Sony FX3 HEVC recovery after a formatted CFexpress card.
Finding the missing recording was only the first step. The XAVC HS footage survived the format, but the HEVC stream still had to be reconstructed correctly.
From surviving frames to usable HEVC.
The evidence had to answer four questions: was the footage still present, why did the reconstructed MP4 fail, what part of the Sony layout was wrong, and would the final result work outside the recovery tool?
1. The missing recording was still present.
Analysis identified 194 supported recordings and 184 recoverable clips, with 4,511 of 4,521 video chunks mapped and no ambiguous chunks. Clip 886 also produced recognizable preview frames from the missing September 9 footage.
2. A convincing MP4 still failed.
One reconstruction produced a roughly 5.21 GB file with the expected 3840 × 2160 HEVC video, PCM audio and 195.195-second duration. FFmpeg still reported invalid NAL-unit sizes, proving the container looked right while the HEVC samples inside it were wrong.
FFmpeg evidence: repeatedInvalid NAL unit sizeandError splitting the input into NAL unitserrors.3. The reconstruction error was isolated and corrected.
Diagnostic bundles preserved the mapping and failure evidence between tests. Tracing Sony's frame tables, chunk boundaries and HEVC sample layout exposed where the recovered bytes belonged. That working method became Version 2.0.
4. The customer verified the recovered clips in DaVinci Resolve.
The final result worked in the customer's editing workflow, independently of iCube Development's recovery application.
The clips that you found work in Resolve!
Jason Pope · Madstone Films · Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Recovered FX3 HEVC playing in VLC.
The recovered clip is decoding as video. The codec panel remains visible as technical proof.
This FX3 case established the working XAVC HS HEVC/H.265 reconstruction method. See Version 2.0 capabilities.
Have deleted or formatted Sony camera media?
Stop using the card. If possible, make a full-sector image first and work from the copy.
Recovery depends on what remains after formatting and later writes. Overwritten or controller-erased data cannot be reconstructed.