Merging Overlength Mavic Air Video Files on the Mac...

[Facherty]

I always shoot at 4K 25fps, and quite often leave the camera running for almost the entire flight. I therefore end up with 2-3 clips, with 1-2 of them at a size of 3.7GB covering exactly 5 minutes of flight. This is a limitation of the Mavic Air filing system, and is not critical because the next clip will pick up from where the previous one ended.

However, for one event, I end up with three files cluttering my system. To help, I at least rename them - for example:
- Braidburn Valley Park to Craiglockhart Take 2, 1 of 3
- Braidburn Valley Park to Craiglockhart Take 2, 2 of 3
- Braidburn Valley Park to Craiglockhart Take 2, 3 of 3
I tried to use QuickTime on the Mac to merge them, but (a) it took ages and (b) the process was not lossless. I tried some free software called MP4Joiner, but it did not work.

So I came up with a brief(-ish) way to stitch the files together, producing just one, full quality, 4K file. The attached .pdf gives details for how to do it on a Mac, and I imagine only small modifications would be necessary for Windoze. It uses the multi-platform FFMPEG code for the heavy lifting, and takes about a minute to produce a 8GB file. (I also have it as a MS Word file, so you can adapt it, but the MavicPilots site will not allow it as an attachment - message me if you need it.)

 

[Thomas B]

I’m lazy and just drag and drop them into iMovie set at 4K on my iMac. Note, to appreciate this you need at least a 4K retina model and 4G ram available. If I want the movie elsewhere after this I just drag it to the desktop.

 

[brett8883]

I always shoot at 4K 25fps, and quite often leave the camera running for almost the entire flight. I therefore end up with 2-3 clips, with 1-2 of them at a size of 3.7GB covering exactly 5 minutes of flight. This is a limitation of the Mavic Air filing system, and is not critical because the next clip will pick up from where the previous one ended.

However, for one event, I end up with three files cluttering my system. To help, I at least rename them - for example:
- Braidburn Valley Park to Craiglockhart Take 2, 1 of 3
- Braidburn Valley Park to Craiglockhart Take 2, 2 of 3
- Braidburn Valley Park to Craiglockhart Take 2, 3 of 3
I tried to use QuickTime on the Mac to merge them, but (a) it took ages and (b) the process was not lossless. I tried some free software called MP4Joiner, but it did not work.

So I came up with a brief(-ish) way to stitch the files together, producing just one, full quality, 4K file. The attached .pdf gives details for how to do it on a Mac, and I imagine only small modifications would be necessary for Windoze. It uses the multi-platform FFMPEG code for the heavy lifting, and takes about a minute to produce a 8GB file. (I also have it as a MS Word file, so you can adapt it, but the MavicPilots site will not allow it as an attachment - message me if you need it.)

This is great! Will it work with .mov files you think?

 

[Facherty]

> Will it work with .mov files you think?

I think so. At instruction 3, change *.MP4 to *.MOV, and , and at instructions 4 and 5 change RenameMe.MP4 to RenameMe.MOV.

Attached are .zips of the Word files - original, and the modified .mov version. FFMPEG does not alter your original files, so try it out...

 

[granchicop]

thanks a lot