H.265 Playback on iMac 5k 2017

[arichmondphoto]

Yep! That's the reply we've been waiting for, thank you! This is definitive and it's a Friday, what more can we ask for! Please stick around Richmond Photo, we need you!

Thanks, and glad I could help!

 

[arichmondphoto]

Ive attached two screen shots - one of the spec of my iMac and the other showing the activity monitor at the point the judder begins. Just for reference my iMac has barely been used and is basically as delivered from Apple.

Have you tried resetting the PRAM? Give that a try and see if the problem persists...

PRAM RESET

• Shut down the computer.
• Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
• Turn on the computer.
• Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
• Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
• Release the keys.

 

[jpbedrone]

Just did the PRAM reset. The boot up time is now certainly quicker (although not slow before) but the juddering is still there. I really appreciate your help on this one but completely understand if you feel you're getting no where with it. Just wondering if I'm missing something really basic?

 

[arichmondphoto]

I don't think you are missing anything basic. I'm assuming that all of your software is fully up-to-date... I did see you are on the latest build of MacOS, too... I do wonder if there are some updates that didn't get installed for whatever reason, mainly ProApp updates

At this point, you may want to give Apple Support a call/email. There is absolutely no reason that you should have issues playing those files on your machine. I did a quick browse of some support forums and there have been others with similar issues to yours, so you aren't the only person who has had problems.

One last thing to try: Go to System Preferences > Display, and under "Resolution" hold the Option key and click the "Scaled" radio button... I just want to verify that 2560x1440 is selected and NOT 5120x2880... If 2560x1440 is not selected, pick that from the list and see how that works...

 

[jpbedrone]

Again, I can't thank you enough for your help. Attached is a screen grab of my display settings that appear to be as suggested. I do have Apple Care so think I'll give them a call now, see if they can remote in to my Mac to confirm all is as should be! Any other thoughts though always welcomed!

 

[bluskies99]

I have the iMac 2015 and have no difficulty playing my M2P HEVC (H.265) clips in Quicktime or FCPX. I'm playing them from a spinning platter hard drive - not the internal SSD.

 

[jpbedrone]

Just been in contact with Apple Care. Spent 30 minutes on the phone with them guiding me through various tests with the result being my iMac has a clean bill of health and is operating as it should. I guess this therefore suggests that the 4K 30fps H265 MOV files recorded on my M2P are being recorded incorrectly (a fault with the M2P itself), two separate SD cards are both faulty (unlikely), the transfer via USB3 card reader is somehow corrupting the files or some other reason? Going back to basics could the formatting of the SD card be the issue? I'm formatting to exFAT on my iMac and then inserting this into the M2P. When I've formatted the SD card within the M2P itself my iMac does not recognise the card whereas my Windows PC does. Unfortunately the Windows PC is a very basic 7 year old office PC so doubt it has the power to playback 4K H265 content.

 

[arichmondphoto]

Just been in contact with Apple Care. Spent 30 minutes on the phone with them guiding me through various tests with the result being my iMac has a clean bill of health and is operating as it should. I guess this therefore suggests that the 4K 30fps H265 MOV files recorded on my M2P are being recorded incorrectly (a fault with the M2P itself), two separate SD cards are both faulty (unlikely), the transfer via USB3 card reader is somehow corrupting the files or some other reason? Going back to basics could the formatting of the SD card be the issue? I'm formatting to exFAT on my iMac and then inserting this into the M2P. When I've formatted the SD card within the M2P itself my iMac does not recognise the card whereas my Windows PC does. Unfortunately the Windows PC is a very basic 7 year old office PC so doubt it has the power to playback 4K H265 content.

I just looked at the file you sent me (Thanks!) and it’s definitely file-oriented, NOT your computer. My guess is the MicroSD cards you are using are not up to snuff. Are they new cards? They are either defective/damaged, or they don’t meet the speed requirements regardless of their rating. Since I don’t have an M2P or any cards to compare, I’d recommend card suggestions from others on the forum. I can speak to the quality of Sandisk cards in general, though - I ONLY use Sandisk Extreme Pro cards in my DSLRs and video cameras and I’ve never had one go corrupt or fail in the last 5 years, at least.

 

[jpbedrone]

Here's a photo I've just taken of the SD card. Purchased new from Amazon direct (not a reseller). I have two of these and both show the judder. Do you think it could be anything to do with formatting the cards in my Mac as exFAT before inserting into the M2P? Beginning to think it could be the M2P itself?

