Repair · DJI · MP4 · HEVC
Repair broken DJI footage.
Drone crashed, signal lost mid-recording, battery suddenly dead? Haven rebuilds footage from the Mavic, Air, Mini, Avata, Inspire and Osmo Pocket/Action — including D-Log and 10-bit H.265.
Analysis free · Pay only when it works · No sign-up
Supported
- · Mavic 3
- · Mavic 4
- · Air 3
- · Mini 4 Pro
- · Avata 2
- · Inspire 3
- · Osmo Pocket 3
- · Osmo Action 5
Recognize your problem?
Common damage patterns with DJI
Drone crashed, recording cut off
After a crash the file is usually still on the internal SD or microSD, but incomplete. The container is missing at the end, yet the first seconds up to the crash can be recovered.
Signal loss → Return-To-Home interrupts the recording
When the drone enters RTH mode, the recording is sometimes not closed cleanly. The file shows a correct size but will not open.
D-Log M or 10-bit H.265 will not play
Premiere shows a blank picture, QuickTime crashes. On broken files with a missing codec-parameter header, this hits even DJI clips that look intact.
Avata FPV footage with frame drops
The Avata writes H.265 at a high bitrate (130 Mbit/s+). On microSD bottlenecks, gaps appear that are not container damage but can still make the file look unplayable.
Why does this happen?
The most common causes
01
Drone crash
The Mavic, Mini and Avata write the video file live to microSD. In a hard crash the write is cut off abruptly and the final moov header is missing. The main use case.
02
Battery drop in the cold
LiPo batteries lose capacity dramatically at temperatures below 5°C. If the drone shuts off abruptly in the air, the recording is not finalised cleanly.
03
Recording stopped during a card swap
When the microSD fills up and gets physically removed during recording (which should not happen but does), the container is left open.
04
Faulty SD-card slot
The Mavic 3 Pro has a fairly tight microSD slot. Repeated insertions and in-flight vibration can cause intermittent write errors.
How to do it
Repair in four steps
- 01
microSD out of the drone, save the file
Remove the card from the crashed drone (carefully — the slot may be damaged). If the card no longer reads inside the drone, use a card reader. Copy the file, do not cut it.
- 02
A reference from an earlier flight
An intact clip from the same drone with the same settings (4K30 vs 4K60 vs C4K, D-Log vs Normal). Ideally from the same day, so the firmware version is identical.
- 03
Drop into Haven, codec-profile match
Haven automatically recognises DJI-specific uuid boxes and assigns the right codec. For 10-bit H.265 D-Log, colour primaries and the transfer function are taken from the reference.
- 04
Preview, then export
Once picture and sound (if present) run in sync and the last seconds before the crash are recognisable, you export the repaired file. The original stays untouched on the card.
Engineering detail
D-Log and colour metadata on DJI
For D-Log and D-Log M, DJI writes specific colour primaries, transfer functions and colour spaces into the VUI parameters of the HEVC bitstream (BT.2020 + ARIB STD-B67 or PQ). When those headers are lost, the recovered picture looks flat and wrongly colour-mapped. Haven extracts the correct VUI bytes from your reference clip and patches them back into the repaired file.
For CLI nerds — fallback without Haven
ffmpeg -i kaputt.mp4 -c copy -movflags faststart neu.mp4For light container damage, a simple remux can already help. When the moov is missing, though, ffmpeg aborts right away — then you need Haven.
FAQ · DJI
Common questions
Does this work after a water crash?
If the microSD is dry and still reads in a card reader, yes. Dry a wet card for 48h first (the rice method), then read it out. If the card itself is destroyed, Haven can do nothing more.
Does it help with Avata 2 10-bit H.265?
Yes, the Avata 2 with 10-bit 4:2:0 H.265 is a classic use case. Important: the intact reference must also be 10-bit H.265, not the 8-bit fallback.
What if only the boot sequence got recorded?
Very short clips (under 2 seconds) often do not have enough mdat data for a meaningful reconstruction. Try the free analysis — before you pay, Haven tells you honestly whether it is worth it.
Are GPS and telemetry data recovered too?
The subtitle streams embedded in the MP4 with GPS/speed data are recovered as well, provided the relevant mdat section is intact. After the repair they remain visible in DJI Studio.
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