GoPro and DJI footage breaks for the same underlying reason as any camera — a crash or power loss before the index was written — but each brand has its own wrinkles inside the file, and we've met several of them on real customer footage. Here's what actually happens with each, and what to do first.
Both brands write standard MP4/MOV-family containers, so the baseline failure is the one covered on camera died mid-recording: the frames are on the card, the index that maps them for a player isn't. Two vendor-specific shapes on top of that:
On one real GoPro HERO4 file, the start of the container was zeroed
out — but the camera's own internal box chain (carrying the codec
setup and vendor metadata) was still sitting inside the raw payload
where the camera wrote it. We rebuilt the index from that, ref-free:
57 seconds of video recovered, with audio. GoPro also splits long
recordings into numbered chapters (files named like
GX01xxxx, GX02xxxx…) — if you have
a broken chapter, a healthy chapter from the same
recording is close to a perfect reference, since it comes
from the exact same camera and settings.
DJI drones interleave their own telemetry data into the video payload — on one real DJI file, a telemetry block appeared roughly every 30 frames, and our walker had to learn that specific interleave pattern from the customer's own healthy reference clip before it could rebuild the file; the result was 546 seconds of recovered footage. Many DJI drones record in HEVC (H.265): when the container is gone, the codec settings go with it, and we need a healthy clip from the same drone, in the same mode (H.265 vs. H.264, resolution, frame rate) — a clip recorded in the other codec doesn't supply what's missing.
Try the camera's or drone's own repair first — it costs nothing and is sometimes all you need. GoPro offers an on-camera repair prompt after a crash (look for the bandage / SOS icon on power-up). If your DJI app or drone offers a repair option for the file, try it first — it costs nothing. If that works, you're done. If it doesn't, or it fails outright, that's exactly the territory we built for.
.LRV
preview and .THM thumbnail sidecar files are not the
recording; the full-resolution file is what we need.Free while in beta — no account, no card. Direct upload handles files up to 25 GB — an 11 GB GoPro chapter fits comfortably. You pay only if we hand back a file that actually plays.
Usually the same failure as any camera: the recording was interrupted before the index was written, so the frames are on the card but nothing maps them for a player. Try GoPro's own on-camera repair prompt (the bandage / SOS icon after a crash) first — it's free, and sometimes it's the whole fix.
That's exactly when to try us. We've recovered GoPro files by reading the camera's own internal box chain out of the raw payload, ref-free — upload the broken chapter and, if you have it, a healthy chapter from the same recording as a reference.
Not usually. Jello effect, rolling-shutter warp, and compression artifacts in footage that plays fine are camera and codec characteristics, not file corruption, and no repair changes them. If the file won't play at all, that's a different, genuinely fixable problem.
For GoPro, another chapter from the same recording — same camera, same settings. For DJI, another clip from the same drone in the same mode: same codec (H.264 or H.265), resolution, and frame rate. A clip from a different device or a different recording mode won't supply what the broken file is missing.
Yes — direct upload handles files up to 25 GB.
We don't keep files indefinitely — retention windows are disclosed on our privacy page, and a reference clip is used only for the job you sent it with.