VideoHelp Forum
+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 17 of 17
Thread
  1. Hi all,

    Firstly, thanks in advance for taking the time t read this and help if you do...

    After a couple of hours of frustrated googling I am stumped with this problem.

    I've just come back from a snowboarding vacation and thought I had plenty of footage on my SD card. For some reason (maybe the battery running out) the card appeared to be empty. I've used some data recovery software to recover about 11GB of video from the card (95 files...) and the data seems to be there.

    The problem is that these videos won't play - I only get a black screen and no sound in quicktime and no screen or sound in VLC. Google hints that the 'index' of the mp4 files might have been lost. Does anyone know a way to recover these files completely? I was really looking forward to reviewing the footage!

    The camera is a GoPro HERO3 Silver edition - most of the time I was filming in either 1080p@30fps or 720p@60fps. There may also be some files at 940p@48fps. All the videos should be H.264 mp4's encoded directly by the gopro.

    I've added a sample of the offending video here at my dropbox (no viruses, only a helmet cam of me snowboarding): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7765243/QT00036.mp4

    Some things I've tried.

    MKV conversion with "MKVtoolnix" / conversion with TSmuxer (both gave errors...).

    Messing around with FFMpeg (complains that pixel format cannot be found..)

    "Treasured" from http://aeroquartet.com/movierepair/repair (wants me to pay for repair ... which I cannot afford right now...)

    Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

    Having checked through a few other threads here I've noticed that the output form MediaInfo is requested a lot so I ran one of the files through the CLI and got this output:

    Code:
    General
    Complete name                            : QT00016.mp4
    Format                                   : MPEG-4
    Format profile                           : Base Media / Version 2
    Codec ID                                 : mp42
    File size                                : 949 MiB
    Duration                                 : 8mn 46s
    Overall bit rate mode                    : Constant
    Overall bit rate                         : 15.1 Mbps
    Encoded date                             : UTC 2013-01-13 12:52:01
    Tagged date                              : UTC 2013-01-13 12:52:01
    AMBA                                     : 
    
    Video
    ID                                       : 1
    Format                                   : AVC
    Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
    Format profile                           : Main@L4.0
    Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
    Format settings, ReFrames                : 4 frames
    Codec ID                                 : avc1
    Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
    Duration                                 : 8mn 46s
    Bit rate mode                            : Constant
    Bit rate                                 : 15.0 Mbps
    Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
    Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
    Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
    Frame rate mode                          : Constant
    Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps
    Color space                              : YUV
    Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
    Bit depth                                : 8 bits
    Scan type                                : Progressive
    Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.241
    Stream size                              : 940 MiB (99%)
    Title                                    : GoProa AVC
    Language                                 : English
    Encoded date                             : UTC 2013-01-13 12:52:01
    Tagged date                              : UTC 2013-01-13 12:52:01
    Color primaries                          : BT.709
    Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
    Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709
    
    Audio
    ID                                       : 2
    Format                                   : AAC
    Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
    Format profile                           : LC
    Codec ID                                 : 40
    Duration                                 : 8mn 46s
    Bit rate mode                            : Constant
    Bit rate                                 : 128 Kbps
    Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
    Channel positions                        : Front: L R
    Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
    Compression mode                         : Lossy
    Delay relative to video                  : 33ms
    Stream size                              : 8.03 MiB (1%)
    Title                                    : GoPro AAC
    Language                                 : English
    Encoded date                             : UTC 2013-01-13 12:52:01
    Tagged date                              : UTC 2013-01-13 12:52:01
    Last edited by phonicx; 20th Jan 2013 at 08:06. Reason: Added MediaInfo output for a file.
    Quote Quote  
  2. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Sweden
    Search Comp PM
    Video repair tool made it playable but far from perfect. But it's not free.
    Image Attached Files
    Quote Quote  
  3. I see what you mean by far from perfect, I saw that tool mentioned in other threads with various results. Is there anything similar out there and perhaps free?

    Thanks for checking though!
    Quote Quote  
  4. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Sweden
    Search Comp PM
    I haven't found anything free.
    Quote Quote  
  5. Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Indiana USA
    Search Comp PM
    See my post up top. (one more time) about mp4 hell
    Quote Quote  
  6. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    666th portal
    Search Comp PM
    hate to be the bearer of bad news but looking in the file with a hex editor reveals that it's random garbage after the first few bytes of the gopro header. there is no video in that file.
    --
    "a lot of people are better dead" - prisoner KSC2-303
    Quote Quote  
  7. Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Indiana USA
    Search Comp PM
    I played in vlc player and it played, but a bit choppy. Where was you skiing at..? Going to hack around and see what I come up with.



    phonicxs video clip.


