4K video from Mini2 refuses to play on PC

[lissforester]

Unless you have a 4K monitor (in which case you need a more powerful PC or video card), intend to crop the footage or want to upload it somewhere at that resolution there is no real reason to shoot in 4K. If your PC is struggling to edit 4K just create proxies. Otherwise the old addage just because you can doesn't mean you should applies.

Hi DJM68,
It is not that my PC is struggling to edit 4K I have not got to the stage of trying to edit it yet, my PC is incapable of playing 4K video as written in my first post.
It is looking more and more like the first thing that I thought, GPU/Graphics Card bottle necking.

Fast CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
Frequency: 3.7 GHz
Turbo Boost: 4.6 GHz

Fast Asus Rog Strix B550 Gaming MoBo
M.2 Main Hard Drive

16 GB of 3200 Ram (I am told this is plenty)

nVidia GeForce GT710 2GB DDR6 Graphics Card (This is a passive heatsink card with no fan) I believe this slow old card could be the issue.
I understand that it is not just the amount of memory or the speed of the memory but all to do with the card architecture and technology (I don't know the right terms)

LOL! I don't care for your 'Old Adage' much, it should reside in the trash can, along with my Old Graphics Card.
Because If I purchase a 1000cc Yamaha Fazer 🏍 with a claimed top speed of 30 mph I really want to try, even if it is just once to see if it will do 30 mph. otherwise I might just as well have bought a 250cc .

But I do appreciate you taking the time to reply.
Thanks
Tom
Lissforester

 

[ashyt16]

If you are using VLC for playback, try disabling 'Hardware-accelerated decoding" (see picture):
or try MediaPlayer Classic :

Media Player Classic Home Cinema: MPC-HC

Download Media Player Classic Home Cinema: MPC-HC for free. An extremely light-weight, open source media player for Windows®. Media Player Classic Home Cinema (MPC-HC) is an extremely light-weight, open source media player for Windows®. Media Player Classic Home Cinema supports all common video...

sourceforge.net

The MPC-HC project is dead. It is now MPC-BE (Media player classic black) as I posted earlier.
If this cannot play it, nothing will.

MPC-BE

Download MPC-BE for free. Media Player Classic - BE. Media Player Classic - BE is a free and open source audio and video player for Windows. Media Player Classic - BE is based on the original "Media Player Classic" project (Gabest) and "Media Player Classic Home Cinema" project (Casimir666)...

sourceforge.net

Best to install the LAV filters as this improvs playback performance and compatibility greatly.
D3D11 hardware acceleration works well for lesser cards.

 

[lissforester]

The MPC-HC project is dead. It is now MPC-BE (Media player classic black) as I posted earlier.
If this cannot play it, nothing will.

MPC-BE

Download MPC-BE for free. Media Player Classic - BE. Media Player Classic - BE is a free and open source audio and video player for Windows. Media Player Classic - BE is based on the original "Media Player Classic" project (Gabest) and "Media Player Classic Home Cinema" project (Casimir666)...

sourceforge.net

Best to install the LAV filters as this improvs playback performance and compatibility greatly.
D3D11 hardware acceleration works well for lesser cards.

 

[lissforester]

Ashyt16,
I downloaded the prog you recommended 'Media Player Classic Black Edition'
And low and behold my 4K video plays reasonably smoothly in this on my computer now.

I took the drone up over some common land here this afternoon and shot some video in 2.7K and I am really pleased with the quality.
MBC BE plays 2.7K video really, really well, no more faltering or bottle necking.
Good call Ashyt16.
One more thing when playing back video through MPC BE I get all the flight info displayed on the screen,
(See attached pic of my computer screen taken with my phone) any idea how to remove this info, it is really useful, but detracts from the viewing experience.

Nice one.
Sorry about the crap quality of the attached picture, rubbish phone

 

[ashyt16]

Ashyt16,
I downloaded the prog you recommended 'Media Player Classic Black Edition'
And low and behold my 4K video plays reasonably smoothly in this on my computer now.

I took the drone up over some common land here this afternoon and shot some video in 2.7K and I am really pleased with the quality.
MBC BE plays 2.7K video really, really well, no more faltering or bottle necking.
Good call Ashyt16.
One more thing when playing back video through MPC BE I get all the flight info displayed on the screen,
(See attached pic of my computer screen taken with my phone) any idea how to remove this info, it is really useful, but detracts from the viewing experience.

Nice one.
Sorry about the crap quality of the attached picture, rubbish phone

Looks like embedded subs. Right click on the player screen to bring up the menu then select subtitles then untick 'enable'
Tbh I didn't even know it did that, cool feature!

 

[Johnmcl7]

Have you tried monitoring the CPU and GPU usage in task manager yet?

 

[lissforester]

Have you tried monitoring the CPU and GPU usage in task manager yet?

Hi Johnmcl7,
Just got back from a trip to see my daughter in Bristol United Kingdom.
I flew over and (About 2 miles away) recorded some 4K video over 'The Clifton Suspension Bridge' Built/Completed in the 1860's by 'Isambard Kingdom Brunel'

I checked out the computer performance in Task Manager whilst play back the video directly from the computer.

I can not argue with the results the GPU was locking out at 100% and stalling/locking up, while the CPU was flicking between 2% and 3% usage.

One Hundred Percent GPU Bottlenecking, confirms what was my 'suspicions' into absolute 'fact'.

Thanks for the advice.
Tom

 

[lissforester]

Many, Many thanks to all who have contributed to this post, all the advice, help and suggestions have been really appreciated.

Lovin 'Media Player Classic Black Edition' thanks for that Ashyt16.

 

[ashyt16]

Many, Many thanks to all who have contributed to this post, all the advice, help and suggestions have been really appreciated.

Lovin 'Media Player Classic Black Edition' thanks for that Ashyt16.

No Worries, there are still tweaks you can do.
You can press CTRL + J while playing a clip.
This will bring up the OSD and show you some info like framerate etc.
In the LAV filters settings try D3D11 as hardware decoder.
In the right click menu under options use 'Custom presenter' as renderer and change the scaling method to Bilinear.
Do this while checking the GPU performance in task manager.
Be aware some operations require the player to be restarted to take effect.

Also make sure you record in 24fps and match the refresh rate of your monitor at 24hz.
If you record at 60fps and play back at 60hz your GPU will max out and likely drop frames causing jerky playback.

 

[Johnmcl7]

Hi Johnmcl7,
Just got back from a trip to see my daughter in Bristol United Kingdom.
I flew over and (About 2 miles away) recorded some 4K video over 'The Clifton Suspension Bridge' Built/Completed in the 1860's by 'Isambard Kingdom Brunel'

I checked out the computer performance in Task Manager whilst play back the video directly from the computer.

I can not argue with the results the GPU was locking out at 100% and stalling/locking up, while the CPU was flicking between 2% and 3% usage.

One Hundred Percent GPU Bottlenecking, confirms what was my 'suspicions' into absolute 'fact'.

Thanks for the advice.
Tom

That looks a great location to shoot with a drone.

I'd try playing back a video with hardware acceleration disabled, you can do this in VLC by going to Tools ---> Preferences ---> Input/Codecs and untick hardware acceleration then try playing back a video and see what's happening in task manager. This should force your CPU to do the playback rather than the graphics card which is the opposite way round to how you normally do it but since you have a powerful CPU and weak GPU it may work for you

I tried this on my system and before making the change the CPU was really low at around 1% and then when I disabled the hardware acceleration the CPU usage shot up to 10% so it appeared it was now using my CPU but was still playing Mavic 2 Pro 4K clips smoothly.