 

[arichmondphoto]

I just looked at the file you sent me (Thanks!) and it’s definitely file-oriented, NOT your computer. My guess is the MicroSD cards you are using are not up to snuff. Are they new cards? They are either defective/damaged, or they don’t meet the speed requirements regardless of their rating. Since I don’t have an M2P or any cards to compare, I’d recommend card suggestions from others on the forum. I can speak to the quality of Sandisk cards in general, though - I ONLY use Sandisk Extreme Pro cards in my DSLRs and video cameras and I’ve never had one go corrupt or fail in the last 5 years, at least.

Here's a photo I've just taken of the SD card. Purchased new from Amazon direct (not a reseller). I have two of these and both show the judder. Do you think it could be anything to do with formatting the cards in my Mac as exFAT before inserting into the M2P? Beginning to think it could be the M2P itself?

According to the DJI specs, your exact card is on the list as "supported", so it may be defective... The specs also say that it supports exFat, so you are correct there...

I would run to a local store and try a different card before I jumped on the defective M2P side of things, or try recording to the internal 8GB memory and see if you have the same issue. The fact that the file is reporting a data rate of ~78Mbps and a frame rate of ~22fps on my machine tells me that the file is not quite right. There is plenty of shutter speed jitter in the file already (1/120s doesn't cover the 180 degree shutter rule. At 30fps, if you want smooth motion, you'll need to get that down to 1/60s - stop down or ND the lens), but there are some very noticeable and abnormal "jumps" where frames were obviously dropped. I transcoded it to ProRes and as expected the data rate jumped up because its a high-bitrate codec, but it still shows 22.82fps, so you're missing 7 frames and some change in the file. It looks like they didn't get recorded at all.

If its not the card, then it looks like the in-camera video encoder isn't functioning properly, or there is some in-hardware buffer memory thats faulty.

 

[WilliamG]

Here's a photo I've just taken of the SD card. Purchased new from Amazon direct (not a reseller). I have two of these and both show the judder. Do you think it could be anything to do with formatting the cards in my Mac as exFAT before inserting into the M2P? Beginning to think it could be the M2P itself?

I bet it's not a hardware fault anywhere. I haven't read over this thread COMPLETELY, but you've copied this file to your desktop I assume to test on an internal disk?

 

[arichmondphoto]

I bet it's not a hardware fault anywhere. I haven't read over this thread COMPLETELY, but you've copied this file to your desktop I assume to test on an internal disk?

I don't think its the M2P...I'm more likely to think its the cards, and that recording to the internal memory would be a great way to test it. jpbedrone sent me a copy of the video file in question and it seemed to me like it had dropped framed in certain spots. The skipping was in the same spots no matter what I transcoded it to. You can even flip through it frame by frame and see where it jumps, which is in the same spot whether you play it back in QT, Quicklook, FCP, Resolve, VLC... It either got corrupted in the transfer off the cards, or it was laggy as it was recorded. If it's recording to the internal memory correctly, it's not the M2P...

 

[jpbedrone]

Not copied to desktop but to a local documents folder on the internal 1TB SSD HD. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m over thinking this and have missed something simple as there aren’t many others reporting the same issue. Or perhaps it is a faulty M2P??

 

[MaxHam]

Just downloaded VLC Media Player Version 3.0.4 Vetinari (Intel 64bit) for Mac but still no improvement on the 'juddering' playback.

You can optimize VLC settings. I'm on Windows but maybe it's worth a try on iOS.
Adjusting the "Network caching (ms)" did the job for me:
Fix: VLC media player lagging in Windows 10

 

[arichmondphoto]

Here is a link where you all can download the actual file in question, as it is, straight copied from the cards:

Video - Google Drive

I asked Jpbedrone to upload it to my Google Drive so I could take a look at it...

Download it. Play it. Open it in VLC/QT/Whatever. Page through it frame by frame. Transcode it. Do all of that from any HDD you want on your machine.

Its skipping because it's missing data - no way around it. Best to keep testing to isolate the cause of the problem, and like I said above - if it records to the internal memory correctly, that'd be a big step towards identifying the root cause, and its a free test. This file isn't ever going to play correctly because its damaged/corrupted/inherently missing frames.

 

[WilliamG]

Here is a link where you all can download the actual file in question, as it is, straight copied from the cards:

Video - Google Drive

I asked Jpbedrone to upload it to my Google Drive so I could take a look at it...

