# 5D MK 3 Corrupted Video Files?



## adamhanly (Apr 30, 2012)

Hey everyone, hope your monday is starting off smoothly. Mine isn't all that exciting.

I recently shot a wedding, (video) with the Mark 3 and the MOV files are corrupt. I'm curious if anyone has had this problem, or know of a remedy. One memory card was able to transfer video files and they are readable. The other didn't have so much luck. 

I've researched on the web all the "repair" options out there but obviously its too early to reconstruct an 5D MK3 MOV file.

Does anyone know of a remedy? Or a way to reconstruct the MOV files to be an MK3 MOV file versus a standard MOV file?

I'm helpless and desperately need the rest of the wedding to make this video worth viewing.


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## Axilrod (Apr 30, 2012)

adamhanly said:


> Hey everyone, hope your monday is starting off smoothly. Mine isn't all that exciting.
> 
> I recently shot a wedding, (video) with the Mark 3 and the MOV files are corrupt. I'm curious if anyone has had this problem, or know of a remedy. One memory card was able to transfer video files and they are readable. The other didn't have so much luck.
> 
> ...



I've had this happen several times, and yes, the stuff is repairable. There are sites that do it, I think one of them was $99 but I can't remember the name of the site. It definitely works its just a question of how much the files are worth to you. In the future make sure you format your cards before you shoot video on them. 

Edit: Ok I found it, it's these guys http://aeroquartet.com/movierepair/repair

Since they are expensive, you may want to try this first: http://grauonline.de/cmsimple2_6/en/?Solutions:HD_Video_Repair_Utility

Actually now that I look the 2nd one is around $38 for 5 repairs and $130 for unlimited, so I guess it's only slightly cheaper than the first one.


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## AeroQ (May 8, 2012)

Corrupt videos from Canon 5D mark III can be recovered.
See this blog post: 
http://aeroquartet.com/wordpress/2012/04/25/corrupt-videos-from-new-canon-5d-mk-iii/

Regards,
BJ


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## westr70 (May 8, 2012)

@ Axilrod: So it is the card that is at fault here in that it should be reformatted before each shoot? Are there specific cards less prone to these type of failures? 

I'm just starting to do videos and I'd like to avoid these problems. Thanks.


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## Axilrod (May 8, 2012)

westr70 said:


> @ Axilrod: So it is the card that is at fault here in that it should be reformatted before each shoot? Are there specific cards less prone to these type of failures?
> 
> I'm just starting to do videos and I'd like to avoid these problems. Thanks.



I have 10 Sandisk Extreme 16GB and 32GB cards and have been very happy with them overall. I've recorded 80 bands since August and these were 3 camera setups so there were a lot of CF cards involved. Out of all those times I can only recall running into corrupt files once, maybe twice, and I never could figure out the cause. The strange thing was that the corrupt files were surrounded by files that were perfectly fine (for example band records 8 songs in a row, 4th and 5th are corrupt while others play fine), I'm still not sure what caused that exactly. The only thing I can think of is maybe being swapped between cameras, copied, and emptied over and over caused the card to have trouble overwriting data (since it's still there even after you delete it or format the card). So I can't say for sure what caused your corrupt files, but yes it's generally good practice to format your cards after you get the data copied.

The only other time I have had to pay to recover files was when someone accidentally formatted a card that hadn't been copied over yet. The companies recovering the stuff are making a killing, they send you a "custom repair kit" for $99, but most likely they just have a few different repair kits that they send depending on the situation and then act like they have some genius making you your own personal recovery app.

Overall the Sandisk cards are very, very reliable and I believe the only reason I have run into issues with them is volume and frequency, I just shoot so damn much on so many different cameras that I was bound to run into issues eventually.


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## paul13walnut5 (May 16, 2012)

Before the 1.2.x 7D firmware ugrades I had this problem with sandisk cf cards. To the point where I bought a T2i for video use, as I couldn't truely depend on the 7D. Since the firmware fix I haven't had one single fail (so far) 

Sounds like it could be a similar problem.

Recovery was difficult. I could resotre the files but couldn't always close them in order to transcode.

I hope you get a solution as i know how frustrating it is.


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## TexasBadger (Feb 26, 2013)

Why would anyone not do an in camera format before any shoot? Please do not say that you are saving files from a previous shoot.


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## paul13walnut5 (Feb 26, 2013)

Bit harsh texas, whats the difference between having files on from an old shoot, and the last scene of a current shoot? Unless you format after each and every clip you've nullified your arguement.

The 5d3 card issue is now well documented, I've been that soldier with the 7d and sandisk udma cards, so I know how frustrating it is, and I dump my files, transcode and check and then overwrite format used cards at the end of each days shooting.

Card maintainence is important, but this particular glitch doesn't swem to be cauused by that.


