[Fred Casanova]

Thanks to Rafael for the suggestion to try Aero Quartet. We got back very acceptable video and the price was very reasonable. The “Very acceptable” comes only because there were a few places where the video had some artifacts or the program could not recover small sections. One method to resolve this is to try again in small sections. I have yet to do this. Other than that, the video quality was excellent and is like it came right out of the camera. I imported the video and audio files to FCP in order to review and check if there are any sync issues. This process is not finished, but we are happy, so far, with the amount and quality of the video recovered. I will try to have more specifics on the process and results later.
Rafael, thanks again.

[Fred Casanova]

Yeah, what does “matched” mean to the client? We recently did a 2 camera shoot with a Z7 and an EX-1. I wanted to do multiclips without converting footage. The best I found was to have the EX-1 shoot HDV (SP mode) because that is about all I knew the Z7 could do. I might be wrong about the Z7 capabilities, but it’s not our camera, so I didn’t know. But the pictures were acceptably close enough in quality to switch back and forth.

[Fred Casanova]

The chip came back from Sony. Unfortunately, they were unable to fix it. We are getting a similar response from Sony engineers at NAB. While my brother is there talking this issue up with Sony and others, I will be slugging away back home and will try the Treasured method recommended by Rafael. Even the Sony people at NAB are interested in what happens with this, since they seem to have run across this issue several times.
So far, the big lessoned learned here is this: If you intend to do any file management in the camera, PULL THE OTHER CARD OUT. The foul-up occurs when you view the clips in MEDIA mode then switch to CAMERA to delete. During that switch, the camera defaults to Card 1. And then you say DELETE. If you were intending to do the DELETE to Card 2, you probably won’t notice it, but you just jumped off the cliff. You WILL notice when you hit bottom.

[Fred Casanova]

Thanks for that, Rafael. Actually, we were so pressed for time, I couldn’t wait on the Treasured utility to examine all my clips. However, you got my curiosity up enough, that I will try the utility once I get my chip back. We had to make a decision and sent it off to Sony to see if they can extract it. Hopefully, we won’t ever do this again, but who can say. So, your suggestion is welcomed.
It is just odd, to me, that this kind of a problem takes this amount of effort to recover. Like you said, it is hardly a problem with hard drives. If Sony needs to have its own file management method, I understand. But to leave it there and not provide their own service centers, not to mention their customers, a clean and sure method to recover is inexcusable.

[Fred Casanova]

Thanks, Rafael. I downloaded Treasured and started the process late in the day and had to cut it short. It seems to take a very long time. I may resume today.
However, I have talked with one Sony tech at Sony Media Services and one independent restoration expert in NYC who have led me to the conclusion that the file management for XDCAM format is very much massaged by Sony. That is, a generic recovery of corrupted data might be easier than recovering a operator deleted file. I am trying to recover from a Sony written operation that does not act like a simple deletion of files off a hard drive. It’s a different animal and Sony made it that way. That seems to be the core problem in the recovery. If I had a corrupted file that I wanted restored back to before the corruption, that could actually be an easier process. I may be over-simplifying, but the point is that Sony does not provide an UNDELETE function in the camera (which cannot be a difficult process to provide) and apparently doesn’t supply a utility program to their service centers to undelete either. So to recover from this simple problem may take a very complex solution, hours of work by very skilled people with knowledge in a range of high tech that eludes most of us…mostly because…why?

[Fred Casanova]

Thanks, Craig, for the reference. I’ll try that very soon, however I was under the impression that the .MP4 file, as it sits under BPAV, is not a true MP4, but a Sony version of MP4. Indeed, I have tried to view MP4s from a good card and QuickTime says it is not a valid file.

[Fred Casanova]

Tried Clint’s idea of importing to Clip Browser, however file will not import. Of course, it doesn’t tell me why. I tried a known good file and it imports OK. So, it appears the program I used to recover either corrupted the files or something else is stopping it.
After the initial run of the recovery program (Pendriverecovery.org) and trying to read BPAV in Clip Browser, it said there were incomplete clips and to copy to new SxS card, put in camera and execute salvage operations. Sure. All I could find in the EX1 was UPDATE. Well, that allowed me to see the clip thumbnails, but clips will not play in camera or Clip Browser. No video and just buzz on audio.