Jerky Video Shooting 4K

[Reelman67]

I have a situation others may have experienced. My video files, during playback, are noticeably jerky. I recently replaced my 8 year old PC for a faster, more capable machine so as to process 4K video. I now have 16GB memory, an I5 6-core processor running at the fastest speed they are capable of (I think). However, the video is shared memory video, not a dedicated video card with it's own memory. My monitor is 4K resolution. The Ipad Mini 5th generation I use with my controller contains video segments of my flight, and each segment plays back smoothly with no jerkiness, on the Ipad Mini. So, I am coming to the conclusion that the video segments are fine, just the PC having difficulty rendering the playback of 4K data. Note: I use a Sandisk 128GB Extreme Pro sdcard which was formatted in the Mavic 2 Pro prior to flying (to rule out card formatting issues). The card appears to be "fast" enough to record 4K. I am set to 24 fps framerate. Using the H264 codec. Am I missing something? Comment?

 

[ChrisOutdoors]

Try playing back the video using VLC media player. If problem persists update your codecs.

Codec Guide: K-Lite Codec Pack - For Windows 11 / 10 / 8.1 / 7

The K-Lite Codec Pack is a free software bundle for high quality playback of all your music and video files. It is easy to use, but also very flexible with many options. Enjoy problem free playback of MKV, MP4, AVI, FLV, and all other multimedia file formats.

codecguide.com

 

[Reelman67]

Try playing back the video using VLC media player. If problem persists update your codecs.

Codec Guide: K-Lite Codec Pack - For Windows 11 / 10 / 8.1 / 7

The K-Lite Codec Pack is a free software bundle for high quality playback of all your music and video files. It is easy to use, but also very flexible with many options. Enjoy problem free playback of MKV, MP4, AVI, FLV, and all other multimedia file formats.

codecguide.com

I've been using this player and I am using the latest updated version. Still annoyingly jerky.

 

[zeusfl]

I guess 4K is too much for a share video memory. I have the same problem in a home computer. I had to use Handbrake to lower the video resolution in order to see it well or upload the video to Youtube.

Just for give the shot. Try downloading this to see if help you.
This is HEVC VIdeo Extensions from Device Manufacturer.

Get HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer - Microsoft Store

Download this app from Microsoft Store for Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows 10 Team (Surface Hub), HoloLens. See screenshots, read the latest customer reviews, and compare ratings for HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer.

www.microsoft.com

 

[THE CYBORG]

Sorry to say, if VLC player doesn't play your video smoothly then it looks like you will have to invest in a decent GPU / graphics card.
Are you using a laptop or tower PC ?, easy in a tower / desktop but not inexpensive.

 

[SmilingOgre]

I'm thinking @THE CYBORG nailed it. Over the years more reliance has been shifted to the GPU regarding video playback and edit. My last computer upgrade was in part because Premiere Pro refused to work with my current system after an update to the program because of GPU capability.

 

[old man mavic]

if like me you do not do any editing of your images ,then my solution for smooth playback on my old laptop is to record in 10.80p at 30 fps i have found it gives the smoothest playback on both my MPP and MM ,if on the other hand you like to edit then you do need a powerful graphics card to run 4k and above smoothly i do not download any vids to the internet ,and i have a 4TB digital hard drive to store my vids and pics on ,we are all different in what we use our drones for , and whatever your preferences are is fine ,i have a personal reason for not posting stuff on the internet due to a very unpleasant incident a few years ago when my account was hacked on FB and i vowed that i would not ever use such platformes again

 

[Reelman67]

Sorry to say, if VLC player doesn't play your video smoothly then it looks like you will have to invest in a decent GPU / graphics card.
Are you using a laptop or tower PC ?, easy in a tower / desktop but not inexpensive.

Due to space limitations, I invested in a very small form factor PC, and now may be stuck with it. Don't know if I can upgrade the video capability or not. I may have to limit the resolution of my vids to 1080P in the future. 4K is nice but a power hog (and a space hog as well). One thing I did notice however is that I was trying to run the vids in RAW format, as opposed to post processed MOV or MP4. I thought the post processed product ran a bit smoother than RAW. Any credence to this thought?

 

[boblui]

The "Photos" app that comes with Windows 10 also works well

 

[Reelman67]

if like me you do not do any editing of your images ,then my solution for smooth playback on my old laptop is to record in 10.80p at 30 fps i have found it gives the smoothest playback on both my MPP and MM ,if on the other hand you like to edit then you do need a powerful graphics card to run 4k and above smoothly i do not download any vids to the internet ,and i have a 4TB digital hard drive to store my vids and pics on ,we are all different in what we use our drones for , and whatever your preferences are is fine ,i have a personal reason for not posting stuff on the internet due to a very unpleasant incident a few years ago when my account was hacked on FB and i vowed that i would not ever use such platformes again

I also have an aversion to posting on the Internet. I fly for personal reasons and don't feel the need to share them since they probably don't measure up to the quality of what I see posted on this forum routinely. I will, most likely, have to come back to 1080P and abandon the 4K gold standard.

 

[Dave Maine]

Try using the AVC or h.264 CODEC. The H.265 codec is a much more difficult codec for PCs to play smoothly.

 

[Reelman67]

Try using the AVC or h.264 CODEC. The H.265 codec is a much more difficult codec for PCs to play smoothly.

I do use the H264 codec.