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## TexasBadger (Feb 26, 2013)

Paulie Walnuts, what I am saying is that if formatting the card in camera helps to prevent this occurance wouldn't that be the prudent thing to do. I know people that store all of their photos on their memory card (my Father-in-law for one). Allocation tables do get corrupted and then you have a big problem. I consider formating my memory cards before each shoot as essential as removing the lens cap. Good habits make for fewer problems. I have never lost a digital image, ever. Knock on wood.


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## TheJuice (Mar 26, 2013)

Hi everyone,
Long time lurker - first time poster here. Figured I'd throw in my $.02 here because I faced this very issue on a very high profile shoot recently. I was using a 5D MK 2, but have since upgraded to a 5dMK3. 

I was shooting an interview (for primetime) with the MK2 on a Dynamic Perception dolly. When I went to copy the files off the card, one of the files in the middle of the card wouldn't copy. In other words, the start of the interview copied, as did the end. It was the 2nd file that wouldn't move. I got an "I/O error." Corrupt. I thought I was screwed. I looked into repair kits - but to be frank - I didn't feel that I had time to play with those. I had a network producer breathing down my neck demanding the footage! One word: pucker.

I contacted Canon Pro Services and explained the problem. They claimed that they had not seen the issue before. They said that they HAD seen reports of corrupted files that could be attributed to the camera shaking and the card losing contact with a single pin. They also told me that they had seen the issue when IS and AF/MF switches on the lens were moved while recording was in progress. I didn't think these were my issue. There was very little movement with the dolly and glitches occurred when the camera was stationary. The files before the corrupt one were fine, as were some shot after on the same card. The file wouldn't play from the camera, wouldn't copy...but it DID play when I opened it with QuickTime Player on a mac directly from the card. When it hit the glitch (3:10 into the file,) QuickTime Player would freeze and I'd have to force quit. 

The workaround?

Using a copy of QuickTime Player 7, I was able to set in and out points around the glitches, trim, then export all the good stuff around the glitch- saving my interview! 

Hope this helps others.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 26, 2013)

westr70 said:


> @ Axilrod: So it is the card that is at fault here in that it should be reformatted before each shoot? Are there specific cards less prone to these type of failures?
> 
> I'm just starting to do videos and I'd like to avoid these problems. Thanks.


The big problem usually comes when using SD cards to record a video. The 5D MK III is not UHS-1 compatible, so it cannot write to SDHC UHS-1 cards at full speed.
CF cards should not have the issue.
There is some misleading information also being given here when someone says "Format the Card before using it"
There are two types of format. In Camera regular format will not erase existing files on a card, it just marks them as available to be overwritten. HOWEVER - they must be erased before being written to, so when you try to record, the camera must first erase a block of the card and then write to it. That is very slow.
What you can do is perform a LOW LEVEL FORMAT. That erases a card completely, and then writing to the card is much faster since it doesn't have to erase before writing. That's why new cards work fine, and then later they cause problems after the blocks have all been used.
CF cards overwrite cells much faster, and are much preferred to SD for video or any application where you need fast writing.

Now there are UHS-1 cards. Cameras that are compatible double the bus frequency for reading and writing, so with a 6D, for example, overwriting a fast SDXC UHS-1 card should be ok. Even so, its better to have several cards and do a low level format on them before reusing them for video.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Dec 24, 2013)

TexasBadger said:


> Why would anyone not do an in camera format before any shoot? Please do not say that you are saving files from a previous shoot.


A in camera format does nothing but mark the files as available to overwrite tin the Fat Table. Its no going to help with any problems. A card must have a low level format to discover and fix problems.


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## Drizzt321 (Dec 24, 2013)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> westr70 said:
> 
> 
> > @ Axilrod: So it is the card that is at fault here in that it should be reformatted before each shoot? Are there specific cards less prone to these type of failures?
> ...



The exception would be UDMA7 compatible card & camera. Even if the card isn't one of those 1000x, as long as it's UDMA7 and the camera has UDMA7 support it'll operate using TRIM, which means when you delete a file, the CF card controller will actually be told about it, and it can pre-erase the affected blocks which means you can keep a higher performance even with just deleting. Or when you format, it'll tell the CF controller that everything is formatted so it can clean up everything.

SD cards do not have this, thus the special "low-level format" checkbox in the menu for an SD card. This forces all of the blocks to be erased which restores them to high performance.


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## smartx21 (Aug 11, 2016)

Can anyone here provide some help to recover lost movies from a Sandisk 8GB CF (Canon 7D)?
I've tried PhotoRec and MiniTool to no avail.
It is the first time I face a full memory card with almost 0% of success (only 4 picture miniatures and a .swf file were found).
The card has been accidentally formatted while still in the camera.
Thank you very much.
Max. 
(Brazil)


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