Dashboard cameras have drastically grown in popularity ever since a video of a meteor falling through the sky in Russia went viral last February. While you may never catch a glimpse of a meteor, these cameras can be great for proving fault in an auto accident, or even making sure your teen is driving safely.

You can purchase a dedicated dash cam for under $100, but the video quality isn’t great and you can’t easily use the camera for anything else. Instead, the GoPro Hero 3 is a small, slightly more expensive HD camera that can go nearly anywhere, including the dashboard of your car.

With some slight modifications, the GoPro Hero 3 quickly becomes a trusty, high-quality dash cam. Here’s what you’ll need:

• GoPro Hero 3
• GoPro suction mount
• USB charging cable
• USB car charger
• Power drill

First, remove the GoPro from its plastic housing and drill a hole into the side where the USB input is located. This will allow you to plug your GoPro in and charge it while you drive. Just don’t expect the housing to remain waterproof after you’ve put a hole through it.

Next, suction mount your GoPro to your windshield. For the best angle of the road, you may have to mount the camera upside down. GoPro offers an in-camera option to flip the image, or you can rotate it using the software that comes packaged with the camera.

Finally, plug one end of the USB cable into the GoPro and the other into your vehicle’s 12-Volt outlet via a USB car charger adapter.

Once you have your GoPro set up, simply turn on the loop recording feature. That’s the key of the recording process.

Loop recording is a new feature and is kind of mysterious at a first glance. If you set it for, say, 20 minutes you’ll always be able to stop the camera and have at least the previous 20 minutes recorded.

The way it works is by actually splitting the 20 minute duration by 4, and keeps 5 sets of these clips on the SD card at any given time. 4 of the 5 clips are 5 minutes in length (20/4) which equals the full 20 minutes, the 5th is the current one recording (until it hits 5 minutes). So if you stop after 44 minutes you’ll have 4 clips each 5 minutes long and one clip 4 minutes long. This is why I say you’ll always have at least 20 minutes (or whatever duration you set).

Now you can capture everything that goes on in front of your vehicle. And even if you don’t end up with a video of a meteor falling from the sky, you can always speed up your footage and make a cool time lapse of your favorite driving route.

In case crash happens and your cam got damaged your footage could be repaired using MP4repair.org services. Drive safely!

Hooray! Welcome aboard!

Took some time but finally folks from Microsoft unleashed the latest Internet Explorer version for Windows 7. We have been working hard to be ready when the moment arrived.

According to Microsoft new IE 10

• is 20% faster for real world Web sites
  You can experience IE10’s leading performance first hand with demos on the IE Test Drive site with examples of hardware accelerated rendering, interactivity, touch, and real world site patterns.

• has a 60% increase in supported modern Web standards
  IE10 adds support for over 30 new modern Web standards beyond IE9, for a 60% increase. These new supported standards in IE10 include many of the latest HTML5, CSS3, DOM, Web Performance, and Web Application specifications across important aspects of Web development.

So, come on guys! Don’t be shy and use your brand new browser to check whether your damaged files are repairable using MP4repair.org. We’ll be glad to help you.

Imagine you took your daughter’s first birthday party on your mobile phone and when wanting to share it with your family, the video is no longer playing. Ouch! that’s what chief4life11 thought when posting for help. Fortunately we could help him bringing back the clip. Wanna know how? Just keep reading.

3GP file format is a compressed file format of a larger video file. It acts like a container where several video files of small storage capacity are stored. These files have extension of either .3gpp, .3gp or .3g2.

Unlike any other file container, .3gp files are small in size and because of this feature, this file format is used frequently for small hand held devices like mobile phones. However sometimes users have to face the problem of being not playable due to deletion or corruption of such files.

There are several reasons for loss of 3GP video files. Most of the time culprit is the lack of space left on your memory card. Other times simply your phone got locked up and required a battery pull making the file not get properly saved.

Due to any of the unforeseen reasons file gets inaccessible and throws various type of error messages. In such circumstances, backup files will surely helps you a lot but in case it is unavailable then you can take the help of MP4repair.org to repair your damaged .3gp files.

Alternatively you could try to change the container using ffmpeg to copy the contents of the damaged .3gp file into a new mp4 container. Just type below command in your system’s prompt to get it done.

ffmpeg -i input.3gp -vcodec copy -acodec copy output.mp4

(Please note that you would need to have installed ffmpeg on your system and you need to change the name of the files shown to match your damaged files.)

So finally you reviewed the content of your damaged card and processed the files as suggested in our previous post “Recover Deleted Videos on an SD Card (Part 2 of 3)“.

Great, now it’s time to repair them!

Use MP4repair.org to repair interesting tiles
As explained before the content of your damaged card is now split in tiles.
MP4repair.org can repair the tiles into playable videos.

Just click on the green Continue button tho proceed with the repair process.

The tool will launch the repair module and the repair process will start as shown below.

