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Bought a Mavic Air 2S and it's a giant paper weight....

5.4K LOG won't play well at all on my decently powerful editing laptop ( i7 6 core, nvidia gtx 1060, 16gb), so if you are using a highly compressed high resoultion h.265 mode it could be a problem for the computer hardware to decode.
h.265 5.4K plays and edits as easy as 720p on the M1 iPad Pro. Thing is, LumaFusion can only export 4K 🤦🏼‍♂️

I’ve got Windows too, but nothing like your specs so .265 is a killer.

I could always sell my house and get an M1X MacBook 😂
 
Hi everyone.... so I already own a Mavic Air 2 and LOVE it! Decided to buy the Air 2S to add to my fleet. Bought it on 12/13/21 and the same day I went out to fly it. Got home, tried downloading the video and adding it to my video editor. The video file is corrupted and will not work. Lovely! I take it back to the store that I bought it and they sent it off to DJI for repair. I just got it back on 1/7/22. Flew it yesterday same thing even though DJI said the SD card reader was bad and they replaced it.

I'm at the point I have had enough of this and I'm going to have either DJI buy it back or dispute the charge on my credit card since the store has said that they do not do refunds which I think is BS. My credit card company already said they would dispute the card.

Has anyone else had this problem with the Air 2S? I have seen online others talking about this problem but all of the solutions out there are not working for me at all. I fly a lot and quite frankly the only thing I like about this drone is the distance it can travel. I'd love to hear from the community about this situation and I'm open to some ideas.... thanks!
I have owned an Air 2 since May 2020 which still flies perfectly and I recall having to buy a Microsoft file for about a dollar when I set up my new HP Z Book laptop with Windows 10 Pro. That may have been the same reason as noted elsewhere, here. One other suggestion to try would be to download your files on to your smartphone or tablet via DJI Fly and then simply copy them over to your PC. I have transferred Air 2 files off an SD card using a new external card reader that plugs into a USB port, and also off my iphone 11 Pro, simply as files from the detected folder at the USB connection. I format the SD card in the drone after every file off clearance, just to ensure that the card is effectively “reset”. I would keep separate cards for each drone. Good luck. Unless you really love FPV, I was surprised that you felt the Air 2 was lacking enough features to warrant the added cost of an Air 2S. I haven’t even seen benefits in the Mavic 3 to justify parking my Air 2 to gather dust! Cheers 👍😎🇳🇿
 
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Hi everyone.... so I already own a Mavic Air 2 and LOVE it! Decided to buy the Air 2S to add to my fleet. Bought it on 12/13/21 and the same day I went out to fly it. Got home, tried downloading the video and adding it to my video editor. The video file is corrupted and will not work. Lovely! I take it back to the store that I bought it and they sent it off to DJI for repair. I just got it back on 1/7/22. Flew it yesterday same thing even though DJI said the SD card reader was bad and they replaced it.

I'm at the point I have had enough of this and I'm going to have either DJI buy it back or dispute the charge on my credit card since the store has said that they do not do refunds which I think is BS. My credit card company already said they would dispute the card.

Has anyone else had this problem with the Air 2S? I have seen online others talking about this problem but all of the solutions out there are not working for me at all. I fly a lot and quite frankly the only thing I like about this drone is the distance it can travel. I'd love to hear from the community about this situation and I'm open to some ideas.... thanks!
Not a lot of details on your issue, so expect a lot of questions...
What type of SD Card?
Was type of video...2K, 4K video, what codec and color profile were/are you using?
What editor are you using?
Instead of trying to import it into your video editor can you just play the raw video file in say... windows media player, VLC, or QuickTime. if you are on an iOS platform?
 
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Why would the "store" where you purchased the drone send it back to DJI? Since when do stores facilitate warranty repairs? If I had a DOA unit I would return it to the seller for a refund. If I had a warranty repair, I would manage that myself with DJI Customer Service. I have found they are very capable of solving every problem I've ever encountered.
 
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I had the exact same issue, it is the Codec. You need H265, which does not come with Windows and you have to install it. It is cheap and easy on Windows 10, you can get it from the MS store. When you double click the file it will say corrupt, because Windows knows how to load the file extension, but it can't read it without the correct codec. I think Adobe Premiere told me it was the codec, other programs just said corrupt.

You can also try giving someone like me the file and allowing me to open it with a professional editing PC to see if it is the file or the drone. Or you could find someone with a newer Mac, I think they come with H265 built in. Mac's don't really care about file extensions, so their error might be a little more telling.
 
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I have noticed from time to time that after a flight with my mini I will insert the SD card into my PC and the file will be corrupt or incomplete.
Here is what I do:
  1. Remove the card from the pc
  2. Insert the card into the drone
  3. Turn on the drone
  4. Leave the drone on for about 30 seconds
  5. Turn off the drone
  6. Remove card from drone
  7. Insert the card into the Pc
After this process I find the the file is now complete and working.
I do not know if this will work for you but this may be an option.
You are correct. If the SD card is removed before properly shutting down the MA2, the files will not be readable until you do what AerialApproach said above.
 
Hi everyone....thank you all for your responses...here is the update FINALLY! So, the store I guess has no return policy with is BS. Second, they sent it in I guess because they had no other idea what to do. Then I finally got it back and it was a CODEC issue with Vegas Pro 14. I switched to Vegas Pro 18 and it's FINALLY WORKING! Weird though that DJI replaced the SD card slot on the drone so something else was going with the drone as well. I want to thank all of you for your input. I love flying the new drone. This is so much better than the Mavic Air 2. The distance is almost double for me and the video quality is massively different than the Mavic Air 2. You can check out my videos at: www.youtube.com/summerlinrealtor
 
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@VegasDronePilot This may help you. I have found that if I format the SD card in the Air2S and then try and read the files from a card reader, the files are corrupt or I am just unable to read them. That sounds like what you are experiencing. What I am about to say may seem backwards, but it has worked for me on many flights. Format the card on your computer (not the Air2S) and then place it in the Air2S. Take some video and stills on the Air2S and then pop the card into your reader and I'll bet it will work. After I download the footage and stills, I delete the files off of the card and place the card back into the Air2S and I am ready to go again. I have been using this strategy successfully since I purchased it

I forgot once and formatted the card on the Air2S and quickly remembered as I could not read the card from my card reader. Oh, one last thought. I do notice my computer has to work harder to get the files off of the card, but it works every time.
That's the strategy I already do with my Mavic Pro 2 Zoom, as well as my GoPro, 306 camera...etc. Always works. I never used the original camera drone/device to read the micro-SD card.
 
That's the strategy I already do with my Mavic Pro 2 Zoom, as well as my GoPro, 306 camera...etc. Always works. I never used the original camera drone/device to read the micro-SD card.
Hi, thanks for the info. It was a CODEC issue with my video editor software. I have formatted the card when I first got the drone. DJI replaced the SD card slot so something else was going on as well. All is good now. =)
 
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I just ran into something similar to this on my brand new Air 2s and a brand new Sandisk 256 Ultra card. Just bought the Air 2s with the RC Pro remote. Charged everything up, did all the firmware updates including the ones for the batteries. Checked all my settings and did some ground tests. All no issues. Turn the Air 2s off and put the new card in and turn everything back on. Remote says that it sees a new SD card in the drone and asks if I want to use it instead. I say yes and then format it. Not once but twice just for the heck of it. Take the bird out for it's first flight and everything is gone fine no errors no indication of a problem. Get home and pull the card out and put it in my laptop and Windows says the card needs to be formatted!!! What?!?! Nothing recorded for my whole flight and no photos got taken. Totally disappointed.
 
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