    There would be a lot less post if people would read the post before they start giveing advise and asking questions that were given in the post.
    Last edited by Shaun298; 22nd Jan 2013 at 09:39.
    Quote Quote  
  8. Banned
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Freedonia
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by Shaun298 View Post
    See my post up top. (one more time) about mp4 hell
    And of course you don't provide a link, making the comment worthless almost immediately. But then again, given how you were a complete ass in that thread, my recommendation to others would be to NOT find his thread. Some tried to help him and they deeply regretted it. At present there is no solution to his thread either.
    Quote Quote  
  9. Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Indiana USA
    Search Comp PM
    If people just read the post mp4 hell they would see who was the ass and did not read the post before they started giving advise and asking questions that were already answered and telling me things in a demeaning way like I was a 2 year old on a pc. Just read.
    Quote Quote  
  10. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Sweden
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by aedipuss View Post
    hate to be the bearer of bad news but looking in the file with a hex editor reveals that it's random garbage after the first few bytes of the gopro header. there is no video in that file.
    No video??? How could video repair tool make it playable....with video...
    Quote Quote  
  11. Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Search PM
    I've got exactly the same problem!!! Same Hero Cam, Silver and everything!!!! We went to watch all of the recordings on a phone on the 2nd to last day and found it only had 3 video's on there from that day and it had lost all of the other footage!

    I've managed to recover around 11Gb of data but the video's just show as black and there's no sound. I've ran a video through the video repair software listed above and it does make the file playable but I'm getting exactly the same results as the other poster and it's not really viewable.

    Has anyone had any success yet with this or is there any other pointers??

    Thanks in advance.

    Phil
    Quote Quote  
  12. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Location
    dFAQ.us/lordsmurf
    Search Comp PM
    Wondershare is cheapware that barely works.

    Stellar Phoenix = expensive sports car
    Wondershare = skateboard (not even a motor vehicle, total POS), and freeware is usually more reliable
    Want my help? Ask here! (not via PM!)
    FAQs: Best Blank DiscsBest TBCsBest VCRs for captureRestore VHS
    Quote Quote  
  13. Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2021
    Location
    phoenix arizona
    Search Comp PM
    After accidently formatting an sd card from my canon camera, i recovered all the files to my pc using a software recovery program (many to choose from, easeus, CnW Recovery, etc) and all the pictures were there, but all the videos would only show all black..... tried converting the videos, changing the extensions, opening in quicktime, vlc, thekmplayer, etc.... nothing but black video....
    Searched the web, and stumbled across https://github.com/anthwlock/untrunc? p.s. about half way down theres a link for windows users. figured why not, and gave it a try.... the key here, is that it uses another video file FROM THE SAME CAMERA that is a good working video to fix the broken video, and IT WORKED!
    So happy now, just sent the author $10

    Hope this helps others out there....
    -Damian
    Last edited by Damien59; 12th Jun 2021 at 15:59.
    Quote Quote  
  14. Old thread but since it's been unearthed anyway, and since the title is clear enough that it has good odds of appearing in search results for a similar issue... here is another tool worth trying :
    https://restore.media/blog/how-to-fix-corrupted-mp4-files
    Yet another one is Grau Video Repair, but that one ain't free (free version recovers only half of each file).

    Yes I'm aware that this thread is, jeeze, 3062 days old...
    Quote Quote  
  15. Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2021
    Location
    phoenix arizona
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by abolibibelot View Post
    Old thread but since it's been unearthed anyway, and since the title is clear enough that it has good odds of appearing in search results for a similar issue... here is another tool worth trying :
    https://restore.media/blog/how-to-fix-corrupted-mp4-files
    Yet another one is Grau Video Repair, but that one ain't free (free version recovers only half of each file).

    Yes I'm aware that this thread is, jeeze, 3062 days old...
    This restore.media link just takes you to a site where they want you to send them the IMG of the SD card and pay for them to recover it.
    Vs. the link i posted you can just do it yourself, and its free.
    Quote Quote  
  16. This restore.media link just takes you to a site where they want you to send them the IMG of the SD card and pay for them to recover it.
    Vs. the link i posted you can just do it yourself, and its free.
    I copied the link from the page I had saved in December 2020, I didn't check if it had changed since then. But apparently it has not changed significantly.
    At least the CLI tool is still available, and free to use :
    https://restore.media/blog/recover_MP4.zip
    And even though a paid service is proposed first and foremost, the linked page does contain a detailed guide for using the CLI tool — see “Method 2”, starting from about the middle of the page. The CLI tool is from 2017 (based on the timestamps and the included text file), so perhaps they now use a more recent version for their commercial service, but this older version should still work with common MP4 files. It would be interesting to compare both tools with MP4 files created by a bunch of popular devices.
    Quote Quote  
  17. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Sweden
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by abolibibelot View Post
    This restore.media link just takes you to a site where they want you to send them the IMG of the SD card and pay for them to recover it.
    Vs. the link i posted you can just do it yourself, and its free.
    I copied the link from the page I had saved in December 2020, I didn't check if it had changed since then. But apparently it has not changed significantly.
    At least the CLI tool is still available, and free to use :
    https://restore.media/blog/recover_MP4.zip
    And even though a paid service is proposed first and foremost, the linked page does contain a detailed guide for using the CLI tool — see “Method 2”, starting from about the middle of the page. The CLI tool is from 2017 (based on the timestamps and the included text file), so perhaps they now use a more recent version for their commercial service, but this older version should still work with common MP4 files. It would be interesting to compare both tools with MP4 files created by a bunch of popular devices.
    Or mirror download from https://www.videohelp.com/software/recover-mp4-to-h264
    Quote Quote  



Similar Threads

Visit our sponsor! Try DVDFab and backup Blu-rays!