Just after Christmas I’ve bought a brand new GoPro HD Hero3 Black Edition camera. I’ve been using it for a while and I’ve got a some issues I had to fix. I’m using the camera mostly for skiing in low temperatures, but I think this article can help a lot of people having the same issues.
The Problem. Video with black screen and no sound.
How this this can happen in the first place? I was asking the same question, but the truth is, that this happens. But don’t worry that much. The good news is that your video should be fine and complete. The .MP4 container, where your video and audio is stored and encoded is just missing essential header information. Wait, what the heck is the header? It’s just a simple piece of data you don’t have to care about and where information about your video a audio is stored. This piece of information is essential for video player to play the video properly so see just blank video with black screen and no sound.
The video can is probably corrupted because of one of these reasons:
- Big data stream can’t be written on the bad quality memory card.
- Low temperatures can cause the camera to shut down prematurely.
- Camera internal software error.
The fix. Pretty easy, just read on.
SoS Function
The GoPro camera has an internal function that can help you. If you think that some of your videos may be damaged, just power on the camera. If the the LCD screen displays “SoS” message, it means the camera has found the damaged videos and will try to repair it. Just press any button and wait till the camera stops blinking the red color. Unfortunately, this option didn’t work for me and the videos were still damaged. But don’t worry, I found another solution which is more robust and works like a charm!
MP4 Repair Utility
The solution is called MP4 Repair Utility. It’s a Windows program you just download and run. If you happen to be a Mac user (like me), you can run it using Fusion or Parallels Desktop. I won’t go into details how to use the program, because it’s described on the website. But it’s pretty easy to use. Just select one of your videos (as a reference video) and then the damaged video and run the repair.
It’s not a freeware, but you can try it for free to see if it works. It converts first half of your videos for free, which was enough for me. If your want full length of your videos to be repaired, you have to pay a couple of bucks, but I think it’s totally worth your money.
That’s all for today. Feel free to share your experience with damaged GoPro HD Hero3 MP4 videos!
