MJPEG AVI file corrupted – how to repair?

[Russ Froze]

Yeah well that’s what I feared. I don’t hold out a lot of faith for retrieving a great deal more of the file. It’s probably flung all over the drive with no index file indicating where things are and what belongs where. This is way beyond my field, perhaps there is a magic bullet out there but I know not where it is. If you find it let me know

The only hope is to find someone who can open it in a hex editor, but I don’t know. It’s a very large file and even larger when decompressed. There are data retrievals services so it depends on any lawsuits that might arise from failure to provide promised services or lack of payment coming to you. This may become a legal issue for you should anyone put forth claims against you or your company. In that case I suggest see a lawyer.

It comes down to what is it worth, data retrieval is not inexpensive and there are no guarantees of what you’ll get. Chances are there will be much lost and what is retrieved may well be much like an omelette. Yes the whole egg is there but. On the other hand you might get lucky, like I said it depends on what it’s worth.

Where to look for help is with the coders in the usual online places such as https://sourceforge.net/ under the Audio/ Video section but be carefull if you stray off the path and visit only with an installation that you can afford to loose. If you don’t have an old beater machine, scavenge a drive from somewhere and use it to boot your system to visit that part of the net. They are sneaky after all thats what they do, they can’t help it.

Now this won’t help with the currents issue of the brocken file. Merely something for consideration. I have been recording on PC since firewire came out so far so good. I have lost power during a shoot but what saved my bacon is that I only shoot image sequences or use capture software that breaks files into a segments of 600mb. I have added uninterruptible power into the mix so that in the event of power fluctuation there is enough power in reserve to shut down the system.
Russ Froze

[Paul Randall]

I have worked out a work around – not perfect but it only just works. What I did was use VSO Media Player1 as it was the only program I found that actually played the video. Even VLC did not even attempt the play the video. I then just re-encoded by playing it on my laptop then capturing it via my Decklink card using a HDMI to HD-SDI converter. I had no control of the playback – could not fast forward or rewind only play. I did end up capturing just over 5 hours of video so at least I have something. The video is a bit jerky in places and few areas where the video goes slow but that is better than nothing – I do have a separate audio recording so I just need to do a lot of re-syncing.

Thank you Russ for your help and offering plenty of suggestions.

regards

Paul