I know checking on microbial viability instead of culturability using molecular techniques such as DVC-Fish seems to be good, but it still holds on culturability recovery.
Have you checked the PMA (propidium mono Azide)? In our hand, it’s look helpful to decipher between intact and broken particles using in qPCR. (See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25175698 for example).