Recovering corrupted mini-dv video

[bobogs]

I'm in the process of capturing my 40+ minidv tapes to external hard drives, mostly for backup purposes. A few of the tapes (from 2001-2002) so far have had varying degrees of corruption, with blue horizontal bars across the video and minimal remaining audio. I recall seeing this at the end of life for my Canon ZR10 camcorder last year, as I tried playing one tape to find some footage, so I bought a new Panasonic PV-GS250. I have not played back any other tapes in the ZR10 (threw it away), but these corrupt tapes were recorded using the ZR10. Other tapes recorded with the ZR10 are fine, but I haven't yet pieced together the timeline of good-to-bad tapes.

Anyone know of a good data/video recovery service that can try to get the uncorrupted video off these tapes? I hope the good 1s and 0s are in there somewhere. The tapes themselves are not damaged at all, so it's not like recovering data off a hard disk that's been drilled through...I just want to get the good video off the tapes.

Here's a link to a small sample taken off one of the tapes. This tape is the first one so far that is 100% corrupt...no good scenes at all. The other tapes with coorrupt data have some good video on them. There are two 25 second scenes in this video, encoded to 512kbps wmv. The first one has clicking and popping audio, and the second one has no audio (but that might be the video itself having no or low audio).

http://garysemel.com/public/videos/corrupt_camcorder_video.wmv

I hate to lose family memories like this, so I truly appreciate any help or suggestions.

Thanks!
Gary

[adamcrohill]

I'm in the process of capturing my 40+ minidv tapes to external hard drives, mostly for backup purposes. A few of the tapes (from 2001-2002) so far have had varying degrees of corruption, with blue horizontal bars across the video and minimal remaining audio. I recall seeing this at the end of life for my Canon ZR10 camcorder last year, as I tried playing one tape to find some footage, so I bought a new Panasonic PV-GS250. I have not played back any other tapes in the ZR10 (threw it away), but these corrupt tapes were recorded using the ZR10. Other tapes recorded with the ZR10 are fine, but I haven't yet pieced together the timeline of good-to-bad tapes.

Anyone know of a good data/video recovery service that can try to get the uncorrupted video off these tapes? I hope the good 1s and 0s are in there somewhere. The tapes themselves are not damaged at all, so it's not like recovering data off a hard disk that's been drilled through...I just want to get the good video off the tapes.

Here's a link to a small sample taken off one of the tapes. This tape is the first one so far that is 100% corrupt...no good scenes at all. The other tapes with coorrupt data have some good video on them. There are two 25 second scenes in this video, encoded to 512kbps wmv. The first one has clicking and popping audio, and the second one has no audio (but that might be the video itself having no or low audio).

http://garysemel.com/public/videos/corrupt_camcorder_video.wmv

I hate to lose family memories like this, so I truly appreciate any help or suggestions.

Thanks!
Gary

I have a very similar issue - except my lines are black and it happened as soon as i shot the film.

Its a video of my brothers wedding so its pretty important that i get it sorted if possible. Did you have any luck with your tapes?

[thecoalman]

To both of you, have you by any chance used the LP mode? Not good if you did....

I have a very similar issue - except my lines are black and it happened as soon as i shot the film.

Most likely the result of dirty head on the cam and unrecoverable.

[bobogs]

I always shoot in the 60min/tape mode (I think that's SP).

[thecoalman]

Were you able to view these tapes previously without any corruption? If not then it's most likely unrecoverable.

[Hesam]

I have a similar issue! Would any one help me?
this is my question thread:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/337899-Restoring-mini-DV

[edDV]

I haven't seen the blue/black stripe issue but the pixelated video looks like cloged (dirty) heads on the recording camcorder or some kind of camcorder failure.

thecoalman had the critical question.

Were you able to view these tapes previously without any corruption?

If these played correctly on the recording camcorder at one time, then it isn't a head clog. LP recording (narrow tracks) is intended for playback only on the recording camcorder. SP recording should be playable on other MiniDV camcorders.

[Hesam]

The head of camcorder is fine, because I've seen and recorded several tapes with it.
And I was able to watch the tape previously fine.

[edDV]

If the tapes played correctly in the original camcorder after shooting then the heads weren't clogged during the record.

If you are sure the same tapes later played with errors on the original ZR10 and play with the same errors on the newer camcorder, it would seem to indicate some kind of damage (probably magnetic or extreme heat) to the tapes that don't play.

Another possibility is the recording camcorder had mechanical alignment issues during the recording process. If so, it may be able to play the tapes but other camcorders may not be able to track. This issue is often found when recording in LP (narrow track) mode but in extreme cases can affect SP mode. Usually this type of problem shows on all tapes recorded after the original camcorder went out of alignment possibly due to a drop or bending damage from a jammed tape. I've never seen this type of problem with MiniDV tape but is common with analog VHS-C.

Other than tape damage, or tracking issues, I can't think of another possible cause. Maybe you should try to play these tapes in other MiniDV camcorders. Possibly one will have a wider auto-tracking tolerance.