[rotuts]

Hello
Im using the latest versionb of QT pro to edit some QT files that come off my AlchemyDVR card on a G4 dual.

I deleted a large chunk of a file my mistake and saved by mistake. cant then do the "UNdoo".

the original file size does not change, so is there some way to open the file in another program or even in QTpro and recover the'lost' piece that still seems to be there by file size?

thanks rotut

[Jacke]

Get MetaHoot, drag the edited file to the window. Add the 'Movie length' column to check that it's the length of the original, and then save, either as reference movie or self-contained. The entire clip should show up in QT after that.

[rotuts]

thanks jacke for the info.

metahoot looks like a very interesting program. unfortunately when I put the qt movie inquestion in the progam it says that the movie time is 0:0

so inspite of the fact the my mac thinks the qt file is the same size ans the unedited original, there is nothing really there!

thanks for trying

rotut

[Jacke]

Here's something else you can try; get the CLI tool qtmux from this page. Open Terminal and drag the unzipped file onto the terminal window, then a space and write "-o outfile.mov", a space, then drag your file onto the window, then a space and drag it there again and press enter. (You can see more usage options if you drag only qtmux onto the terminal window and press enter.)
outfile.mov should now appear in your home directory, and be the full length.

[Uncle Skeleton]

By some coincidence, I am the author of both the above mentioned apps, and I had no idea they might ever work for something like this. Jacke did they ever do this for you in the past? I wouldn't have thought so, since they both access movie files by the QT API object NSMovie, which really ought to obey QT edits (which is not what you want in this case).

As for the topic, I've never found a way to recover that data, but there's a very real possibility it's still in there somewhere, since as you've noticed the file never gets smaller. The only thing I can think of is to try a trick I learned from Jacke in the past (a trick for an entirely different issue), and that's to open the file in HexEdit, search for the second occurance of 'mdat', and copy the remainder of the file to a new document and save it. This will most likely produce a file that QT won't touch, but ffmpeg might, depending on what codec was used in the original file (what was it?). I don't really expect this to work, but it's the only thing I can think of to try and I thought I'd mention it...

[Jacke]

I tried both MetaHoot and qtmux on a Quicktime .mov that I had deleted a part from and saved, and in both cases it returned the lost data. Might have been a fluke, though. Gonna do some more testing today and see what results I get. What format (video/audio) does the Alchemy card output?

EDIT: Looks like I was wrong. No files that I tested today worked. I should learn to not try to give support at 2 AM.

[rotuts]

hello again

the alchemy card outputs to QT in Sorensen3, about 2GB/30 min in 320 x 240

is this what you mean?

rotut

[Jacke]

Alright, I think I've found a way to (sort of) reliably restore deleted movie data. I did a test where I took a movie trailer and deleted the ending. Then I opened the movie in the old Classic tool Dumpster (you can get it from Apple's FTP) and changed a couple of parameters; the ones I changed were "duration" under Movie Header ('mvhd') and both Track Headers ('tkhd'), and also "Track Dur" under Edit List ('elst') of both tracks. I'm not sure what to do if theres a section in the middle of the movie you want to restore, but I'm going to look a bit more at Dumpster and see what I find.