DVR-MS Recovery after Power Failure?

[preinke]

I've been looking for any suggestions (preferrably solutions?) to recover DVR-MS files being generated when the house/system had a power failure.

I can watch the second recording (which started after the system restarted) but would like to recover the beginning 20-odd minutes of the show. I still have the temporary files if they'll be of use.

Or am I chasing a Utility that doesn't exist (in any form)?

Paul

[rscheller]

Battery backup?

[preinke]

A UPS (Battery Backup?) would be good in retrospect, but the Minister or War and Finance (Wife) still hasn't approved the original purchases...

I'm really looking at a solution for recovering the files.

Thanks for your help

Paul

[bgowland]

Have you tried simply viewing the main dvr-ms file from the first part of the recording using Video Library or Windows Media Player? I'm guessing you have and it doesn't work.

You could always try getting a copy of GraphEdt to see if it's possible to open the main file. If you've never used GraphEdt, just download it (I think there's a link somewhere on the forums), register proppage.dll and run GraphEdt.exe. Go to the File menu and choose 'Render File..." and point it at the dvr-ms file from the first part of the recording.

If GraphEdt throws an error then it means it can't render it and it's unlikely any application or utility would be able to do it either. If it is able to render it, you can watch it using GraphEdt or I can give you the steps to extract the content to an mpeg2 file.

Cheers,
Brian

[preinke]

As GraphEdt can't open them I'm going to guess that it's a lost cause.

I'll have a look at recording in a different format (MPG2?) at the next upgrade (not that power issues are common).

Thanks again for your suggestion

Paul

[JonnyCam]

Would videoredo be able to open the file at all (I know it's not as picky with headers etc)

seeing as they have a free trial, could be worth a go.

[preinke]

Thanks for the suggestion JonnyCam, but VideoRedoPlus was one of the first things I tried - I actually registered the product some time ago due to it's assistance and performance stripping out the ads from recorded programs.

I've now re-installed CyberLink Studio (just to get it's MPEG Mux) and will shortly remove my reliance on the DVR-MS format.

Paul

[zaphod7501]

It sounds like you have a corrupted file. I don't think the type of file (DVR-MS) actually makes a difference in this case. It's even possible that, despite the presence of the name and size, the file does not actually exist. Scanning the drive for errors might give some info, too. While most files (*.chk?) created after scans are useless, mpegs can be read.

Some tricks you could try with VideoReDo:
Run QSF from the dropdown tools menu rather than opening the file first.
Use Trim-and-Copy (again from menu) to chop off the beginning and/or end of the file. A few MB should be sufficient. A free utility like hjsplit can break any file up into smaller segments that could be checked for usable sections also.
Another long shot would be to rename the file extension and see if ffmpeg can transcode it. I've had a few files that I could not read but gui4ffmpeg could open and convert to something I could play.

[preinke]

Do you know, I've never played with the tools within VideoRedoPlus, but the QuickStream Fix was able to recover most of what I had already written-off as lost (probably losing ony a minute of video plus the power-out/reboot time.

Many thanks to all for your assistance and suggestions.

Paul