Hi, I have a problem with a couple of video files, recorded with a Matrox Monarch LCS capture appliance. It usually works fine but in an occasion I noticed that it generated a couple of video files (*.mov) that when I tried to import them on FCP, they showed the same "start recording" and "end recording" timestamp. Both marked at the same weird time of 00:00:00:00. As if the recording begun and ended simultaneously. Naturally, their length as video files, is also shown as being of 00:00:00:00, by FCP import files windows. The files are huge, though. The data IS THERE! I suspect it's a corrupt metadata issue and I'd like to know if there's a way to recover them. Thanks in advance and feel free to ask details if you need them. Cheers!

Hi Arcureo - I assume you've tried re-importing the file(s) and got the same results.. Since they're .mov files, have you tried opening/playing them in another application (to see if only FCP has an issue with them or if (as you suspect) the files/headers themselves are the problem)? I saw a reference somewhere to opening a problem files in QuickTime 7, but I don't know what you'd have to do in there to effect repairs..? Also, supposedly there's a way to repair files with (free) VLC (by converting them to AVI and evoking a repair function?), but I don't have any experience with that (if it even works on a Mac?). If the problem is in fact header corruption, obviously there are commercial software applications that could be tried (maybe a trial version?), if nothing else works.. I've linked this thread to one of our FCP courses, specifically on FCP importing—maybe there's something useful in there, or maybe the course author or another FCP guru might have some helpful suggestions..

Yep, unfortunately both QuickTime and VLC see those files as "0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds and 0 frames" long, so they won't open them. Which leads me to believe that the error in the metadata has been generated on the machine that wrote those files on the SD card (the Matrox capture device, that is). I still have, on an older computer, a copy of QuickTime7, I might give it a shot then... who knows, maybe that old software won't be afraid of a few corrupted file headers... (just wishful thinking, but you never know... ;-) ) Thanks! A'

Hey, it's worth a try—QuickTime 7 has (had) so much useful functionality, so who knows.. ;-) (I'm glad I'm still on Mojave and can still use it—for now) I guess you'd have had to be able to open the file in VLC to be able to try the convert-to-AVI-&-repair trick.. Unfortunately it's starting to sound like (short of professional data recovery $$$) those files may be goners..

Yep, I suspected that the costly professional recovery was my only hope, sadly...