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

Video editing and playback I believe is a processor based issue. The video card is mostly for 3D and gaming. The CPU is the most important part of video playback. i5-6700 and i7 4700 and higher (the last number) are minimums for 4k playback. Particularly with H265 codec. H264 is a little more forgiving but will still choke most machines trying to play back. The cheaper devices usually have slower CPUs which cannot handle 4k. Even so, new powerful machines will have a rough time with 4k which is why I use proxies to edit then once they are rendered, for the most part will play back smoothly on the higher CPU machines. The stuff on your iPad that plays back soothly is probably a lower resolution version, that or it has a fast enough CPU to handle it.

 

[Reelman67]

Video editing and playback I believe is a processor based issue. The video card is mostly for 3D and gaming. The CPU is the most important part of video playback. i5-6700 and i7 4700 and higher (the last number) are minimums for 4k playback. Particularly with H265 codec. H264 is a little more forgiving but will still choke most machines trying to play back. The cheaper devices usually have slower CPUs which cannot handle 4k. Even so, new powerful machines will have a rough time with 4k which is why I use proxies to edit then once they are rendered, for the most part will play back smoothly on the higher CPU machines. The stuff on your iPad that plays back soothly is probably a lower resolution version, that or it has a fast enough CPU to handle it.

My processor is a 9th Generation 6 core I5-9500T. Hopefully fast enough. I debated getting an I7 processor and a dedicated video card but the cost was significant. Didn't want to spend $300-$400 more.

 

[sonof40]

Video editing and playback I believe is a processor based issue. The video card is mostly for 3D and gaming. The CPU is the most important part of video playback. i5-6700 and i7 4700 and higher (the last number) are minimums for 4k playback. Particularly with H265 codec. H264 is a little more forgiving but will still choke most machines trying to play back. The cheaper devices usually have slower CPUs which cannot handle 4k. Even so, new powerful machines will have a rough time with 4k which is why I use proxies to edit then once they are rendered, for the most part will play back smoothly on the higher CPU machines. The stuff on your iPad that plays back soothly is probably a lower resolution version, that or it has a fast enough CPU to handle it.

Do you need Premier to use proxies?

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

Do you need Premie

Do you need Premier to use proxies?

I'm not entirely sure. I haven't used DaVinci Resolve enough yet to explore that option's availability. I use Premiere because I have an Enterprise account through work and that plus all of the other Creative Suite apps are free for me. I used iMovie in the past but that was long ago...

 

[Hawkeye01]

Video editing and playback I believe is a processor based issue. The video card is mostly for 3D and gaming. The CPU is the most important part of video playback. i5-6700 and i7 4700 and higher (the last number) are minimums for 4k playback. Particularly with H265 codec. H264 is a little more forgiving but will still choke most machines trying to play back. The cheaper devices usually have slower CPUs which cannot handle 4k. Even so, new powerful machines will have a rough time with 4k which is why I use proxies to edit then once they are rendered, for the most part will play back smoothly on the higher CPU machines. The stuff on your iPad that plays back soothly is probably a lower resolution version, that or it has a fast enough CPU to handle it.

Hi

Late to the party on this one as I am new to drones and 4K, but having the same problems as the OP. Could you explain 'using proxies to edit...' please?

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

Hi

Late to the party on this one as I am new to drones and 4K, but having the same problems as the OP. Could you explain 'using proxies to edit...' please?

Editing software such as Adobe Premiere and DaVinci Resolve can use proxies which are low resolution versions that can be easily cut and scrubbed for the editing process. When you render the video, it replaces the low resolution proxies with the high resolution version. I mostly use Premiere and you can set a button in the viewer to toggle between the proxy and the full version if you need to for very precise cuts. I'm sure DaVinci Resolve has that capability as well but I haven't used it enough to know for sure.

 

[Johnmcl7]

Video editing and playback I believe is a processor based issue. The video card is mostly for 3D and gaming.

That's not the case any more with the advent of GPGPU's (General Purpose Graphics Processing Units), graphics cards cannot be as flexible as CPU's but there are tasks they are well suited to beyond just graphics rendering where there's a large number of simple operations like video rendering or brute force number crunching. Graphics card companies will even sell you a graphics card with no graphics output specifically for its compute abilities and this is why there's been serious graphics card shortages during crypto currency explosions because they're being bought in big numbers for mining.

That said while a more powerful graphics card can help with rendering time an integrated graphics card should have no problems decoding 4K video from the M2P. I have some low power Core-m machines (the processor that sits between Atom and ULV processors) and they have no problem playing back 4K videos smoothly from my M2P however I did notice while they worked fine with the default Windows video player, when I played it back with VLC it was barely even a slideshow because it was taking so long to play each frame.

For those having trouble with playback in Windows 10 I'd open task manager and see what the CPU and GPU are doing in the processes tab. In my case when running the Mavic files with the default Windows video player it was showing a few percent for the CPU but 20-30% for the GPU indicating it was correctly using the GPU for decode but when I played it back using VLC it was maxing out the processor and using 0% on the GPU showing it's not using the GPU at all causing the poor performance.

 

[ChrisOutdoors]

Editing software such as Adobe Premiere and DaVinci Resolve can use proxies which are low resolution versions that can be easily cut and scrubbed for the editing process. When you render the video, it replaces the low resolution proxies with the high resolution version. I mostly use Premiere and you can set a button in the viewer to toggle between the proxy and the full version if you need to for very precise cuts. I'm sure DaVinci Resolve has that capability as well but I haven't used it enough to know for sure.

Folks, learn to create and work with proxies, regardless of your computer this is the way to have a smooth video editing experience. YouTube is your friend here. The only thing a high end PC does is shorten the time you have to wait. If you have more time/patience then money, simply queue all your raw videos using media encoder and convert them to low-res prores files, set and forget. Make edits in your video editor and then again, set and forget. It's that easy. The basic essentials for this workflow are a working PC with lots of RAM and lots of drive space, which are both VERY cheap.