Input file is not an AVI file!... Uhhh, yes it is.

[joemacd]

I've got one of those cheap SVP HDDV-8600 thingies for taking videos and photos.

It generally works fine, but every now and then it has taken a corrupt photo - but it has never happened before to an avi file until now.

When this happens to a photo, the photo won't view in the LCD, and it usually jams up the photo download program too, and requires rebooting the cam to get things going again. The file needs to be individually accessed and deleted to get it off the RAM chip.

Since this only happens once in about every 200 photos, and I usually have duplicates, it's never been a big deal.

Until now.

I took an approx 3 minute video, which created a file about 88 megs. But the file won't play back in the window, and when I download it, it doesn't play on a PC either.

I've tried:
DivFix V1.10
DivFix++
AviFixed

and a few other apps that escape me.

All of them basically give me an error saying "Input file is not an AVI file!"

Now, all of the other vids taken by this cam seem to work, and there definitely appears to be 88 megs of goodness there. There were no incidents that took place, and the files created immediately before and after this vid all seem to work.

It seems like the info is all there, but I need to fix a header or footer somewhere to trick one of these editors into opening the file.

I would appreciate any ideas.

Thanks,
Joe

[guns1inger]

Will it play back in VLC ? VLC was designed, in part, to be able to play video as it was being downloaded, so it is very tolerant toward broken or incomplete files. if you can play it with VLC, even in part, you may be able to stream the working content to another format to make it usable.

[jagabo]

It sounds like the AVI header is corrupt or missing. At the very start of an AVI file is a header that indicates what type of file it is, the frame size of the video, the frame rate etc. If this header is missing or otherwise corrupt applications will not be able to read the video and audio data.

Here's a hex dump of the start of an AVI file (via VirtualDub's hex editor):



All AVI files start with the four letters "RIFF" (AVI is an instance of the Resource Interchange File Format). "AVI LIST" on the first line, and "hdrlavih" on the second line, should also be identical in all AVI files.

[joemacd]

Jagabo, I noticed that last night that the header appeared different than others, and it is definitely missing those key features you are mentioning.

VLC doesn't play anything.

Is there a way to "transplant" a header from one file to another?

My wife will de-ball me if I lose this vid.