-
SDHC card .mov files receive error–“this file is not a movie”
Background:
I bought the Canon t2i several months ago from 42nd St Photo. They convinced me to buy their “Digital Speed” brand 32GB 300X. I hesitantly went for it. Within a month I had issues. The first video I shot was unaccessable on the SD card. I sent back to 42nd St. They recovered some of the photos and none of the video, and sent me a new 32GB card by the same brand. This one was an upgrade from the 300X to the 500X speed. I angrily protested that I wanted a different card, but they left me with this one, and the assurance that the flaw in the first card was a one in a million defect.My current issue:
Recently after shooting for a professional music video, I’ve found that my SD card is full of apparent .mov files with corresponding thumbnail photos, although when I attempt to open the files I get the error message from quicktime, “this file is not a movie.” The thumbnails all accurately represent the clips, but the clips won’t open. All of the .mov files are 32KB, which leaves me little hope that my two days of shooting on this cam will be recoverable. I’ve contacted 42nd St and I am currently awaiting a reply to my furious message I sent them regarding this SD card.Does anyone know a way to get my video off of this card? I could not find any threads anywhere regarding this matter, and on that note, I couldn’t even find anyone who has heard of this “Digital Speed” brand of SDHC card manufacturers. Thank you in advance.
-
14 Replies
-
This is not want you are looking for but, if you are uncomfortable with a piece of equipment you need to replace it, especially something that can be replaced for $50. Better to throw away a $50 card you don’t trust then to be in the position you are in now. Also nothing should go into a big shot that is not battle tested. Every card you use should be completely filled and transferred to your computer, checked and then retested. Entire workflow needs to be tested before a paying gig.
I learned this the hard way years ago.
But you have not told us how procedure of offloading your cards. Do you dump the card to a HD with the entire card structure? Did you write protect the card before you put it in a card reader? Are you using a card reader?
Normally SD class speed is rated in class, Class 6 is the slowest the camera suggested but everyone recommends Class 10 and Transcend is a recommended brand for performance and price.
-
Thanks for the response. I did test this card while doing a more casual short film and it went without a hiccup.
I am dumping the files using an SD-USB card reader directly onto my Lacie external hard drive with both hooked up to my macbook pro. I did not “lock” the card before putting it into the reader, although it seems odd that all of the files and appropriate thumbnail photos are all present. If they got deleted wouldn’t they not show up at all?
This is the exact product:
(although my card is blue, not black–as seen in the photo)–I haven’t located this product anywhere other than 42nd street. As you can see by the price tag, this is no $50 card, although the 300X version of this card I got at a extensive discount when purchased with the T2i. Obviously, no one should ever buy this card–I just want my footage.
-
Locking the card is something that ALWAYS should be done before inserting it into a reader. The finder can cause a problem, this simple thing protects against that happening. The fact that the files are 32K is troubling. Have the card(s) been erased? Did you do a compare of the size of the folder that was copied with the folder on the card, this is a must do, it is the quickest verification of the copy.
Do a check check of the folder with all the files in it, what is the total capacity of the folder?
If the files are still on the card, are the movie files 32K on the card? Will they playback in the camera? Have you tried other software like VLC to try to play the movies?
BTW, the thumb nail file is not needed to pay the file or use it. It is needed if you hack the EOS Log and Transfer plugin to work with the T2i. But you really want to copy the entire folder structure as is, into each own folder on the HD.
-
I’ve also learnt the hard way not only buying certified brands, but also from reliable suppliers.
rafael -
Hi Seth,
Earlier this year I had a clip go bad and these people were able to recover it. https://aeroquartet.com/
cheers
Morton
-
Total capacity of the card is currently 160.3 MB (not a promising number considering that after shooting the t2i cut me off with a message that the card was full). Capacity of the folder itself is 160 MB.
When using “Get Info” on each file in finder, they all appear to be 32KB.
When attempting to open into FCP I get the message “Wrong Type.” I don’t have VLC.
I want to see what 42nd St. says when they get in touch with me, and I’ll look into some of these data recovery options.
Do you think that I should be worried about my camera or the card reader or even Finder causing this disaster??
-
Morton,
Thanks for the advice. What do you mean when you say you “had a movie clip go bad”–did you have the same symptoms that I have? -
WOW, their pricing is more convoluted then Adobe’s upgrade paths. But they seem reasonable.. Seth try that free app they have on there site and they have an interesting article that maybe hitting your problem on the head…
https://aeroquartet.com/wordpress/2010/08/03/alert-counterfeit-sdhc-cards/
-
Thanks for pointing that article out. How low has 42nd st. Photo gone if they are selling counterfeit SD cards? I really hope that is not the case…
I tried using the free software on this Spain-based website on one such video file. It scanned the file and concluded that there was a 95% chance that the video is salvageable even though it also stated that files under 100 MB will probably have little chance of having any “interesting video.” Of course, in order to actually repair the files it will cost me about $100.
I’m going to allow 42nd street to attempt to retrieve any files–assuming this is what they will offer to do when they get back to me. My girlfriend has a PC, so i’ll attempt to use the software refrenced by Aero Quartet that can test for fraudulent SD cards late tonight. I can’t even express the fury I will feel for 42nd street photo if they actually sold me a phony SD card that has cost me a production.
One other note of interest. The short film that I shot in order to test this card contained about 14 GB of footage. If this were a typical counterfeit SD card as described on the Aero Quartet website it would usually only have 2 GB of real storage on a 32GB card. It still seems possible that my card is actually a 16GB (real storage) card that claims to be a 32GB. This may explain why my short film survived but not my footage that pushed the card to the 32GB capacity. Although, this makes me ask the question–why wouldn’t the footage UP TO 16GB on my recent shoot still have survived? This would make sense if the counterfeit card simply deleted all movie files after the 16GB limit is reached. I’ll post again after testing it with the counterfeit software…
I am keeping my hopes up that my footage will be recovered somehow.
-
I hit an interesting snag…
In order to run the software to check if my SD card is a fraud, it appears that it will have to overwrite any data currently on the card–effectively reducing any hope of salvaging the footage on it. Obviously I won’t do this yet, however, there is a good chance that if I send this back to 42nd street in hopes that they can save my footage, they will scrap the card and I’ll never know for sure if this was a fraudulent SD card.
I may simply request that they send me the card back after testing but I don’t really trust them at this point.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up