The Repair Kit is the tool you receive from Aero Quartet after sending a Repair Request. It is customized to repair exactly the type of corrupt movie that you have. It reads the corrupt movie and writes a valid movie file.
The Repair Kit comes in a zip file (file with .zip extension). If you open it, it creates a folder on your Desktop called "Repair Kit".
Inside this folder there is usually a program called RepairMovie and a ReadMe document that explains how to use it.
Before payment, the kit works in "trial mode". The repaired movie has artefacts or a watermark. This disappears after introducing the code sent upon payment.
Requirements:
RepairMovie runs on Mac OS X 10.4 and higher, on both PowerPC and Intel Mac computers.
There is no minimum requirement of CPU, RAM memory or hard disk space, but obviously an old or low performance system can slow down the repair process.
It's important to have enough storage space available before you start a repair. It's recommended to have at least two times the size of the file to repair. For example, if you want to repair an 8GB file, you need 16GB of available storage space.
What about Windows PC users?
Perform a repair:
If RepairMovie doesn't launch, it's either that it has expired, or that you are not using Mac OS X 10.4 or higher.
The Repair Folder can contain several files, it depends on the type of repair.
In the example above, we have the log file, a video file and 4 audio files that correspond to the 4 audio channels. In many cases, RepairMovie generates only one movie file that already contains audio and video.
Repair of multiple files:
If you have a large collection of corrupt files, it will be tedious to run RepairMovie for each of them.
Fortunately, there is a way to repair many files in one shot:
A. Launch RepairMovie and configure it as if you would repair one single file.
B. Instead of pushing the Repair button, drag the corrupt files on the application icon.
C. One window will open for each file. Don't panic!
D. Do File > Process all documents
E. All the files are repaired. For each of them, one subfolder inside the Repair Folder is created. It contains the log file and the corresponding audio and video files.
Performance tips:
The same applies as for video editing:
As repairs can be quite intensive in terms of hard disk reading and writing, you should:
- Use different hard disks for corrupt file and the Repair Folder (so that reading and writing cannot interfere and bottleneck)
- Avoid slow storage, like network disks, wireless connections.
If you just want to know what a corrupt file contains, it's not necessary to repair it completely. Use the start and end percentage to repair only a segment. For example, by repairing only between 0% and 1%, the processing time is reduced by a factor 100.
Licensing:
The Repair Kit is not a software product. It's a medium to deliver the repair.
As such, you cannot distribute it. You can use it only for the purpose of performing the repair.
The software expires after a few weeks.
Troubleshooting:
"I've entered the code but the artefacts are still here."
Double-check that you have really entered the code: "Code Accepted" should be displayed in the upper right corner. If it's not, you either entered a wrong code, or you haven't validated it with Enter.
"The repair stops at a certain point in the progress bar, then hangs or crashes"
Despite the expertise we put into developing the Repair Kit, this problem happens sometimes. The file that you are trying to repair can contain a data pattern that was not anticipated by the program, thus leading to a crash.
Two options:
1. Avoid such "rough spot" by setting start and end percentage before launching the repair. For example, if the problem occurs around 30% of the repair, then you can do a first run between 0% and 29%, it should complete without problem, then a second run between 31% and 99.9%. Note that each run will overwrite the previous files in the Repair Folder. If you want to keep the results of the previous run, move the files to a different folder.
2. If problems persists, ask the Repair Technician for support.
"The repair is not perfect. That's not what I was expecting"
Several kind of Defects can be present after a repair. Ask the Repair Technician for support. Sometimes two or three iterations of the Repair Kit are necessary to get it right.
"The application doesn't launch"
It's probably expired. Ask the Repair Technician for support.
