Help with Playing an .AVI file

[froskie]

I had a virus in my computer & it has corrupted all the pics & video files on my PC, I've recovered most of the pics but the video files I can't recover them, there is a minor head corruption & I can't fix them, I tried all players u can think of but none was able to play the video, I get error messages like can't render file, & I can't play the video files in other computers either, system restore won't fix it either, & only recently I was able to install Sorenson Squeeze which was able to play the videos but there is no Audio,

I have uploaded two small files u can download them & check them out see what is wrong with them or if you can play them

Code: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HBKGEX2Q
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5GVXGH75

The below is the binary info, there is the word "Alien" in it which I think is from the virus, is there a way using a hex editor that can get rid of it & be able to play the files? I have lot of family videos, lot of memories & it's horrible to lose them like this so please if anyone could help me I would really appreciate it, the two files I uploaded are two short videos about "LOST" which are also corrupted.


--------------------
BINARY INFO
--------------------
FileName : MVI_0413.AVI
Header Data :
41 6c 69 65 6e 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 Alien
20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 76 69 68 38 00 00 00 vih8...
35 82 00 00 f8 96 25 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 01 00 5.....%.........
13 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 88 58 01 00 .............X..
80 02 00 00 e0 01 00 00 00 00 00 41 6c 69 65 6e ...........Alien
20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
20 20 20 20 73 74 72 68 38 00 00 00 76 69 64 73 strh8...vids
6d 6a 70 67 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 mjpg............
35 82 00 00 40 42 0f 00 00 00 00 00 13 07 00 00 5...@B..........
48 35 01 00 10 27 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 H5...'..........
80 02 e0 01 73 74 72 66 28 00 00 00 28 00 00 00 ....strf(...(...
80 02 00 00 e0 01 00 00 01 00 18 00 4d 4a 50 47 ............MJPG
00 10 0e 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00 00 00 00 69 6e 64 78 78 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 ....indxx.......
01 00 00 00 30 30 64 63 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ....00dc........
00 00 00 00 9e 0a 0b 07 00 00 00 00 b8 38 00 00 .............8..
13 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00 00 00 00 4c 49 53 54 dc 00 00 00 73 74 72 6c ....LIST....strl
73 74 72 68 38 00 00 00 61 75 64 73 00 00 00 00 strh8...auds....
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 ................
88 58 01 00 00 00 00 00 1a 9f 28 00 88 58 01 00 .X........(..X..
10 27 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .'..............
73 74 72 66 10 00 00 00 01 00 01 00 44 ac 00 00 strf........D...
88 58 01 00 02 00 10 00 69 6e 64 78 78 00 00 00 .X......indxx...
04 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 30 31 77 62 00 00 00 00 ........01wb....
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 56 43 0b 07 00 00 00 00 ........VC......
08 02 00 00 1a 9f 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ......(.........
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

[jagabo]

The AVI headers are messed up. The word "Alien" and a bunch of spaces are splattered over key sections of the header as well as randomly throughout the files. It looks pretty hopeless to me. Unless you want to pay big bucks to an expert video file recovery service.

[jman98]

froskie - I don't mean this to be critical, but you need to learn from this. Don't leave ANYTHING only on a PC with no additional copies that you cannot afford to lose forever. Let this be a valuable lesson to you and learn in the future to make backups, preferably multiple ones, of anything you have that you don't want to lose. Even if you avoid virus infection you still have the problem that all hard drives will eventually go bad.

[bat999]

Hi
The small clip plays with mPlayer in Linux.
The other one won't open for me.

[jagabo]

The small clip plays with mPlayer in Linux.

It's impressive that mplayer can play such a damaged file.

[froskie]

Hi
The small clip plays with mPlayer in Linux.
The other one won't open for me.



[Attachment 3512 - Click to enlarge]



[Attachment 3513 - Click to enlarge]

Does the audio work as well?
I'm sure there is a way to fix these damaged files, like a hex editor or something.

This guy online helped me recover many of the pics & he is helping me recover the videos as well & he suggested I Download this file & gave me some instructions on how to run it but my kaspersky anti virus says it's a virus, sometimes patches can be detected as viruses but they are not so I just want to make sure, here is the file he suggested I download, please do not download it & run it on your machine but just see if your anti virus will detect anything, if however u have a machine that u are going to format anyways then please download it & open it see what happens.

http://www.mediafire.com/?afbq6bq0nbdogai

[bat999]

Does the audio work as well?

No....
but there's no audio track to play.

General
Complete name : The Secrets of Lost.avi
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
File size : 3.16 MiB
Duration : 32s 399ms
Overall bit rate : 819 Kbps

Video
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Simple@L1
Format settings, BVOP : No
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Duration : 32s 399ms
Bit rate : 779 Kbps
Width : 512 pixels
Height : 384 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Resolution : 8 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Stream size : 3.01 MiB (95%)
Writing library : Lavc52.10.0

[jagabo]

Does the audio work as well?

No....
but there's no audio track to play.

Actually, there is an audio track. You can see it in a hex dump. But MediaInfo is unable to detect it.



These files probably can be fixed with a hex editor but it will take someone who knows the structure of AVI files well and has the time and inclination.

After patching part of the headers and using VirtualDub to remux "The Secrets of Lost.AVI":

[bat999]

Yes, jagabo.
You did a good job there.

General
Complete name : copy2.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 3.16 MiB
Duration : 32s 432ms
Overall bit rate : 818 Kbps
Writing application : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 (build 2540/release)
Writing library : VirtualDub build 32817/release

Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Simple@L1
Format settings, BVOP : No
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 32s 432ms
Bit rate : 681 Kbps
Width : 512 pixels
Height : 384 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Resolution : 8 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.116
Stream size : 2.63 MiB (83%)
Writing library : Lavc52.10.0

Audio
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Format_Settings_Mode : Joint stereo
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 32s 424ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 120 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Stream size : 474 KiB (15%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 24 ms (0.72 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 500 ms

[jagabo]

I managed to get the other file fixed too. But the first GOP is messed up (hardly matters, it's all black frames).