Disk recovery work flow problem at DVinfo.net

Betsy Moore · May 17th, 2009, 11:57 PM

Hey Guys:) I had an external hard drive fail on me, sent it off to a disk recovery place, and a few thousand dollars later, I have a new disk that thinks a ton of Final Cut pro capture scratch files are plain text files. When I try to open them up, the computer opens them as Qucktime files and they play fine but when I try to transfer them into a FCP clip bin, I get "File Error: Unknown File." Is there any work flow ya'll know that I could use to get all these clips back into FCP?

Nicholas de Kock · May 18th, 2009, 02:33 AM

Have you tried converting to another codec?

Betsy Moore · May 18th, 2009, 03:50 AM

Well, when it's opened in Quicktime, I can hit save as and then it gives me only two options that I can see one is to save it as a reference file, the other is to save it as a self contained movie. I've done that for a few files but if I do that for all the files won't that double the hard drive space I need?

Nigel Barker · May 18th, 2009, 03:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Betsy Moore

Well, when it's opened in Quicktime, I can hit save as and then it gives me only two options that I can see one is to save it as a reference file, the other is to save it as a self contained movie. I've done that for a few files but if I do that for all the files won't that double the hard drive space I need?

So what if it does? Do you want to recover these files or not? Having just spent thousands on data recovery wasting a bit of storage space would not concern me one jot.

If it works do it!

Cheers

Nigel

Mitchell Lewis · May 18th, 2009, 07:41 AM

Save them as Reference Movies. They don't add any significant size to your original movies.

Years ago I had a similar problem where AfterEffects would create a MOV file that couldn't be opened in Final Cut Pro without opening it and saving it in Quicktime Pro. My theory was the Quicktime added the necessary data that FCP needed to play the file correctly.

Hopefully you don't have too many MOV files as it could take a long time to re-save hundreds of files.

Nigel Barker · May 18th, 2009, 08:49 AM

A Quicktime Reference File is not a self-contained movie file but is a file with links to the actual source footage that is accessed on the fly when the this reference file is played in the Quicktime player. Given Betsy's recent data loss & subsequent recovery I would want real copies of everything that I could get even if it did involve extra disk space & redundancy.

Robert Lane · May 18th, 2009, 09:16 AM

Betsy,

The other issue here is that these recovered files have their resource-forks broken. This is OSX metadata that tells the system what program/s are used to open and modify the files.

It may be a simple matter of manually resetting the resources; do a "Get Info" on any of those recovered files that FCP normally would open. Then in the "Open With" setting select FCP from the list. Make sure you hit the "Change All..." button below. Then try to re-ingest those files into FCP.

Also, make sure the extension at the end of these files is ".mov", not ".txt" or something else that would tell OSX to use a different program other than QT or FCP. One of the issues with deep-file recovery is that the software used to recover the files homogenizes all the data into common file-type values. This usually allows for a greater amount of recovered and uncorrupted data; the downside is exactly this type of behavior, where resource forks and other metadata is wiped out.

This would also be a good time to review your archiving and backup strategies to prevent this happening in the future.

Let us know if this works.

May 17th, 2009, 11:57 PM	#1
Betsy Moore Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 444	Disk recovery work flow problem Hey Guys:) I had an external hard drive fail on me, sent it off to a disk recovery place, and a few thousand dollars later, I have a new disk that thinks a ton of Final Cut pro capture scratch files are plain text files. When I try to open them up, the computer opens them as Qucktime files and they play fine but when I try to transfer them into a FCP clip bin, I get "File Error: Unknown File." Is there any work flow ya'll know that I could use to get all these clips back into FCP?

May 18th, 2009, 07:41 AM	#5
Mitchell Lewis Trustee Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Kennewick, WA Posts: 1,124	Save them as Reference Movies. They don't add any significant size to your original movies. Years ago I had a similar problem where AfterEffects would create a MOV file that couldn't be opened in Final Cut Pro without opening it and saving it in Quicktime Pro. My theory was the Quicktime added the necessary data that FCP needed to play the file correctly. Hopefully you don't have too many MOV files as it could take a long time to re-save hundreds of files. __________________ Sony EX3, Canon 5D MkII, Chrosziel Matte Box, Sachtler tripod, Steadicam Flyer, Mac Pro, Apple/Adobe software - 20 years as a local videographer/editor

May 18th, 2009, 09:16 AM	#7
Robert Lane Go Go Godzilla Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Scottsdale, AZ USA Posts: 2,823 Images: 15	Resource fork broken Betsy, The other issue here is that these recovered files have their resource-forks broken. This is OSX metadata that tells the system what program/s are used to open and modify the files. It may be a simple matter of manually resetting the resources; do a "Get Info" on any of those recovered files that FCP normally would open. Then in the "Open With" setting select FCP from the list. Make sure you hit the "Change All..." button below. Then try to re-ingest those files into FCP. Also, make sure the extension at the end of these files is ".mov", not ".txt" or something else that would tell OSX to use a different program other than QT or FCP. One of the issues with deep-file recovery is that the software used to recover the files homogenizes all the data into common file-type values. This usually allows for a greater amount of recovered and uncorrupted data; the downside is exactly this type of behavior, where resource forks and other metadata is wiped out. This would also be a good time to review your archiving and backup strategies to prevent this happening in the future. Let us know if this works. Attached Thumbnails

May 18th, 2009, 02:33 AM	#2
Nicholas de Kock Major Player Join Date: May 2007 Location: KLD, South Africa Posts: 983	Have you tried converting to another codec?

May 18th, 2009, 03:50 AM	#3
Betsy Moore Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 444	Well, when it's opened in Quicktime, I can hit save as and then it gives me only two options that I can see one is to save it as a reference file, the other is to save it as a self contained movie. I've done that for a few files but if I do that for all the files won't that double the hard drive space I need?

May 18th, 2009, 08:49 AM	#6
Nigel Barker Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Norwich, Norfolk, UK Posts: 3,531	A Quicktime Reference File is not a self-contained movie file but is a file with links to the actual source footage that is accessed on the fly when the this reference file is played in the Quicktime player. Given Betsy's recent data loss & subsequent recovery I would want real copies of everything that I could get even if it did involve extra disk space & redundancy.