How to Repair M4V Video Files

Did you go to play an M4V file, only to find that it’s corrupted or damaged? In such a state, it will either not play at all, or only play certain parts of the file. As frustrating as this is, it is possible to repair the M4V file to working order. Some readers who found our other video repair articles useful reached out about M4V recovery. Therefore, we’ve gone ahead and tested all of the most effective M4V repair methods and compiled them into this easy-to-read guide.

Level 1: Easy Fixes

The following solutions are intended to be quick and easy, as sometimes it’s not necessary to use highly advanced solutions when basic ones suffice. Here are some of the easiest ways you can repair M4V files on Windows and macOS.

Option A: VLC Media Player

Before deeming the video file unplayable, it’s a good idea to try playing it with a media player that supports a wide array of codecs. VLC is a good choice of software for this. If you haven’t tried yet, go ahead and try playing the video with VLC.

If the M4V video is still unplayable, there’s an automatic repair feature built-in to VLC that we’re going to use to our advantage. The repair function we’re using is designed to work with AVI files, so before we start, make a copy of the corrupted M4V file and rename it with the AVI extension. For example, a file named video.m4v will be renamed to video.avi.

Follow these steps to try fixing the video file with VLC:

1. Open VLC. Go to Tools, then click Preferences.
2. Go to the Input / Codecs tab.
3. Scroll down to the Damaged or incomplete AVI file dropdown. Change it to Always fix, then click Save.
4. Try playing the video with VLC.

Option B: Clever Online Video Repair

Repairing videos using online tools has always been a quick and reliable way of restoring them to working order. Clever Online Video Repair is a free video repair tool that allows you to fix corrupted or damaged M4V videos. Unlike other online video repair tools that typically only allow uploads up to 500 MB, Clever Online Video Repair supports files up to 5 GB in size, which is another reason why we recommend it.

In order to repair the corrupted M4V video, you will need a healthy, working video recorded on the same device. The repair tool will take the necessary information from the healthy video file to fix the damaged one.

Here’s how you can use Clever Online Video Repair to fix a M4V video file:

1. Open repair.cleverfiles.com and upload your damaged M4V video file.
2. Select the device that was used to record the video, or click Unknown device.
3. Upload a healthy reference M4V file that was recorded on the same device.
4. Create a free account, or sign in.
5. Download the repaired M4V file.

Level 2: Intermediate Fixes

More severe cases of damage may necessitate slightly more powerful M4V repair tools, some of which we’ve included in our extensive guide on how to fix corrupted or damaged video files. More specifically, ones that are capable of re-encoding the file, either to a different format or the same one. Re-encoding can repair corruption by reprocessing the video into a new container, bypassing damaged or corrupted metadata. We’ve included three options here, all of which are free and open-source.

Option A: HandBrake

Handbrake is an open-source video transcoder designed to convert videos from one format to another. Initially released in 2003, it has become a reliable choice for many due to it offering an array of advanced options while still being easy to use.

This is how you re-encode an M4V video with Handbrake:

1. Download and install HandBrake.
2. Drag the corrupted M4V file into HandBrake.
3. Select the settings you want for the output file, or choose one of the preset options. When you’re ready, click Start Encode.

Option B: VLC Media Player

You may be surprised to learn that VLC also includes the ability to convert videos, which will re-encode them. It might not include all of the options that a dedicated application like Handbrake does, but it has everything you’d need to perform basic re-encoding.

Re-encode the M4V video with VLC using these steps:

1. Open VLC and click Media, then Convert / Save.
2. Click Add and select the corrupted M4V file. Then click Convert / Save.
3. Choose a profile (or create a new one), select an output location, then click Start.

Option C: Shutter Encoder

Shutter Encoder is a common choice for re-encoding videos. It makes use of FFmpeg, a powerful open-source tool for handling multimedia files. As FFmpeg is run at the command line, it’s included further down the article as a more challenging fix. However, we’ve included Shutter Encoder because it makes using FFmpeg a whole lot easier thanks to the refined graphical user interface (GUI). For some, it’s even better than Handbrake.