Once the tiles have been repaired, you will be able to download up to three free previews corresponding to the Beginning, Middle and End moments of your damaged file but now repaired.

Finally, once the payment is done, you will be able to download the entire file by right clicking the green button and providing an appropriate name for the repaired tile.

Rebuild entire video clips
Once the repaired tiles are downloaded you can easily merge them using any NLE.

Alternatively, you could first select the tiles that contain footage from the same clip, and then use software like HJSplit to join the tiles to finally use MP4repair.org to repair the entire clip in one shot.

File joining process is really straight forward. Simply select the tiles to be joined and add them consecutive .00x suffix to its name to get automatically merged.

If any issue is found during the process, remember that Aero Quartet team is ready to help you using remote assistance.

In previous post “Recover Deleted Videos on an SD Card (Part 1 of 3)” we explained how to create a image file from a damaged card. Now it’s time to go on and see how can we access to the damaged footage and finally, repair it.

You should have a .img file with a size similar to the damaged disk capacity. If the disk still contained video, the footage must now be inside your file as well.

Your .img file will now be split into tiles, like an archaeological excavation grid. We will search for video inside each tile. Keep in mind that as well as in an excavation, lots of sand could be dig out before finding a bone. So same could happen with your deleted video.

1. Figure out how many tiles
If the average size of the video file that you want to recover is 500 MB, divide your .img file into tiles of 500 MB. For example, a 32 GB card will give you: 32000/500 = 64 tiles.

You can reduce the number of tiles in the first pass, then narrow down once you have verified that your footage is present.

2. Split your .img file into tiles
You can use free software like HJSplit to perform this task.

Tiles files will have same name as your original .img file by default, but adding a .00x suffix that will be increased according to the number of tiles created. In the example below, 8 tiles of 500 MB were created from an .img file of 4 GB.

3. Run MP4repair.org diagnostics on each tile
MP4repair.org is a web tool to preview and repair video inside a corrupt file. Diagnostics are free. By trying every tile, you will map all the video present in damaged disk.

In the example below you can see the first tile diagnostics results. Looks promising.

As suggested before, check all created tiles to find the footage you need to repair. To do this, simply click on the blue New Diagnostics button that is shown below the preview.

In case some tile shows No Media or simply a different footage you’re not looking for, just remove it from your cart by clicking the blue cross that is shown in the upper right corner of its list entry.

In this case, third tile file usb.img.003 is showing a different format and should be removed.

Once all the footage that needs to be recovered is found go on with the repair.

Don’t be afraid of the price shown during the tiles exploration. Final quote will be adjusted accordingly to the number of files to be repaired. Also keep in mind that Aero Quartet experts will keep an eye on the repair process.

Let’s see how to repair it in the third and last post of this series…

To be Continued…

Whenever an SD Card with precious video moments is being formatted by mistake, a cold sweat runs down the back of the culprit. Here we will show you how to bring back those deleted files through three posts with detailed steps. We will Undelete Raw Footage, then we’ll Find Deleted Videos and finally Fix Deleted Videos.

Hint: We use our MP4repair.org video repair tool during the process…

In Windows there is a good technique to create a disk image from the damaged disk or card (even if it was formatted), which is the first step towards recovery of footage. For Mac users there are some other ways to get back those videos using Aero Quartet services.

In a nutshell, we use a small utility called dd for Windows that is able to read the raw data of a disk. (From now on, we will just use the generic word “disk”, and it can refer to a hard disk, a memory card or a USB drive).

Under the premise that the disk is readable, i.e. Windows detects it when you plug the disk or insert the card in the reader, dd for Windows should be able to create a file with about the size of the disk.

Here is the process, step by step:

1. Download dd utility: http://www.chrysocome.net/downloads/dd-0.5.zip
This program is free and distributed under GPL license. For more information, refer to the product page.

2. Unzip it and make a copy on your Desktop.

3. Connect the damaged disk to the computer.
Your PC must detect it, otherwise dd won’t work.

4. Open a DOS shell (i.e. launch the program called cmd) and type the command: 

dd --list

And you will get a list of the devices connected to your computer.
Here is what we get for example:

rawwrite dd for windows version 0.5.
Written by John Newbigin
This program is covered by the GPL. See copying.txt for details
Win32 Available Volume Information
\\.\Volume{aef46cf9-3e3d-11de-b8c6-806d6172696f}\
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume3
fixed media
Mounted on \\.\c:

\\.\Volume{aef46cf8-3e3d-11de-b8c6-806d6172696f}\
link to \\?\Device\CdRom0
CD-ROM
Mounted on \\.\d:

\\.\Volume{6f41f4b2-d11a-11de-b318-001d4f88486c}\
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk1\DP(1)0-0+5
removable media
Mounted on \\.\f:

Don’t be afraid, it’s just a list of the devices connected to your computer.

