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Restoring damaged clips with untrunc

Ben Hagen avatar
Written by Ben Hagen
Updated yesterday

This guide describes the installation and usage of the open source tool untrunc which is used to restore a damaged (truncated) mp4, m4v, mov or 3gp video. This is especially useful to rescue .RSV files written by a Sony camera.

NOTE: Restoring in camera is prefered if it is supported by your camera model. Please also read the full article on .RSV files.

Installation

  • Install the homebrew package manager if you are not already using it:

    /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
  • Enable the OTTOMATIC tap

    brew tap ottomatic-io/video
  • Install the untrunc package

    brew install untrunc

Usage

To restore a clip, you need a donor file which has the same recording settings. Most often that is the clip you shot before.

Run

untrunc /path/to/C1001.MP4 /path/to/C1002.RSV

This will create a file called /path/to/C1002.RSV_fixed.mp4.

If you see an error like "Error: unable to find correct codec -> premature end (~0%)", please try to use the -s option to step through unknown sequences:

untrunc -s /path/to/C1001.MP4 /path/to/C1002.RSV

NOTE: If it is not working, please do not hesitate to reach out to our support!

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