Its over

[4wd]

I don't see much of a problem, you won't get perfect video whizzing about close to the ground.
If the camera has a fault it would show in a more static scene - you could even try something like recording a brick wall without actually flying.
As hinted above you need to look at the SD card file not the lower res video recorded live after being transmitted to your phone.

 

[F22arecool]

This video is directly from the SD card. The problem isn't how I was flying the drone, I was flying much slower and the problem persisted with all videos that I took. This one shows the line in the video the best because of the complex texture of the grass. There is a noticable loss of quality only seen in the bottom edge not seen anywhere else in any of the frames. I am just wondering if I should get the drone swapped out or if you guys think that this is a software issue with the video decoding that can be fixed with a future firmware update.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

If someone else with a MM can record some video to see if they have an issue at least you’ll know.
I feel it will likely be an error with your mini though, whether to wait is the question or just take it back and exchange now.

 

[Mr Catnip]

The shape of the distortion is roughly of a really elongated ellipse (it doesn't occur in the corners and ramps up towards the center) so it rules out the possibility of being a post artifact.

My guess is, this is a result of either a badly coded lens distortion compensation algorithm where nonexistent sensor data is encoded into the stream, or bad crop causing artifacts of lens distortion removal to show up.

The height of the bar in the center of the picture is 8 pixels, which is exactly half of an MPEG macroblock.

 

[Dannick]

The shape of the distortion is roughly of a really elongated ellipse (it doesn't occur in the corners and ramps up towards the center) so it rules out the possibility of being a post artifact.

My guess is, this is a result of either a badly coded lens distortion compensation algorithm where nonexistent sensor data is encoded into the stream, or bad crop causing artifacts of lens distortion removal to show up.

The height of the bar in the center of the picture is 8 pixels, which is exactly half of an MPEG macroblock.

I think you're best bet is to just take it back to Best Buy and get a replacement. No matter what anyone here says, you are clearly not happy with those artifacts in the video, and Best Buy shouldn't have any issue getting you a new one assuming they have stock. Yes, you can go to your local store even if you ordered online. Hope you get it worked out!

 

[DanMan32]

Note that although a U1 card should be fast enough for 40Mbs, specs for Mini say U3. It could be that whoever wrote the specs just made a mistake since MA and M2 require it.

 

[F22arecool]

I went to best buy and did the exchange. The soonest the new unit will get to me will be December 5th... kinda sucks but hopefully this one should be defect free. Thank you everyone for the help and I'm glad I asked here!

 

[Dannick]

I went to best buy and did the exchange. The soonest the new unit will get to me will be December 5th... kinda sucks but hopefully this one should be defect free. Thank you everyone for the help and I'm glad I asked here!

Glad you got a resolution. Sucks about the wait, but better late than never. You'll probably still end up with your replacement before some people who ordered direct from DJI will get their initial unit.

 

[F22arecool]

So I contacted Best Buy and their customer service bumped the priority of the order to arrive by November 25th! So if anyone has a similar issue, then I recommend them to be pushy but respectful to the customer service people. I also recommend to buy through a carrier with a physical location in their vicinity just in case they have any problems.

 

[Mossiback]

I am using a 64gb Sandisk Ultra Plus class 10. It should be fast enough...

That card us rated U1. While waiting for your new Mini you should get a U3 card from a trusted source. Depending on your settings, a U1 card may introduce the artifacts you are getting because it can not write fast enough.

 

[F22arecool]

That card us rated U1. While waiting for your new Mini you should get a U3 card from a trusted source. Depending on your settings, a U1 card may introduce the artifacts you are getting because it can not write fast enough.

Ok I am going to the store right now, is sandisk memory as reliable as samsung?

 

[Mossiback]

Ok I am going to the store right now, is sandisk memory as reliable as samsung?

I am guessing that major brands are of similar quality, since their names are on the product, but have not done a study on this. The important thing is the U3 rating and buy from a reliable source. I have read of counterfeit cards floating around with most coming from internet sales.

I would recommend getting two smaller cards instead of one large one. Since the MM battery will probably drain faster than the card will fill up, you can always swap it out during battery changes if necessary. They are very small and it would suck to drop the only one you have in the grass.

 

[WithTheBirds]

Ok I am going to the store right now, is sandisk memory as reliable as samsung?

Samsung might be less attractive to counterfeiters- they tend to go for the biggest selling brands. I have great success with Samsung EVO, have given the Samsungs away. Two failures left a bad taste in my mouth.

You should have got the new card for testing before returning the mini- chances are good it had nothing wrong with it.

 

[TheRock]

You can see it easily in the screen shot he posted first. Take it back. It shouldn't do that. You'll have to crop all your videos to make them useful. I wonder if you can test the one you get in the store when you do the exchange. You can fire it up, record and play it back without flying it. Then you can know if it is working out or not. Perhaps it needs to be registered first? Not sure. But I would take it back and get a new one.

 

[WithTheBirds]

You can see it easily in the screen shot he posted first. Take it back. It shouldn't do that. You'll have to crop all your videos to make them useful. I wonder if you can test the one you get in the store when you do the exchange. You can fire it up, record and play it back without flying it. Then you can know if it is working out or not. Perhaps it needs to be registered first? Not sure. But I would take it back and get a new one.

I could see it easily in my Mavic footage also, in my case the issue was the memory card on one occasion and the supplied USB card reader on another.

 

[F22arecool]

I could see it easily in my Mavic footage also, in my case the issue was the memory card on one occasion and the supplied USB card reader on another.

A previous commenter said it was a lens distortion because it was more distorted in the center and it tapered off to each side. When you had memory issues did this cause the same problem? And were you using a mavic pro or air?

 

[TheRock]

I could see it easily in my Mavic footage also, in my case the issue was the memory card on one occasion and the supplied USB card reader on another.

Thanks for the heads up. I have not experienced that problem with cards but will look out for it in the future with any new cards I may try.

 

[WithTheBirds]

A previous commenter said it was a lens distortion because it was more distorted in the center and it tapered off to each side. When you had memory issues did this cause the same problem? And were you using a mavic pro or air?

I had substantially similar issues with a phantom 3 pro and more recently a Mavic 2 pro. In my case it was several horizontal lines that contained image data that seemed to belong in another area of the frame. Do us a favour and repot back how the card performs in the replacement mini. The mini may well have been faulty- all I'm suggesting is that the card could be implicated also. It was in my case.

 

[WWK888]

Too bad you weren’t able to try a different card before you returned it, now you will never know if that was the problem. I am betting it was card issue. Good luck with the replacement.

 

[F22arecool]

I had substantially similar issues with a phantom 3 pro and more recently a Mavic 2 pro. In my case it was several horizontal lines that contained image data that seemed to belong in another area of the frame. Do us a favour and repot back how the card performs in the replacement mini. The mini may well have been faulty- all I'm suggesting is that the card could be implicated also. It was in my case.

Ok I will do that. But the card I am using should be quick enough. The mavic mini has a max video rate of 6 megabytes per second as compared to the Pro 2's 12.5 per second. A class 10 is rated to 10 megabytes per second which should exceed the requirement by a lot. But I will do a test to see with both, a new faster card and the original one, and see if the video quality suffers between the two.