Here the interesting device is the F:\ volume described as removable media: this is the card that we want to recover. Take note of the corresponding volume name:

\\.\Volume{6f41f4b2-d11a-11de-b318-001d4f88486c}

This volume name starting with \\.\Volume{ and ending with } will be used in step #6.

5. Verify that you have enough space available on your hard disk.
The rule of the thumb is that a 4GB card will produce a 4GB file, a 120GB hard disk will need 120GB, and so on.

6. Type the command below to read your disk.
Of course, you will replace this volume name by the volume name that you have noted in step 4:

dd if=\\.\Volume{6f41f4b2-d11a-11de-b318-001d4f88486c} of=c:\usb.img bs=1M --progress

This command creates a file called c:\usb.img that is a carbon-copy of the damaged disk.

It can take a long time. For 1GB, it can take one minute or more. For 120GB, it will take several hours. Progress of the file creation will be shown on the screen from 0 to the size of the disk.

After following this process, you will have an image file of your damaged card but still no access to the footage. We’ll see how to access and repair it in the second post of this series: Find Deleted Videos on an SD Card.

Good news on the browsers front: Firefox 20 will support H.264 playback!

Don’t rush to download it, it’s only available in alpha “Aurora” channel as of now. Beta should be out and February and release in April 2013.

This will improve MP4repair.org experience when repairing videos containing H.264: Until now, a QuickTime plug-in was need to see the LivePreview (otherwise only still frames every few seconds were displayed). With H.264 support, Firefox will be on par with Chrome, Internet Explorer 10 and Safari: All 4 major browser will have native LivePreview of H.264 videos (the most popular format found on MP4repair.org)

Good job, Mozilla folks.

Good news from the browsers front: We have crossed the 50% support rate during this summer.

With the release of Internet Explorer 10 as part of Windows 8 launch next week, the lines will be moving fast during this fall.
We could reach 70% support rate by end of year. It’s definitively an exciting time for HTML5 web apps like MP4repair.org!

Let’s review support by browser family:

Firefox works like a charm, starting with version 9. It’s the most reliable browser if you want to repair videos with our service. The only catch: Videos above 4 GB cannot be downloaded after repair. But you won’t repair videos that big, will you?

The workaround for this small problem is to use a different browser for download. Firefox is the king for repair.

Chrome is doing well, starting with version 13.

Internet Explorer 10 is the new kid in town. Previous versions are lacking essential features and will never be supported. This new browser looks robust, fast, and apt for video repair. Both versions, desktop and RT (aka Metro) have passed the test!

Safari 6, available for Mac OS X Lion and Mountain Lion, is not officially supported, but MP4repair.org doesn’t prevent you from using it. Diagnostics and repair work fine, but there’s a problem with download after repair. We will try to fix it as soon as possible.

A word about Opera: New versions 12.1 is getting very close, but still lacks 2 or 3 features. Given the pace of progress, I hope that during 2013 we can announce that Opera is supported.

On the mobile arena, iOS 6 (released last month) now works with MP4repair.org, but is not officially supported. iOS 6 lets you pick files only from your Photo album, which is a hard limitation for the moment.

MP4repair.org has been offline for 60 hours (Sun 2 – Mon 3 – Tue 4 September). Please accept our apologies.

According to Murphy’s law, your website will go offline at the worst possible moment. This is exactly what happened.

We had an UPS (Uninterruptible power supply) to prevent summer storms from leaving our server without juice. It failed.

I discovered the problem on Sunday morning, but since I was over 1000 km away from the server, ending my hard-earned vacations, nothing could be done until today.

Lessons learnt: Protection equipments can also fail. Self-hosting will never give you 99.9% availability.

Windows 8 will only be released in fall 2012, but many people is already using the “Consumer Preview” that ships with Internet Explorer 10.

Internet Explorer 10 is the first version of Microsoft browser that supports modern HTML5 and Javascript APIs: Hooray! it will work with MP4repair.org!

IE10 will probably be released during this summer to the public, both for Windows 7 and Windows 8, so it’s the browser that tomorrow 20% to 30% of people will use. We can’t miss the opportunity to make it work beautifully with MP4repair.org

I have done some testing and after some tweaking to the web app, I got it to work.
Note that it’s not officially supported yet. Some work is still needed.

• IE10 doesn’t implement readAsBinaryString. We had to use ArrayBuffers instead
• IE10 doesn’t implement ArrayBuffer slice. We had to add some ugly code as a workaround
• IE10 “inherits” the bad stuff. QuickTime plug-in check is a mess, for example

Screenshots

Diagnostics works great. We need to optimize Javascript code.

Repair goes smooth. (except for the QuickTime controls half visible, but we will fix it)

Metro

Diagnostics and Repair work fine in Metro environment.
The only problem is that it doesn’t let you download the repaired files. But we will find a workaround sooner than later.

Give us a couple of weeks and IE10 will work like a champ on MP4repair.org.