Lazaclip

A7C II RSV file: saving a recording that didn't finish

Updated 3 November 2026

The A7C II is a camera people take travelling: small, full-frame, often the only camera in the bag. So the interrupted recording tends to happen far from a computer. The battery runs out in the middle of a clip on a cold mountain, or the card comes out too quickly at the end of a long day. Back at the hotel, or at home, you find a .RSV file where the video should be.

This guide covers both parts: what to do while you are still on the road, and how to recover the clip once you have a Windows PC.

What the .RSV file is

During recording the camera writes the footage into a working .RSV file. When you stop, it adds the index (where each frame and each piece of audio sits) and renames the file to .MP4. A dead battery or a removed card means that never happened. The footage is still in the file; the index isn't, so nothing plays it. More in What is an RSV file?

The A7C II records XAVC S and XAVC HS (and, depending on settings, XAVC S-I) as .MP4, and an interrupted clip in any of them leaves an .RSV.

On a trip without a computer

The A7C II has a single SD card slot, so the card in it holds the only copy of the interrupted clip. Until you can copy it, the safest thing is to stop using that card:

  1. Take the card out and put it away, labelled if you can. Use a spare card for the rest of the trip. A spare SD card is easy to find almost anywhere.
  2. Don't format it to free up space, and don't delete clips on it in the camera.
  3. Don't shoot "just a few more" on it. New photos and videos can overwrite the space the interrupted recording occupies.
  4. If you have no spare card at all, move to shooting photos only on a different card as soon as you can; every new file on the problem card is a risk.

Free first try: back into the camera

Some Sony cameras try to recover an interrupted clip on their own when you put the card back into the same camera with a charged battery. Ideally do this after you have copied the card to a computer, because the camera writes to the card while it does it. If you are on a long trip and can't copy the card, it is your call: it may save the clip there and then, but there is no certainty either way. Use the same camera, a charged battery, switch on, and if a recovery message appears, let it finish without switching off.

Back home: copy the card

With an SD card reader, open the card in File Explorer and copy the whole PRIVATE folder to your PC. The videos are in PRIVATE/M4ROOT/CLIP, separate from the photos in DCIM. A common surprise: photo import tools sometimes copy only DCIM, so the video folder is never copied.

Recover the clip with Lazaclip

Lazaclip is our program for Windows 10 and 11 (we make it, so we are not neutral). It rebuilds the missing index and saves a normal .MP4 on your PC, offline and without changing the original:

  1. Open the card or the copied folder. All .RSV files are listed and checked; if a whole trip's card has more than one, you see them all at once.
  2. Click Preview 10 s to watch the start of the clip with a trial watermark. The scan and the preview are free.
  3. With a license, save the full video, or use Repair all for every .RSV on the card. One license covers all your files on one computer.

The recorded video and sound are copied as they are, not re-encoded. The repaired files are saved to your computer, never onto the card they came from.

Has it been tested with the A7C II?

Not yet. We tested Lazaclip on A7S III recordings in XAVC S (8-bit 4:2:0 and 10-bit 4:2:2), XAVC S-I and XAVC HS, rebuilt without a reference clip, with frames and audio identical to the original up to the last unfinished group of frames before the cut. The A7C II uses the same XAVC S / XAVC HS recording format; the free preview shows whether the program can read your file before you pay.

What to expect

  • The last second or so before the cut is lost; it was never completely written.
  • An XAVC HS clip needs H.265 support in your player or editor. In Windows' built-in apps that can mean Microsoft's HEVC video extension.
  • S-Log and HLG footage look flat or pale in the preview, as they do before grading; the saved file is the original data.
  • The repaired .MP4 is about as big as the .RSV; make sure you have the disk space.

Travel habits that prevent it

  • Carry at least one spare battery, and keep it warm in an inner pocket in the cold.
  • Charge every night, including the spare. A power bank is useful too, if the camera manual lists charging or powering over USB-C for your use.
  • Stop recording and wait a moment before you open the battery or card door.
  • Pack two or three SD cards and rotate them, so one problem doesn't put the whole trip at risk.

Other compact Sony bodies: the ZV-E10 II guide and the A6700 guide.