Download it. Play it. Open it in VLC/QT/Whatever. Page through it frame by frame. Transcode it. Do all of that from any HDD you want on your machine.

Its skipping because it's missing data - no way around it. Best to keep testing to isolate the cause of the problem, and like I said above - if it records to the internal memory correctly, that'd be a big step towards identifying the root cause, and its a free test. This file isn't ever going to play correctly because its damaged/corrupted/inherently missing frames.

Can concur with this. The file is damaged. Nothing wrong with the computer.

 

[Mike_Jaxson]

Not copied to desktop but to a local documents folder on the internal 1TB SSD HD. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m over thinking this and have missed something simple as there aren’t many others reporting the same issue. Or perhaps it is a faulty M2P??

Try this

 

[jpbedrone]

Here is a link where you all can download the actual file in question, as it is, straight copied from the cards:

Video - Google Drive

I asked Jpbedrone to upload it to my Google Drive so I could take a look at it...

Download it. Play it. Open it in VLC/QT/Whatever. Page through it frame by frame. Transcode it. Do all of that from any HDD you want on your machine.

Its skipping because it's missing data - no way around it. Best to keep testing to isolate the cause of the problem, and like I said above - if it records to the internal memory correctly, that'd be a big step towards identifying the root cause, and its a free test. This file isn't ever going to play correctly because its damaged/corrupted/inherently missing frames.

Good Morning arichmondphoto. I was up early today for some tests at a local beach. I've uploaded 3 files, all shot at 4K 30fps H265 MOV Normal. They are:

DJI0055 recorded onto same SD card as before - juddering present
DJI0060 recorded onto same SD card as before - no juddering present, plays fine.
DJI0001 recorded onto M2P local drive - no juddering, plays fine.

Going through all my recordings I note that:
90% of the files recorded onto the SD card judder.
100% of the files recorded onto the M2P local drive display no judder and play fine.

I've also attached some screen grabs of the files in question whilst in the iFFMPEG transcoding program. These seem to show that the files that judder have been recorded at a lower frame rate / data rate than the M2P was set too. The files that playback without issue display (approx) 30fps at 100mbps as set on the M2P and as you would expect.

Unfortunately I have no stores nearby to pick up a new SD card today and will have to wait a few days to pick one up. I must admit it does seem to point towards a corrupted SD card although for 2 Sandisk cards purchased from Amazon direct to both be faulty seems unlucky.

Hopefully these ongoing tests will not only help me get to the bottom of my recording issue but also shed light on an important but somewhat confusing aspect of using a drone for video footage. Many thanks to you and all for the continuing support, it is very much appreciated!

 

[jpbedrone]

POSTED ABOVE IN CASE ANYONE MISSES IT........

Good Morning arichmondphoto. I was up early today for some tests at a local beach. I've uploaded 3 files, all shot at 4K 30fps H265 MOV Normal. They are:

DJI0055 recorded onto same SD card as before - juddering present
DJI0060 recorded onto same SD card as before - no juddering present, plays fine.
DJI0001 recorded onto M2P local drive - no juddering, plays fine.

Going through all my recordings I note that:
90% of the files recorded onto the SD card judder.
100% of the files recorded onto the M2P local drive display no judder and play fine.

I've also attached some screen grabs of the files in question whilst in the iFFMPEG transcoding program. These seem to show that the files that judder have been recorded at a lower frame rate / data rate than the M2P was set too. The files that playback without issue display (approx) 30fps at 100mbps as set on the M2P and as you would expect.

Unfortunately I have no stores nearby to pick up a new SD card today and will have to wait a few days to pick one up. I must admit it does seem to point towards a corrupted SD card although for 2 Sandisk cards purchased from Amazon direct to both be faulty seems unlucky.

Hopefully these ongoing tests will not only help me get to the bottom of my recording issue but also shed light on an important but somewhat confusing aspect of using a drone for video footage. Many thanks to you and all for the continuing support, it is very much appreciated!

 

[wsteele]

I recorded two test videos on Sept 12 when I received my Mavic 2 Pro. Both are about 1:32minutes, HEVC, 3840 x 2160. I recorded as MPEG-4 files rather than MOV files for no particular reason. They both play back without jitter on both VLC and Quicktime.

Just wondering, it seems that you alway copy to your SSD before playback. What happens if you play back directly from the Sandisk cards.