How to Repair a Corrupt Video File

Most media players can play a variety of different file types.

When you play a video file, your media player takes the information, the relevant codecs, and translates the data into a video that you can see. When some of this information is incorrect or goes missing, the video file becomes corrupted and your media player will be unable to play the file past a certain point, or in some cases play the file at all. Instead of completely replacing the file, you can download and use one of many video repair programs, designed to fix corrupt video files.

Instructions

1. Download and install DivX Repair, a program specifically designed to repair .avi files, one of the more common file types. The program works by finding and eliminating the corrupted frames, allowing the video to skip over them and play. The program is free to use.

2. Download then install ASF AVI RM WMV Repair (see Resources.) Unlike DivX Repair, this program works on four different types of video files: asf, .avi, .rm and .wmv. The program is free to try, but if you need to fix many corrupted files you'll need to purchase it.

3. Download All Video Fixer 2008 (see Resources.) This program can fix more video files than the other two, but it is also more expensive at $34.95 as of September 2010. You can use the trial version if you only need to convert one or two files.

Tips & Warnings

• Save your new file under a different name so that you don't overwrite the old file and lose all of the data.

References

• File Extensions: .wmv
• File Extensions: .avi

Resources

• DivX Repair
• ASF AVI RM WMV Repair
• All Video Fixer 2008