Video Clip Shows Black after Changing File Name. HELP

[wrench1234]

I took some videos on my android phone. I moved them onto my computer and re-labeled them so the names made sense. Now when I try to re-open the video it shows the video as playing, has the right length of a video, but the only thing that shows up is a black screen. What did I do and how can I get them playing right again????

Thanks for any help.

[Budman1]

Did they ever play after moving to your computer? Changing the name should not cause it to cease playing unless you changed the extension and even then it may play ok depending on the format and your player.

Yyou might post the MediaInfo for the video so someone may notice something within it.

[wrench1234]

They were all named things like video0166.3gp and they all worked after they were moved to the computer. I changed the names to things like west wall.3gp, tried opening them again and ya, black screen. Attached is one of the videos I'm having troubles with.

[TreeTops]

The attachment didn't come through. Posting the Media info would be easier for us for starters.

[poisondeathray]

try changing the name back , or using no spaces

e.g. west_wall.3gp instead of west wall.3gp

[wrench1234]

Sorry about the attachment. I tried changing the names, doesn't seem to matter. Here are the details of one of the videos.
Name west9.3gp
Item Type 3GPP Movie
Size 12.7 MB


Video
Length 00.00.12
Data Rate 8260kbps
Total bitrate 8387kbps

Audio
Bit rate 126kbps
channels 1(mono)
audio sample rate 44 k HZ

Let me know if you need any more info.

Thanks

[Budman1]

The video and audio portions of the information do not show what codec is involved and since that is the essence of whether the video plays or not, it is important information. MediaInfo should show this information by default but if it does not, this may be part of the problem.

Players also are usually capable of determining the codec used. Media Player, right click and choose properties. Potplayer = hit tab, etc.
You might try again to upload with the link "Upload File/Manage Attachments" usually located below where you enter your comments.

[wrench1234]

For some reason it won't let me upload the file as an attachment, it says invalid file in the upload attachment screen. I have added it to my files, can you access those?
Media Info says:
Container and General Info
MPEG-4 (3GPP Media Release 4): 12.8 MiB, 12s 34ms
Overall bit rate: 8 902 Kbps
1 Video Stream: AVC
1 Audio Stream: AAC
Xtra: WM/MediaClassPrimaryID

[Budman1]

Yes looks like you would need to zip it, according to the valid formats list to the right of the upload area. You might try changing the extension to MP4. I have had that work a lot on 3gp files before. Otherwise pkzip it and try to post again. It is unusual that it played until the name was changed. Were you using the same player ?

[aedipuss]

use a program to zip the 3gp file. .3gp is not on the allowed extension list. a zip file of up to 100mb is allowed.

[Cornucopia]

If you gave us a DETAILED mediainfo report instead of those useless 5-line summaries, it would actually help narrow this down.

Also, let us know what system & apps you are attempting to use this on.

How about your extensions, are you able to view them directly?
Many times, users have those turned off/hidden, and so when they change A.3gp to B.3gp, they might by accident be changing it to B.3gp.??? (fill in your own whatever). This usually doesn't happen this way, because when hidden it usually "reserves" the extension, but depending upon how you did the renaming, I wouldn't rule it out.

Scott

[wrench1234]

Lol sorry for the useless info. That's why I posted in newbie forum.
I was viewing them with Windows Media Player. The only thing I did to the files is right click and say change name, from VIDEO166.3gp to something like east.3gp.

I am sorry if this is still not what you are needing but here is the information I can find in MediaInfo

Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : 3GPP Media Release 4
Codec ID : 3gp4
File size : 12.8 MiB
Duration : 12s 34ms
Overall bit rate : 8 902 Kbps
Xtra : WM/MediaClassPrimaryID

Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 12s 34ms
Bit rate : 8 237 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 1 280 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 0.563
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 24.181 fps
Minimum frame rate : 8.448 fps
Maximum frame rate : 28.302 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.370
Stream size : 11.8 MiB (93%)
Title : VideoHandle
Language : English

Audio
ID : 1
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 11s 865ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Nominal bit rate : 96.0 Kbps
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Channel positions : Front: C
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 185 KiB (1%)
Title : SoundHandle
Language : English

[aedipuss]

opening the file with a hex editor shows what looks like a partial video header but the rest does not look like video info. it's corrupted.

[Cornucopia]

OK, that's weird!

Are you sure that's the clip from your camera and not some "edited" excerpt (which might have also gotten incorrectly converted)?
It shows not only BLACK video, but SILENT audio. And there are a number of very unusual features to the file:
1. VFR (veriable framerate), with non-standard average fps
2. Rotated H & V? (very tall & skinny)
3. Duration for V doesn't match A
4. CBR bitrate doesn't match nominal bitrate

Do you still have the un-renamed source files on your cam? (If they were deleted, don't re-use that media until you can do a correct recover).

Can you send us a short test clip that has NOT been renamed?

Scott

<edit>Assuming what aedipus says is true, you might have a corrupt filesystem on your HDD, etc. Seen it happen before. FIX THAT FIRST.

[wrench1234]

No, unfortunately I changed all the names on the video clips before I noticed I was having the issue.


What the hell. I just took a sample video on my phone, put it on my computer in another folder. changed the name, opened it with both media player and quick time player. changed name again. and it stopped working on media player but works fine in quick time if I make that the default player. I saved this file in a separate folder from the other corrupt ones. The others still wont play.

I have attached both the original named VIDEO0172 and the one I have screwed around with. What is a corrupt filesystem and how do i fix it

[aedipuss]

both those files in the test vides 7z are exactly the same and both play fine here. winrar confirms it.

[aedipuss]

here's where the corrupt files go wrong. something has re-encoded them or re-written the headers to wm - "windows media". it's not in the videos that work.

[wrench1234]

..

[wrench1234]

....

[wrench1234]

is there any way to reverse that

[aedipuss]

i tried just removing it, but it results in "bad public mov atom" - you'd need to find someone who knows how to re-write a mov atom(header) in hex.

[wrench1234]

oh man what a pain in the ass. well thanks for the help guys, much appreciated

[aedipuss]

sorry about the bad news.

looks like not just the mov atom was changed. extracting the h264 raw stream results in this video that you can play but it's not what you recorded so the video itself is corrupted and not recoverable.

[Cornucopia]

What Android phone & app was used to create that? I think we'd all want to know so we can either compare with others that may be ok, or to avoid that model altogether.

Scott

[aedipuss]

i'm guessing it wasn't the phone. he says they all played fine on his computer before he renamed them. unless windows 8 does something funky while renaming....

[wrench1234]

ya standard camera feature on the htc incredible s.

thanks anyways