DV File shown as avi?

[hovserman]

I have a video that I can't get to play. The church that did our wedding had an issue with the video recorder as it errored and they were left with this file. I have tried playing in vlc, quicktime, and virtualdub. I'm not sure if it really is an avi. I've tried loading into virtualdub but it says unsupported filetype. VLC log says there is garbage at the input. This is what mediainfo gives me. Any help to recover my wedding video would be appreciated!

Complete name : C:\Users\owner\Desktop\Hoverman.avi
Format : DV
Commercial name : DVCPRO
File size : 6.51 GiB
Duration : 32mn 23s
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 28.8 Mbps

Video
Format : DV
Commercial name : DVCPRO
Duration : 32mn 23s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 24.4 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Chroma subsampling : 4:1:1
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Bottom Field First
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 2.357
Stream size : 5.52 GiB (85%)

Audio #1
ID : 0
Format : PCM
Duration : 32mn 23s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 768 Kbps
Encoded bit rate : 0 bps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 32.0 KHz
Bit depth : 12 bits
Stream size : 178 MiB (3%)

Audio #2
ID : 1
Format : PCM
Duration : 32mn 23s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 768 Kbps
Encoded bit rate : 0 bps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 32.0 KHz
Bit depth : 12 bits
Stream size : 178 MiB (3%)

[jagabo]

MediaInfo is saying that's a raw DV stream, not DV in an AVI container. Try renaming it .DV instead of .AVI. Maybe that will help. Though I just tried renaming a raw DV with .AVI and most players were able to play it.

[hovserman]

I'll try that

[hovserman]

I was able to rename it to .dv but when it plays, it's all jibberish. It does the same thing in vlc and quicktime. Screenshot is of the video player. This one is Quicktime
[Attachment 28488 - Click to enlarge]

[hovserman]

VLC log gives me this:

avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (120000 bytes)

[jagabo]

Looks like the file is corrupt. You might be able to restore some of it with VirtualDub.

[hovserman]

I tried opening in VirtualDub but it says it's an unknown or unsupported filetype. Am I missing a codec?

[jagabo]

Oh, that's right it will need to be muxed into an AVI container. You can do it with ffmpeg. Here's an example command line:

"c:\program files\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg" -i "source.dv" -vcodec copy -acodec copy "output.avi"

You may have to change the path to ffmpeg and the file names. But if the source is corrupt that may not work.

[hovserman]

When I use ffmpeg, it only produces a small chunk of the video and its still scrambled as before. Ugh. Maybe the file is too corrupted?

[jagabo]

Yes, it's probably too badly mangled to make sense of.

[hovserman]

I think I was able to fully recover it. I switched the file extension back to avi and ran it through enosoft avi repair tool and it plays!

[jagabo]

Nice! From what I've heard Enosoft does make good DV tools.

[Cornucopia]

Except Enosoft does not make an AVI repair tool, AFAIK...

Scott

[jagabo]

It's hosted at thier web site:
http://www.enosoft.net/dl.php?filename=EnoAVIRepairToolInstaller.msi

Read about it here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/open-dv-discussion/141380-repairing-type-1-type-2-dv-avi-files.html

[Baldrick]

And now also in our tools list, Enosoft AVI Repair Tool. In case Enosoft's site goes down.

[jagabo]

Yes, they seem to be operating in zombie mode.

[Cornucopia]

Yeah, I couldn't navigate through normal channels anywhere on that site that even gives a hint as to the existence nor location of that app. Must have been created after he was done caretaking the site.
Maybe the other 3 apps could also be safeguarded as well?

Scott