Corrupt .mp4 - data is present but can't restore...

[hazazaza123]

Hi all,

Hoping somebody can help as I'm having real problems with some .mp4 files. I'm convinced the data is there, I'm just struggling to restore it.

Long story short, I shot a days worth of footage whilst skiing and wanted to have a look at it whilst away. I took the micro SD card out of my GoPro and plugged it straight into my Samsung Galaxy Tab S to view. However, doing this has appeared to delete or at least render useless the whole days worth of data. I plugged the card back into my GoPro and sure enough the videos were gone. I decided to remove the card immediately in the hope I may be able to recover any lost data once I got home.

So, now I'm home. Using recuva, I've managed to find 300 odd .mp4's all which have successfully restored but none of which will play using various different media players. Searching the internet brings up various different results (Grau's video repair & mp4_to_h264_recorder.exe and a few other cmd prompt offerings) to name a few. Using all of these and a good file from earlier in the week, brings me back to the same result time after time....

A .mp4 which plays but stutters ever 2-3 seconds and with weird audio loops that doesn't match up. I've proved that the data is definitely there... it's definitely the right stuff from the right day, but achieving a successful playback is proving hard. Other that the above programs has anybody any other ideas?

I've tried using Grau's video repair with "entropy scan" both on and off and also the "No CTSS Repair" feature enabled and disabled. I've also tried offering up a different good source file, different frame rates etc. with no luck. I'm really baffled as to why the video jumps and splutters every 2-3 seconds.

Here's what I'm left with:

https://youtu.be/Z-Nwg_lkakQ

Any ideas?

[JVRaines]

YouTube is still processing your video, which suggests that they can't read it, either. Perhaps you can upload the file?

[hazazaza123]

You're right, youtube struggled with it...

I've run it through premiere and re-encoded...this is what I see:

https://youtu.be/Z-Nwg_lkakQ

Thanks to everybody in advance!

[KarMa]

Maybe you can try remuxing one into a MKV, with MKVToolnix.

[JVRaines]

Hmm. So it could be corrupt metadata or it could be corruption in the actual video data. I would try extracting the audio and video tracks and remuxing with MP4Box (or My MP4Box GUI if you prefer).

[hazazaza123]

Hi KarMa & JVRaines... thanks for your replys to date; really appreciate the pointers.

Sadly your suggestions haven't got me any further. I've extracted the .h264 & .aac stream using recover-mp4-to-h264.exe and then tried remuxing in both MKVToolnix and MP4Box as mentioned above. These both return exactly the same results... corrupt video which flickers every 2/3 seconds as in the video in the OP.

Would I be right in thinking this is probably corruption of the video data and I should probably come to terms with the fact that it's almost certainly gone?

[Baldrick]

You could try run the broken mp4 through graus video repair tool. Select the broken mp4 and a working mp4 from your camera. Try the free trial to just see if it can fix the flickering part. If not then give up.