I have tens of thousands of JPEG files on my workstation. And the number keeps growing every month as I capture
thousands more images with my digital cameras. Some of the files are extremely valuable. They belong to my clients,
and I'm keeping them as backups, in case my clients need more copies in the future. Others belong to me, and they have
an immeasurable sentimental value.
The problem is, how can I search through the thirty-something thousand files currently on my PC to find which ones are
already corrupted? It isn't feasible for me to sit at the workstation and personally open every file in an image browser
to see which ones are corrupted. At an optimistic average of about three seconds for each photo, it'll take me about 23 hours
of non-stop clicking. That isn't feasible. Even if I could assign a few hours a day to the task (which I can't)
it'll take over seven days to go through all the files manually.
The JFV utility will scan your computer for JPEG files, and open each one to check it for any corruptions. JFV
will make a list of all the file names for the files in which errors are detected. Depending on the speed of your PC,
it could take many hours to scan all the files, because each JPEG has to be opened in your PC's memory, read from beginning
to end, or until an error is found. Since most JPEG files are not corrupted, the files have to be read all the way through
and then closed before moving on to the next file. Depending on the speed of the hard disk sub-system, it can take up
to a few seconds to check each JPEG file. That means we can check about 20 files per minute, or about 1,200
files per hour. If you have a lot of JPEG files (and who doesn't?!) then verification could take up to about 8.3
hours for every 10,000 JPEG images. I suggest that you let JFV do its work overnight, while you sleep.
I am still beta testing JFV. I'll release it to the world for a nominal license fee when I am confident that it
reliably and effectively does its job. In the meantime, if you are experiencing the problem of corrupted JPEG files
on your hard disk, or if you've already worked out a good solution, then please feel free to email me to share your experience.
I'd like to help you and learn from your experience.
Email me via craig [at] alkiratech [dot] com.
