Repair MP4 Video with broken header (but with 2 video and 1 audio stream)

Question

I have a MP4 File which has not been finalized at the end so there is no header. The file contains 3 streams: 2 video streams and 1 audio stream.

I tried several tools to repair the header but the best I get is a video where the 2 video streams alternate after about 2 seconds (2 seconds first video, then 2 seconds second video, 2 seconds first video and so on). I also have a working reference file but the header is still not correctly repaired with those tools.

Here are the tools I tested:

• Some freeware like Yodot MOV Repair
• Yamb (file could not be loaded)
• recover_mp4 / recover_mp4_to_h264 (the two video streams will be extracted as one video stream)

I don't think it was from a GoPro. It was from a Race Keeper System with one front facing camera and a second one filming the people in the car seats. So there are 2 different streams with HD quality. I don't even need both streams, one of them would be enough if that helps.

Maybe it is still possible with one of that tools but I could not figure it out.

I would really appreciate some help.

Answer 1

Have you recorded the video with a GoPro camera?

If yes, then the two video streams may be a low-res preview video followed by the regular video stream. To repair such file, you would have to filter out the low-res stream.

So far as I know, the new version of the recover_mp4 has an algorithm of filtering out low-res streams of the GoPro cameras. The tool is now called Restore.Media. You can try repairing your MP4 with this tool and watch a full-time preview for free just to see if it works. Also, here is their article about repairing GoPro video files.