SpaceX has taken an interesting approach here -- effectively, they've crowdsourced a more-robust MPEG decoder! It would be interesting to hear a description of the steps they've already taken to repair the bitstream (and would be <i>really</i> cool to see source for it). I fear that may be asking too much, though.<p>I also wonder how much could be recovered if they had a sufficiently advanced soft-decision air interface. If the missing macroblocks from the bitstream are simply macroblocks that have failed a checksum, data from the radio receiver as to which bits it has the lowest confidence in could be very valuable in pulling more blocks "from thin air". The answer may be "no, there is nothing else to recover", but it seems like a good jumping-off point for more research...
This had to be so disappointing when they pulled the footage out and found it.<p>You can kind of vaguely get a sense that it worked from the picture though: the motion in the compression artifacting shows the engine burning till landing, and then you get the distinct "tipping over" sense afterwards before it all goes grey.
Bummer the quality is so poor. I was really hoping for something really, really cool to watch. I'm guessing this is more than just a GoPro taped to the side so it is surprising to me that the video failed so hard. It also surprises me that they didn't have several cameras just in case. But in the interest of staying positive, I guess they learned a few more things to avoid next time. I am super excited about the progress SpaceX has made and will continue to make. I can't even count the number of times I've watched the "low launch and ground landing" videos. So cool to watch history in the making.
Paging Oona Räisänen... It's been posted here before, but that helicopter signal decoding was quite a feat. [1]<p>1: <a href="http://www.windytan.com/2014/02/mystery-signal-from-helicopter.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.windytan.com/2014/02/mystery-signal-from-helicopt...</a>
I was wondering why it was taking them so long to post a video. Either post it or don't, but a delay is just weird.<p>Well, now it all makes sense. Terrible corruption! Unfortunate, but these things happen. Certainly a minor failure compared to the overall great success of this test.