IPhone 4 videos have been corrupted on import

Question

I shot hundreds of videos on my iPhone 4 this summer. I imported them to my iMac using Image Capture on my return, and have only just decided to have a look at them in iMovie.
Upon attempting to import them to iMovie I noticed it only recognised 333 of 367 videos. I found the videos in the Finder and discovered that about 40 of them don't have thumbnails. I tried to open them with Quicktime and it said, "QuickTime Player can't open "IMG_2859.MOV" because the movie's file format isn't recognized."
And yes, I have since wiped my phone of these videos as Image Capture gave me no reason to suspect any were corrupted. They all played fine on my iPhone while they were there.
So, are these videos lost forever?

Answer 1

So something's happened to my hard drive to corrupt just these 40 videos in this particular way, do you think? Everything else seems fine. Hmm. Do you have any more information or useful links that I can read more about this phenomena?
Not necessarily. It simply means the files, as written to your hard drive, have a problem. This corruption could just as easily be introduced during the transfer process or been included in the original file on the iPhone whose player may or may not trap on a format test since it already knows the format used to store the file when the iPhone actually records the content. As to other information, you can search the QT forum for similar topics. This is not the first time users have reported this problem. In each case the problem files play on the iphone but not on the computer after transfer.
It seems like something there should be a market for but I found only two apps that deal with this sort of corruption and both want astronomical amounts of money for the use of a tool to fix them and make it awfully awkward to actually work out if your video is saveable in the first place, including uploading it to them! Very odd, old school way of doing business, and has put me off using either of their tools.
Have not researched solutions but can readily see why it might be expensive. For one thing the software may have to be tailored to the specific problem. This may also explain why the file would require examination by a qualified expert whose "bench time" may easily cost you $80-$120 per hour. You will note that I too asked you if it were possible to examine a copy of the problem file. In my case, I wanted to know if the file container could be opened by an application like Dumpster. If so, I then wondered if the problem might be solved by simply adding a valid entry to the field preventing the file from being played. This, of course assumes there is nothing else wrong with the file. This is not a work flow I normally use and only thought of it because a user in this forum was reversing width/height values when encodeding his content and then re-setting the "Current Display" value to display his files at the desired dimensions in old generation media players like QT 7. Unfortunately his work flow causes the files to display in "new generation" aspect ratio oriented player apps like QT X at their original endode matrix dimensions. In any case, in discovering two ways to modify his work flow, I found it was possible to modify media header data if the file could be opened and thought your problem file might be good for further testing.
Disappointed but not the end of the world, it's only a bit of holiday video. At least it wasn't my wedding.
Good attitude. My philosophy is to use dedicated devices for dedicated uses—i.e., use a camcoder for movies, a digital camera for still photos, and an iPhone for phone calls (with or without FaceTime).
Really would like to know as much more as possible about how this happens and why, so I can do what I can to avoid it. No other files I have randomly corrupt themselves weeks after being ingested onto the computer!
Sorry, this is a relatively new area for me and I am learning by "feeling my way around" at this point. (Basically, my interests are directed at the conversion of my video library for TV viewing.) As to avoiding such problems in the future, that will likely depend on when and how the files are being corrupted. If at the source, there is little or notheing you can do. If during file transfer process, you might try a different work flow. And if you have no other problems with the hard drive, it is unlikely that files are randomly corrupting themselves weeks after being copied.