[Nick Richter]

[Gary Huff] “I was filming an hour long talk the same way and the AC power was disconnected on me unexpectedly (was using an extension cord). The MP4 was nearly impossible to recover and I almost lost the entire shoot. I was able to get it fixed thankfully, but it was not a fun process and I would not want to go through it again.”

I had a similar issue today, although I was running off batteries. I’m still not exactly sure what happened, maybe a power short? Suffice it to say the camera was rolling (4K internal) for 12-15min of interview just fine and all of a sudden it had a stroke; leaving me with a functional 6min clip and 17gb clip that’s unreadable with various applications and the camera itself.

Just wondering how you managed to recover your footage, any advice? We had a second camera rolling, thankfully, but this was our A shot, so would love to try and recover the clip.

Thanks!

[Nick Richter]

I’ve actually run into this issue following production and have been looking for a post production solution.

However, in my research, I came across a firmware update released by the Zoom company that is a solution to your problem. It allows you to monitor and manipulate levels separately in production, as well as, split them in post production. Below I’ve listed a link to the website which carries the firmware update, as well as, a guide to properly install it to the zoom: https://www.zoom.co.jp/downloads/h4n/software/?lang=en

I don’t know how old your zoom is because this update was released in November of 2010. So it stands to reason, if you have a relatively new model it should be equipped with the update. Otherwise the firmware should do the trick!

If anyone has an advice on how to solve this same issue in post production, your help would be much appreciated!!

Good Luck!

Nick