RSV Rescue › Guides › How to recover a Sony .RSV file

How to recover a Sony .RSV file

Your camera stopped mid-recording and left a .RSV file instead of an .MP4. In most cases the picture and sound are still on the card. Here is how to get them back safely.

1. Stop using the card

Take the card out and don’t record on it, format it or let the camera “repair” anything you can’t undo until you have a copy. Every new recording can overwrite the space your lost clip still occupies.

2. Copy the whole card to your computer

Use a card reader and copy everything, not just the one file. On Sony cameras the clips live in PRIVATE/M4ROOT/CLIP/. The broken clip ends in .RSV (for example C0042.RSV) and is usually several gigabytes. Work only on the copy from now on.

3. Check the file size

If the .RSV is a normal size (gigabytes for a long take), your footage is inside it and can usually be rebuilt. If it shows 0 bytes, the camera never wrote the recording into the file: see RSV file is 0 bytes.

4. Optional: let the camera try first

Some Sony cameras try to restore an interrupted clip themselves when the same card goes back in with a charged battery and the camera is switched on (you may see a “recovering data” message). Only try this after you have your copy from step 2, and don’t format if it asks.

5. Rebuild the .RSV into a playable video

A .RSV is missing the index that tells players where each frame and sound sample is, so renaming it to .MP4 doesn’t work. It has to be rebuilt:

1. Open rsvrescue.com in Chrome, Edge or Safari on a Mac or Windows computer.
2. Drop the .RSV onto the page. It is read in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
3. Watch the free 15-second preview with sound to check it’s your clip.
4. If you’re happy, pay once for that file and save the full repaired video.

RSV Rescue reads the camera’s own settings, picture and sound from the .RSV itself, so you don’t need a reference clip from the same camera. The result is a normal QuickTime .MOV with the original picture and sound, untouched (nothing is re-encoded), that opens in Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, QuickTime and VLC.

6. Check sync and the end of the clip

The last fraction of a second before the camera stopped is often incomplete and is left out; that’s normal. If part of the card was damaged, RSV Rescue holds the last good picture and puts silence where sound was lost, so everything after stays in sync, and tells you where it happened. If your repaired clip is ever out of sync, you get your money back.

What not to do

• Don’t format or keep shooting on the card before copying it.
• Don’t just rename .RSV to .MP4. Players still can’t find the frames. See converting RSV to MP4.
• Don’t run “repair” tools on the original. Always work on a copy.

Try the free preview → Drop your .RSV and watch the first 15 seconds of your recovered clip before you pay anything.