Here’s how you can easily re-encode a video with Shutter Encoder:

1. Download and install Shutter Encoder.
2. Click Browse and select your corrupted M4V video file. Alternatively, drag it into the box.
3. Click Choose function, then select your desired output codecs.
4. Make any adjustments to the settings as needed. When you’re ready, click Start function.

Level 3: Expert Fixes

We’ve reserved the more challenging fixes for those who either didn’t have much success with the methods already mentioned or want to jump straight to the hard-hitting fixes that can repair M4V video files.

Option A: Untrunc

Untrunc is a command-line tool specifically designed to fix truncated video files, specifically those using the MP4, M4V, MOV, or 3GP containers.

Like Clever Online Video Repair, a healthy reference video file that was recorded on the same device is required. Untrunc will extract the necessary information and use it to fix the damaged M4V file.

Untrunc comes packed with its own GUI under the filename untrunc-gui.exe. You can also use MP4 Repair Untrunc GUI, which is our preferred tool because it has the same functionality but a slightly better user interface (UI). We’ll demonstrate how to use MP4 Repair Untrunc GUI first:

1. Download and open MP4 Repair Untrunc GUI (mp4repair.exe).
2. Select your reference file.
3. Select the corrupt file.
4. Click Execute.

Installing the command-line version of Untrunc requires setting up a path to it in Windows. This will allow you to invoke it anywhere, rather than having to manually specify where it is all the time.

Follow these instructions to set up an environment variable for Untrunc:

1. Download the automatic Windows build by AppVeyor.
2. Extract it somewhere where it will reside permanently.
3. Open Start and search “System Variables”. Click Edit the system environment variables.
4. Click Environment Variables.
5. Select Path in the System variables section, then click Edit.
6. Click Browse, then select the untrunc_x64 folder. Close all of these windows by clicking OK.

At this point, Untrunc is set up and usable. You can test this by opening Terminal (Right-click Start and click Terminal (Admin)) and typing untrunc -V. It should respond with the version you’re using.

Now that it’s set up, this is how you use Untrunc to repair a truncated M4V video:

1. Go to the folder that contains the corrupted and healthy files. Right-click an empty space and click Open in Terminal.
2. Type in the following command. Remember, you must specify your reference file, then the corrupted one.

   untrunc.exe healthy-file.m4v corrupt-file.m4v

   

Option B: FFmpeg

Few tools exist that are as versatile in functionality as FFmpeg. FFmpeg is a multimedia framework that can perform a host of tasks. We’re going to use it to copy the stream from your M4V file and put it in an MP4 container. Here’s why.

The M4V format also doubles as a pure stream format used by tools and video capture devices, allowing them to be written directly to the disc. These files should still be playable, but sometimes the final format may appear unplayable to video players (which sometimes happens with M4V streams created by Adobe’s Creative Suite).

For Mac users, FFmpeg can be installed with Homebrew. Windows users, however, will need to download a pre-compiled version and manually set up the environment.

This is how you install FFmpeg on Windows using the full build by Gyan.dev:

1. Download the full build of FFmpeg.
2. Return to the Environment Variables window and edit the path again. We demonstrated how to get there when setting up Untrunc.
3. Click Browse, and select the bin subfolder of the FFmpeg folder. Close all windows by clicking OK on each one.

Once FFmpeg is installed and it can be referenced from anywhere in the Terminal, it’s time to make use of it. Here’s how you can move the contents of your M4V file to an MP4 one using FFmpeg:

1. Open the folder that contains your corrupted video. Right-click an empty space and click Open in Terminal.
2. Run the following command. Be sure to change the file names to your own.

   ffmpeg -i corrupt-file.m4v -vcodec copy -acodec copy fixed-file.mp4

   

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