out, choose an appropriate codec for the job. Again I know nothing about the camera or codec used so that decision will be up to you. I know there is a few hours of the file missing but for now have a look at what’s there and find a codec combination the NLE can work with it.

Now back to DivFix, did you try strip index?
Russ Froze

[Paul Randall]

Tried DivFix++ but got the following error:

Striping index at file: Rage P2.avi
Error: File cannot truncate at 999931730
Error occurred at striping index

VLC did export out the 44 minutes as a MP4 but as big chunks of video was missing it is not much good. The 44 minutes is a bit like a highlights video from the 5 1/2 hours – with the audio going in an out of sync.