Analyze corrupt .mpg movie, then repair

Question

I was given a .mpg movie that is on a DVD and errors out in Windows Media Player. This movie is worth about $7000 (if need to re-shot), due to it being taken by a remote camera that was inspecting sewer pipes. Checked, the original .mpg is corrupted as well. They just sent it on a DVD in order for me to look at it. There are other .mpg on that DVD that that work fine. The size of the corrupted .mpg on the DVD is 1.5 GB.

So is there a way to analyze what is wrong (time code off?), then repair it? Also if it wasn't burned correctly, there has to be a while to figure that out, right?

Here is what I've done so far. I've used the .mpg on the DVD and used a ripped version on my local HD for the following(keep this in mind):

• Used VLC Media Player. Would run, but with no video/audio.

• Tried to convert .mpg with VLC media in the following formats: .mp4, .mov. While converting, the process seemed to "jump" from 10 seconds to 50 seconds (example) in less than 5 seconds. Then when it got to the last 9 seconds, VLC would freeze up and tell me to close it.

• Used vcdgear, but got this warning: "Corruption might occur for non-vaild pack sized MPEGS."

• Used VideoReDo Tools, but they could not find proper file (or something like that).

• The last thing I tried, which sorta worked was DIVX video converter, which analyzed the .mpg for about 10 mins. When it got done it found 1:16 worth of something. Once converted to .mp4, I played it. There was a green video and you could see a little bit of movement in the background.

So any suggestions? I would love the analyze the corrupted .mpg by frame if possible (if not it's fine). I feel like there should be a way to do this. I will pay for software, if they have money back guarantee.

One last thing. OS wise doesn't matter because I have access to Windows O/S, Mac OS X and Ubuntu O/S.

Thanks!

Solution

Personally, for almost all of my Mpeg editing, I use one of two programs (which are actually the same program... just one is a much newer and more robust version of the other). Mpeg VCR, and the newer Mpeg Video Wizard. Neither are free, however. You say the original MPG file is corrupted, and thus the DVD is as well. With one of these two programs, you would most likely be able to open the corrupted file, and re-encode it to a playable state.

But... before you go off spending money, you should familiarize yourself with Videohelp.com and more specifically TMpgEnc. TMpgEnc isn't an editor per se, but it is a very powerful encoder, which means that it just may be able to load, repair and re-encode the MPG file you are working with.

It is also possible to manually demux the video (separate the audio from the video) and remux them back together to repair the time difference (if that is the issue, you don't directly say). However, on a broader note, Videohelp.com has links to all kinds of tools to assist you in doing this, and editing MPG files, etc.

Comments

[Benjamin Jones]

I've read about ffmpeg but I can't seem to get the switches correct for a .mpg movie. Would this work? Examples?

[Ramhound]

Sounds like your to fix an incomplete file. If you don't have access to the original video you really have nothing to compare it to.

[Benjamin Jones]

Correct. I do not have the original .mpg to compare it to. I do have other .mpg of the same content that work great!

[Benjamin Jones]

Found out that the original .mpg is corrupted as well. So it wasn't burned incorrectly.

[Benjamin Jones]

I was thinking, that the video format might of been converted incorrectly. The camera was on a robot that goes through sewers. Are most recordings .mpgs anymore? hmm I might have to start asking around.

[slhck]

ffmpeg can't really fix broken files, sorry. VLC is based on FFmpeg libraries as well. Most recordings are done in MPEG formats, but usually MPEG-4 Part 14 these days. What you have is probably an MPEG-2 Transport Stream.

[Benjamin Jones]

The DVD is not corrupted. It has other .mpgs that work just fine. They were burned as is, meaning that the corrupted .mpg was already corrupted before the burn. I will try your suggestions. I think its a header issue.

[Benjamin Jones]

Also I thought I had already stated by saying it was corrupted but the mpg will no open. Software like TMpgENC did not work because it cannot open the video. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Bon Gart]

@BenjaminJones I got the corrupted part, I was just hoping that even with the corruption, something like TMpgEnc could open it. There are a host of other MPG editors videohelp.com/tools/sections/video-editors-mpg-dvd one of which might be able to open/load it corrupted as it is.