How would I go about fixing .asf files? Or would someone do it for me?

[uptown47]

Hi all,

My daughters car was damaged whilst she stayed at a hotel. The hotel have provided her with the CCTV footage from the day/night but they are .asf files and they are corrupt (there's 4 of them - one of them is 69Kb and just briefly flashes up but the others don't work at all).

I read on here about using asfbin to fix them but the program won't start for me it just says "The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect".

I have uploaded the 3 corrupt files to Zippyshare file sharing service and wondered if anyone would have any time to have a look at them and see if it's possible to recover the file contents?

https://www46.zippyshare.com/v/yCZstQIh/file.html
https://www46.zippyshare.com/v/aPuMIsCk/file.html
https://www46.zippyshare.com/v/OmTAKgVl/file.html


Or, if not, do you have any ideas on how I would go about fixing these files.

A big thank you for any help anyone can give me.

Thanks

John

[davexnet]

Post the 69k file also - these other three appear to have no file header info in them

[uptown47]

Hi Dave
The 69Kb one is here..
https://www46.zippyshare.com/v/lb4lJC5G/file.html

Thanks

[davexnet]

I'm unable to produce anything useful unfortunately. Files either badly corrupted or encrypted.

[Budman1]

decoded 2 of them... decoding last now. the ones I have decoded are 09:00:00 - 09:59:59 and 10:00:00 - 10:53:22. The 3rd just finished and shows 08:19:42 - 08:59:58. The original is 11:03:30 -11:03:31

I did not see anything major but then I don't know where or what I should be. The quality is 574kbps bit rate and 352x288 so I wouldn't hope for plate information or faces for that matter. These are NOT reencoded by the way so what you see is what they were downloaded, I just trimmed unnecessary coding information and renamed. I will upload them to my web storage and let you know here when it is finished.


[Attachment 45219 - Click to enlarge]
[Attachment 45220 - Click to enlarge]
[Attachment 45221 - Click to enlarge]
[Attachment 45222 - Click to enlarge]

[uptown47]

I'm unable to produce anything useful unfortunately. Files either badly corrupted or encrypted.

Dave, that's fine mate. I can't thank you enough for trying. I appreciate your efforts.

Cheers

[uptown47]

decoded 2 of them... decoding last now. the ones I have decoded are 09:00:00 - 09:59:59 and 10:00:00 - 10:53:22. The 3rd just finished and shows 08:19:42 - 08:59:58. The original is 11:03:30 -11:03:31

I did not see anything major but then I don't know where or what I should be. The quality is 574kbps bit rate and 352x288 so I wouldn't hope for plate information or faces for that matter. These are NOT reencoded by the way so what you see is what they were downloaded, I just trimmed unnecessary coding information and renamed. I will upload them to my web storage and let you know here when it is finished.


[Attachment 45219 - Click to enlarge]
[Attachment 45220 - Click to enlarge]
[Attachment 45221 - Click to enlarge]
[Attachment 45222 - Click to enlarge]

Wow Budman!! That is awesome!!

My daughters car is a black Fiesta so I'll have to have a look through and see if I can see anything on there. The hotel did say that this was the correct footage but they weren't able to view it to confirm (because they don't have the skills that you obviously have!!).

I'll have a look through it when you upload it.

I really appreciate you spending the time and trouble to get these files working. I'd lost hope of being able to watch them but that is incredible that you've managed to get them working.

You, my friend, are an absolute star!

Thank you so much.

Cheers

John

[Budman1]

Okay this should do it. They are in original format in case you wish to try to enhance so no quality loss so far. They play fine for me and have thumbnail, etc.

2_28_R_30122017081942x.asf https://files.secureserver.net/0sW3LACngXPt2A
3_28_R_30122017090000x.asf https://files.secureserver.net/0s9yfWX658FOms
4_28_R_30122017100000x.asf https://files.secureserver.net/0sDUrNR63wynp4
]
Please let me know if you find anything or need additional fixed.
Thanks

[uptown47]

Okay this should do it. They are in original format in case you wish to try to enhance so no quality loss so far. They play fine for me and have thumbnail, etc.

2_28_R_30122017081942x.asf https://files.secureserver.net/0sW3LACngXPt2A
3_28_R_30122017090000x.asf https://files.secureserver.net/0s9yfWX658FOms
4_28_R_30122017100000x.asf https://files.secureserver.net/0sDUrNR63wynp4
]
Please let me know if you find anything or need additional fixed.
Thanks

Budman,

I can't thank you enough for your time and trouble doing this. I've downloaded those videos now and they play brilliantly.

Thank you so much for all your help.

Cheers

John

PS. By the way, what was wrong with them? Why wouldn't they play originally??

[uptown47]

Hi Budman / Dave,

I just thought I would post an update as to where we are now. I've reviewed the footage and, unfortunately, it doesn't show the damage happening to my daughters car. However, you *can* see that the car next to hers is badly parked and could potentially have caused the damage.

We have the registration plate of the car that was parked next to my daughters and the police said that if they could get proof it was badly parked they would run a check on the plate to see if it had work done around that time. Unfortunately, before you two came along, there was no way of getting *proof* it was badly parked. We now have that proof from the CCTV footage.

So.. my daughter is going to contact the police tomorrow and let them see the footage.

It might still lead to nothing but at least we'll have given it our best shot.

None of this would have been possible if it hadn't of been for you both so I just wanted to thank you again for all your efforts.

You've been brilliant

[davexnet]

Pleased to hear it was helpful... I should have mentioned earlier there are one or two people on this forum
who know the inner working of these MP4/AVC files a little better. Not sure if Budman edited it by hand or
ran it through some software or other. Black box or not, at least you got your files!

[Budman1]

To fix the ASF was actually easy since the format of the 'Container' is similar to the FLV 'Container'. It is usually Header-> Data (and maybe an index), similar to FLV. You can usually use a Hex editor (HxD) to cut off the extra junk or damage and at least get the rest of the video ok. In this case, You had a header (starts with hex '30 26' usually) but also had what I 'ASSUME' was an extra chunk of stuff, probably something to do with the capture software.

EXTRA STUFF

[Attachment 45242 - Click to enlarge]

I simply cut off the extra so 30 26 were the first bytes and saved. A normal ASF is often just this simple:


[Attachment 45243 - Click to enlarge]

[uptown47]

To fix the ASF was actually easy since the format of the 'Container' is similar to the FLV 'Container'. It is usually Header-> Data (and maybe an index), similar to FLV. You can usually use a Hex editor (HxD) to cut off the extra junk or damage and at least get the rest of the video ok. In this case, You had a header (starts with hex '30 26' usually) but also had what I 'ASSUME' was an extra chunk of stuff, probably something to do with the capture software.

EXTRA STUFF

[Attachment 45242 - Click to enlarge]

I simply cut off the extra so 30 26 were the first bytes and saved. A normal ASF is often just this simple:


[Attachment 45243 - Click to enlarge]

Brilliant! That's strange how the extra empty bytes got in there but, as you say, probably came from the capture software.

Every day is a school day

Thanks again Budman