Defective Mavic Air 2? (Solved!)

[Drone Master]

Hi there guys,
Got a problem with my MA2. Was finally able to get a maiden flight in and just to find out all my video files from the aircraft are always corrupt.
Now, as a tech I generally can figure these issues out, however this one is stumping me.
Just to let you know right off the batt, I purchased the drone and the SD Card from the DJI Store as advertised at the time, so I have already eliminated the issue with the card by using others that are sufficient in write speed.
The aircraft FW and app are current and up to date. I have formatted in the drone and on my Mac.
The camera takes images fine as well as video cache to my device, however all video files on the card are always corrupt no matter what settings I use. I tried them all, nothing. The files are there, but not reading when trying to play.
My Mac has enough processing power to render the videos as it works fine with all my other Mavics. Even full 4K 60 files. So the computer is not the problem.
I even refreshed the FW in the drone using the assistant 2, but still the same issue.
Anyone of you guys have a clue before I send this puppy back to DJI? I have not seen one good video off the card yet.?
Thanks, DM...

 

[sar104]

Do you want to post an example file for inspection? Preferably a short one?

 

[Drone Master]

Do you want to post an example file for inspection? Preferably a short one?

Sure sar, but as you know, We cannot upload those files here and with them being corrupt, YouTube will not except them as well. If you give me a few minutes, I will place them on my private server for you to DL and check out. It is only a 30 second clip from testing. I will upload and send you the link in PM. Thanks.

 

[sar104]

Sure sar, but as you know, We cannot upload those files here and with them being corrupt, YouTube will not except them as well. If you give me a few minutes, I will place them on my private server for you to DL and check out. It is only a 30 second clip from testing. I will upload and send you the link in PM. Thanks.

I was thinking of Dropbox or similar, but whatever works best.

 

[gottahavit]

Have you tried without an sd card,? the drone has 8gb internal.

 

[Drone Master]

Have you tried without an sd card,? the drone has 8gb internal.

Yes, The same thing, still corrupt. Makes me think it maybe a video processor issue or hardware issue.

 

[skipperbrown]

Have you tried both .mov and .mp4?

 

[Drone Master]

Have you tried both .mov and .mp4?

Yes, thanks, still same issue.

 

[gottahavit]

have you tried h.264 and h.265 ?

 

[Drone Master]

In the specs, it clearly states that it has recording support for both. How do I change to record in H264. It's not in the app.

 

[sar104]

 

[sar104]

And just to add - @Drone Master's test videos are H.265, and play fine on my Mac. It's likely a computer hardware issue - without hardware support for H.265 that codec will either not play or play really poorly.

 

[dirkclod]

I looked at a clip he sent me on my Mac and first showed up
as a thumbnail then it opened up. I don’t have the Air 2 yet
but have always shot in H 264 and have never had any issues with play back. I think some setting on his iMac
has changed .

 

[sar104]

I looked at a clip he sent me on my Mac and first showed up
as a thumbnail then it opened up. I don’t have the Air 2 yet
but have always shot in H 264 and have never had any issues with play back. I think some setting on his iMac
has changed .

H.264 doesn't require any special hardware to decode. H.265 requires a processor with hardware acceleration for HEVC.

 

[Drone Master]

Ok, got it figured out. The last 2 versions of the fly app were only for updating the existing one that was already installed. Some how during the the last update, the option to switch formats was lost and left the drone in the h265 format.
Did a complete re install and bingo, the option was back.
Something else I figured out as well. If you select 4K 60, the format automatically switches to h265. When you drop to a lower resolution, it will remain in h265 unless you switch it back to h264 manually. So when you go into camera settings and lower the resolution, you also have to switch back to h264 for it to record in that format.
Really dumb how it does that. Now I can run the files no problem.
Thank you @sar104 for all your help my friend. Sometimes you just got to dig in further to achieve your goal. From now on, when a update for the app comes out, I’m just going to do a clean install. Believe it or not, this happened to me once before with the Go app from the earlier days. Should have learned my lesson then about app updates.
Thanks again everyone! Problem solved!?

 

[gottahavit]

so issue was h.265 and your laptop?

 

[hiflyer201]

264 from 265 was the game changer for me but I had no Idea what that meant. Thanks to all on the forum who have mentioned it.

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

Any OS lower than High Sierra will not natively play the H.265 files. You have to import them into a video editor and render them to get them to play. I have that issue on my 2011 iMac Pro. It won't upgrade the OS past Sierra...

 

[sar104]

Any OS lower than High Sierra will not natively play the H.265 files. You have to import them into a video editor and render them to get them to play. I have that issue on my 2011 iMac Pro. It won't upgrade the OS past Sierra...

It's not an OS limitation - it's a hardware limitation.

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

It's not an OS limitation - it's a hardware limitation.

True point, I should have specified my old iMac only has 32 bit architecture so doesn't offer an upgrade to 64 bit OS