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recovering corrupted files

essex42essex42
edited July 2010 in Support
I tried recording full screen for two hours. When I was done, I saved the file. However, I cannot locate the file now and I believe it has been corrupted. Search results only show a shortcut to the file. Finding the file source gets an error message of "cannot find file." Only after browsing this forum did I learn that recording large files might cause camstudio to crash (though I don't think that happened for me since I was able to stop recording at the end and save the file as well). Please advise as to how I should proceed. Thanks.

Comments

  • bookloverbooklover
    edited July 2010
    I can't suggest anything for any version except 2.0, which is all I have used.

    If that's the version you're using, I'll mention a couple of things. Version 2.0 saves its data files in the same folder as the program. In the setup we can change where the temporary files are saved, but there's no option on where the final files are saved. So I'd suggest you look there for the missing file(s). I understand they're changing this in the rewrite so that we can save the data files where we prefer. I hope so.

    Since CamStudio 2.0 files are avi files, which have a 2 GB maximum size. if they're bigger than that they may appear to be corrupt but might possibly be saved.

    I've had excellent success being able to break the 2 GB barrier by running my big files through a free program called Virtualdub (downloadable on the web -- just Google it). Its audio defaults to direct copy but you'll need to change the video also to direct copy. Saving the file I've opened in virtualdub has resulted in a file with little if any degradation of quality (I guess that's true since I wasn't able to view what I'd recorded since the file was "corrupt"). Recently I've seen that Nick had success doing the same thing with another free program called, I believe, MediaCoder.

    So far all I've used CamStudio for is screen captures at the puppycam site, and I capture only a selected region rather than the whole screen, so my quite satisfactory experience with Virtualdub may not solve your problem but it seems as if it'd be worth a try.

    Good luck.

    FYI: there are several threads concerning similar results, so you might find it useful to look back through some of them.
  • radman_101radman_101
    The limitation of 2 GB makes the product unusable for all intents and purposes.

    I just finished a 1 hour screen recording with the Camstudio codec and after I selected stop and entered the file name for the .avi file, the product returned an error, didn't allow me to save anything and the file was gone for good. AND not recoverable.

    Even if you decide to create a .swf file, it must be able to create the .avi file first and since it couldn't even do this, I lost the entire contents of my recording. I wish I would have known this in advance so I could have used something else to record and then I wouldn't have lost my valuable recording for that hour!!!

    The only way around this is to stop the recording every guessed 5 minutes or so (unfortunately you never have any idea when you are approaching that 2 GB hard limit), then start recording again.

    In short, until the 2 GB limit is removed, its best you use another method to record anything over a few minutes.
  • bookloverbooklover
    Reducing the resolution helps a great deal at very small, if any, reduction in quality, in my opinion. If a file runs over the 2GB restriction it can often be recovered by using VirtualDub. The file you mention would probably be too big for that, however.

    You might consider version 2.6b, which has a timer with which you can have it turn off automatically. I do mainly screen captures of a fixed region using the CamStudio Lossless Codec. When I'm going to capture something that'll probably run long and that I don't want to miss any of, I often have up both versions 2.6b and 2.0. I begin the capture with 2.6b. If there's audio, which takes a long time to compress, I stop the 2.6b instance and start the 2.0 capture at the same time and continue capturing with 2.0 until 2.6b has finished compressing and then stop 2.0 and start 2.6b at the same time, etc. If I watch what I'm doing I can capture virtually everything and then put them together using Windows Movie Maker.

    Terry Britton is very enthusiastic about xvid because it produces very small files. He says the quality is excellent. He has posted much info regarding it in the last month or so and has videos too. Links to them are here on this board. I've experimented a little with xvid but am still having sync problems so for now will stay with what's been working for me for well over a year now.

    The 2GB limit is a pain, but it can be dealt with.

    Jo
  • TerryBrittonTerryBritton
    edited June 2011
    Yes, I've definitely been having good luck with Xvid. I just captured a 3 hour webinar, using "Record using MCI" -- so the audio was the largest portion of that. I'm going to try MS ADPCM next time.

    Do not record full screen - set your region to 1280X720 fixed, left corner 0, top 100 and you should be ok.

    See these two links for discussion and settings:

    http://camstudio.org/forum/discussion/702/camstudio-not-working-with-vlc-player-help#Item_10

    http://camstudio.org/forum/discussion/658/req-recommended-settings-for-recording-for-90-min.

    Terry
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