File recovery service wanted.

Per a previous post, lower down, I have a Quicktime file which may be corrupted beyond repair, but whch also may be recoverable.

I need to find a service - or person - who can look inside this file and see if it is fexable.

Any ideas?

By the way, this is NOT as the result of a crashed drive, so I don't need a crashed drive recovery service. I need a service whcih knows all about Apple code and Quicktime.

Best, and thanks for reading this

Harry

If only life worked that way. If the file is still there and you can open it then a data recovery utility or a person who writes code wont help you. You just need to recapture the media from the source. If no source, then you are pretty much out of luck. Exactly how is the file behaving?

Michael Horton
-------------------

The file is 72mgs in size. It's a Quicktime Export file. When I try to open it I get the message "File Error: wrong type".

Any further ideas?

Thanks for the reply.

Harry

72MB for an editable media file? That's very small. My guess is that the necessary video data doesn't exist (or is only 30 seconds in DV format). In my experience, data recovery only works maybe 10 per cent of the time. The rest of the time you get partial or damaged files, like what you're describing. Not even close to reliable enough to be considered a real solution.


www.derekmok.com

Sorry - I meant 72 gigs.

Thanks for the reply, Derek.

Harry

Reading the other thread I'd thought I'd had temporary dyslexia again and read GB for MB.

72GB...I'm guessing it's either Uncompressed SD or HD? That's one hell of a big file. Unfortunately, bigger files are also more prone to corruption. You said it's a QuickTime export, so it can't be batch captured? Can it be re-exported using the same raw media as before?


www.derekmok.com

It's DVCProHD exported to QT.

I can redo the work lost, but it's two days and I'd rather make some effort to recover the stuff.

Thanks for answering, Derek.

I'm trying various squirrelly ways here, without great success.

Harry.

I'm gonna reflect what the others say and recommend that you recapture and go that route...but your time and energy there. Data recovery of VIDEO data is hard, expensive and very rarely successful.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Hell....

Well, I'm sure you're correct, and it would only cost me one day's foley recording and a day of work myself to redo the lost stuff. But I might as well get advice. Every time I screw up and ask questions on this board I learn an enormous amount.

Thanks for following the thread.

Harry

> it would only cost me one day's foley recording and a day of work myself to redo the lost stuff.

I still don't get why your work is lost. You said it was a QuickTime export. Doesn't that mean at some point you got a mixed .wav file (including foleying and ADR work, etc.) with raw video media, married the two, did whatever other editing work, and then exported the final movie file? Where's the project file for that work? Where's the raw media? Why isn't it accessible? You should never have only one media file (and a gargantuan 72GB one, to boot) representing your film. You should have backup copies, tape copies, project files with editing/FX/filtering decisions, plus raw media files. Any movie file you export should already have a more complicated, editable copy with which you can use to re-create the movie file on the spot. I just sent my director partner in New York a copy of the first cut of his thesis film (edited in 2002) and his last short film (edited in 2006), respectively.


www.derekmok.com

And you are correct.

However, this film was completed several months ago, around the time of an FCS upgrade. So, because, unlike you, Derek, I am not terrifically organized in my filing system, I have lost my original FOLEY track, which is a part of the QT output file. So I can't go back there.

I do have everything else.

signed, in shame,

before you, Derek,

your servant and admirer,

Harry

> I have lost my original FOLEY track

Never, ever get rid of your original elements. If you did foley tracks, you would have had files saved somewhere. You should have burned those to a data CD or DVD, at least two copies on optical disc, clearly labelled with date stamps and the name of the project, plus pertinent technical details. Even saving them onto a drive is not as safe, because CDs and DVDs, once burned, are read-only, and therefore much safer. And then there's things like foreign deliverables -- if your film suddenly sold in foreign territories and they demand separate sound elements (effects, music, and dialogue tracks separate), even if you had your old 72GB file, it wouldn't have worked.

The bigger the project, the more important it is to save the original, unmixed, untreated elements. You can apply effects again (in fact, sometimes better -- for example, new sound-mixing technology may become available, or in the case of visuals, a higher HD format); you can't re-do the recording and have it come out exactly the same.


www.derekmok.com

[quote="File Error: wrong type".][/quote]


Just saw this. What extension does the file have? Try adding/changing extension to aif or mp3 or some audio file extension. If there is no extension then add one.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Also, try playing it on a computer with a different (lower) QT version. There is a QT bug in some versions that messes up playback of certain codecs.

Aha!

Thanks.

I'll try that -- but am reaching the point of no return now.

Getting razor blade ready.

H.

I wish I were you, Derek.

Seriously ... I bet you never lose anything.

Unfortunately, I do. And I did. And am paying for it.

Boo Hoo.

Harry.

Not sure if this applies but,
I've lost over 10 internal drives starting in G3 and ending with G4-G5
all were easily recovered with the price of a new drive.
Nothing lost.
My guy removes the drive, replaces the top, connects it to his recovery system and done.
I did this myself with a Chyron drive back in the day.

You might also see if it will play in VLC. VLC is more tolerant of glitches in media files than QT.

[www.videolan.org]

I have just heard of this:


Link for more information: [echoone.com]

Product Description:
A drag & drop can opener and data archaeologist. It's speciality is to find and extract images, video, audio or text from files which are hard to open in other ways.

It finds and extracts: JPEG, PNG, GIF, PDF, BMP, WMF, EMF, PICT, TIFF, Flash, Zip, HTML, WAV, AVI, MOV, MP4, MPG, MP3, AIFF, AU, WMV or text from files which contain data in those formats.

Lossless extraction.
File Juicer does't convert the images/sounds/videos it finds, but saves them unchanged in their original format when possible. Please see the manual for details about supported formats. It has a lot more information than there is room for here.

This is useful:
if you have old files you can no longer open with current applications,
if you receive emails with attachments you can not open,
if you have corrupt files or databases,
if you have damaged or acidentally erased flash cards for your digital camera,
if you receive "self extracting" EXE files designed for Windows,
or if this is just faster than copying and pasting from the file.

When you have extracted some files - for instance from a accidentally erased flash card, you can then check that they are intact with QuickTime Player or convert them with other applications. For images, checking validity is done by letting File Juicer generate icons for the files. Then the files with icons are the ones which are intact.

File Juicer has Automator support so you can save just the settings you need and use them directly from Finder.


Give it a try
BJ

Thanks very much for the contact. I'll add that to my list of tools!

Best

Harry.