Video corrupted?

[Jimck9]

Last week I used an iPad with my controller and after flight, I pulled out the memory card from the M2Z and put it into a card reader on my Mac. Got four good videos, two in 4K and two in 1080p. Nothing spectacular, but it showed my camera was working. Today I flew out by Delaware Bay using my iPhone 7+ for just a few minutes, but stopped because I got high wind warnings and I'm still not all that comfortable flying around. When I got home I pulled the memory card and could see today's video, but not like the last ones. Instead of seeing a thumbnail picture of part of the video, I saw what appears to be a generic files descriptor showing an mp4 video. Tried to open it but I got a file corrupted message. It wouldn't open in QuickTime, or iMovie or Movavi Video editor? Any ideas what may have happened to my video? It looked OK on the iPhone as I was recording?

 

[Johnmcl7]

Did you power the drone down without stopping the recording first?

 

[Jimck9]

I think I did. I was flummoxed cause I heard someone behind me say ,"Look, he's got a drone". All I wanted to do was land and depart before he and the five members of his family came up and started asking questions; they did. I explained I was stopping cause of the high wind warnings. Made a presumptuous assumption that the video would turn off when I powered off my M2Z. Live and learn, thank you for the insight

 

[DJ Wes]

I once experienced a corrupt video from my DJI drone after a mishap (a crash). The MP4 file would not play. VLC Media Player said it was corrupted.

I was able to fix it using a software program called "DJIFIX". It looks like they are having some trouble with their web site but a Mac executable and the documentation are still available here:

Repairing Corrupt DJI Video Files

 

[erkme73]

If the corrupt video file is the last one recorded, and the device was turned off (or lost power) while still writing to that file, it will show as corrupt on other devices. The simple fix is to reinstall the card in the drone, power up, then power down. That will give the camera the chance to close out the file. You can then safely remove the card and play on other devices. At least that's how it worked with every DJI product I've ever had.

 

[4wd]

If the corrupt video file is the last one recorded, and the device was turned off (or lost power) while still writing to that file, it will show as corrupt on other devices. The simple fix is to reinstall the card in the drone, power up, then power down. That will give the camera the chance to close out the file. You can then safely remove the card and play on other devices. At least that's how it worked with every DJI product I've ever had.

^ This is worth trying, the data could still be saved onboard and will still finalise the file if you haven't deleted it.
More likely just lesson learned, same is true for any video camera, and it is easy to overlook stopping recording and just switch off.
Give it at least a minute to clear any buffer.

 

[Johnmcl7]

I think I did. I was flummoxed cause I heard someone behind me say ,"Look, he's got a drone". All I wanted to do was land and depart before he and the five members of his family came up and started asking questions; they did. I explained I was stopping cause of the high wind warnings. Made a presumptuous assumption that the video would turn off when I powered off my M2Z. Live and learn, thank you for the insight

I only suggested it because I've made the same mistake myself recently

 

[Jimck9]

If the corrupt video file is the last one recorded, and the device was turned off (or lost power) while still writing to that file, it will show as corrupt on other devices. The simple fix is to reinstall the card in the drone, power up, then power down. That will give the camera the chance to close out the file. You can then safely remove the card and play on other devices. At least that's how it worked with every DJI product I've ever had.

Thank you for the suggestion, I did just what you said and it's now playable!

 

[davemorts]

I use a program called handbrake to fix damaged video files:
HandBrake: Open Source Video Transcoder

 

[jmorse62]

If the corrupt video file is the last one recorded, and the device was turned off (or lost power) while still writing to that file, it will show as corrupt on other devices. The simple fix is to reinstall the card in the drone, power up, then power down. That will give the camera the chance to close out the file. You can then safely remove the card and play on other devices. At least that's how it worked with every DJI product I've ever had.

Worked great. Thanks