Are we screwed?

[ramjiba]

Hi:

My s-i-l took a video (using a 6Sony DCR-HC42E (PAL system) of a big party she threw for my brother's 50th b'day. Using a USB2 cable, she then transferred the file (about 2GB) to a large capacity (120 GB) hard drive using the bundled package that came with the camcoder (Sony picture package fpr Handycam, version 1.5).

Unfortunately, no program (media player, quicktime, the picture package that made the file) can read the file. Windows media player reports the following:

Error: C00D1199: Cannot play the file
Windows Media Player cannot play the file. You might encounter this error message for one of the following reasons:
· The file type is supported by the Player, but the file was compressed by using a codec that
is not supported by the Player.
Error ID = 0xC00D1199, Condition ID = 0x00000000.

Even more unfortunately, she then overwrote the tape. She says that she has executed the same procedure several times before and that all of those files (which she has on an external hard drive) play fine. And, they do.

I have been drafted for my tech savvy (God help my S-i-l) and have spent some time poking around. I updated the drivers for package, went through the forums etc but have been stumped. I think I know what to do once I can get the AVI file read....but, that is a big "Once"

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Assume nothing re my technical skills (sadly).

Ramji

[guns1inger]

See if g-spot can read it and identify what codec you need. If she transfered through the USB cable, and not a firewire/DV/IEEE/i-Link cable, chances are this is a highly compressed format lower resolution format, not DV-avi. If the file is not currupt, g-spot should be able to tell you what it is.

[BJ_M]

that model has "MPEG4 Movie Mode"

Resolution 640 x 480 (VGA) • 320 x 240 (QVGA) • 160 x 112

with usb - you could have saved out the mpeg4 file instead ?

i dont what type of mpeg4 they are using though...

also --- i read transfer on those cameras via USB is very very slow .. 20-25% slower than through firewire

[ramjiba]

1. After reading some threads in this forum, I tried G-spot to figure the codec. The program hangs though. (I tried several times with identical results).

2. If it is a MPeg4 file, should I rename the file (what extension?) and see if it could be read.

PLEASE don't tell me that the file is corrupt! Thanks a bunch for the super-quick responses.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Don't rename use the Xvid codec.

[BJ_M]

renaming it will not help any ...

see if you can cut off a tiny piece of it to send me to analyze ..

how to do this:

use winrar and select no compression (for speed) , set it up to split file in 1 meg chunks ... after it saves the first or second chunk .. hit cancel .... send me the FIRST section rar file ... (you can post it here) ...

make sure it is the the beginning piece so i can read the file in a hex editor if required ...

[kschang]

Just try opening it in MPC

[ramjiba]

Again, thanks a bunch for the advice.

1. I used Winrar and snipped the first 1.38 mb which i attach. the second volume for some reason is blank but the parts 3-5 are also 1.38 mb. This might not be relevant, but what do I know?

2. What i do with the codec? I have no idea about installing a codec etc. I am truly a newbie in the video capture game. Statistics and accounting are a different story...

videohelp.part0001.rar

[BJ_M]

just wait -- dont install anything

[BJ_M]

ok --

your avi file is corrupted and has no header , due to a larger than 2 gb file on a fat drive or an error on type 1 and 2 avi i suspect (not sure of cause)


the info is there - sort of ... in just raw format .... i extracted a piece of it -- and this is the FIRST frame of the sample you sent me ...

if it is NOT the begining of the tape -- well everything before that is lost ....

[BJ_M]

oh -- is in uncompressed avi in case you were wondering ... but no header or index ... if she only transfered a file 2gb , and it is uncompressed ...

you are sunk , well you can get a few minutes anyway ...

she did not transfer - she captured to uncompressed avi ...

as long as before it was under 2gb , she would have been ok ..

or in the past she transfered the data , instead of capturing it ...

[BJ_M]

i can not get any meaningful audio .... it shows as mono 32khz mp3, but that most likely is not correct

[ramjiba]

Indeed, that is the first frame (she says) of the video. Also, all of the earlier files were well under 2GB. So, what should I do now to get as much as possible, even if it is only a few minutes? Thanks.

ps: I don't care about the audio....we would have dubbed music over the stuff anyway.

[BJ_M]

well i trimmed all the junk (about 1kb) from the beginning of the file w/ a hex editor and loaded the resulting file into digitalfusion as a RAW file - and entered the parameters of the file manually (i just guessed as to rgb order and size) .. you can also load this file into photoshop or irfanview (rename it to ***.raw) to get frames from it ...

[ramjiba]

thanks again. This is clearly above my paygrade. I will pass on your instructions to a local computer guru who should be able to extract whatever video and stills are possible. (I know nothing of hex editors and stuff). Will keep you posted as to progress.