Micro SD card: stock SD card is insufficient

Toddsworld · Oct 25, 2016

Hello everyone,

I received my Mavic today and after charging, I took it out for a quick flight before sunset.

I took several movie clips as well as photo shots while I was flying. When I got back inside to view the movie clips from the SD card, I noticed several spots of frame freeze while in motion. I think this is because a faster SD card is needed to process the video recorded from the Mavic.

The micro SD card included is: Lexar 16gb, class 10, U1.

I just ordered, from Amazon another card to try to see if I can get recordings that don't have freeze-frames...I ordered a: SanDisk 32gb, extreme, U3.

Please let me know if you are experiencing the same

msinger · Oct 25, 2016

The included card writes at 40 MB/s, so it should be able to handle 4K video with no trouble. Are you sure it's not your computer lagging during playback?

BlueSkies · Oct 25, 2016

Toddsworld said:
Hello everyone,

I received my Mavic today and after charging, I took it out for a quick flight before sunset.

I took several movie clips as well as photo shots while I was flying. When I got back inside to view the movie clips from the SD card, I noticed several spots of frame freeze while in motion. I think this is because a faster SD card is needed to process the video recorded from the Mavic.

The micro SD card included is: Lexar 16gb, class 10, U1.

I just ordered, from Amazon another card to try to see if I can get recordings that don't have freeze-frames...I ordered a: SanDisk 32gb, extreme, U3.

Please let me know if you are experiencing the same

Shot with the same card with my Inspire.

Toddsworld · Oct 25, 2016

msinger said:
The included card writes at 40 MB/s, so it should be able to handle 4K video with no trouble. Are you sure it's not your computer lagging during playback?

You know what? You got me thinking, I never had this problem with any SD card recordings from my Phantom 3 Advanced. But that was shooting movies in 2.7k and the Mavic may have been set to record in 4k video (I didn't Check), it was my first flight so I really didn't get into any camera settings. If it was recording in 4k video, maybe my computer's video card can't quite handle it, even though I do have a heavy handling computer with 8gb ram.

wombat · Oct 29, 2016

the Dji manual (page 38) recommends A UHS-1 Micro card max 64GB

4wd · Oct 30, 2016

wombat said:
the Dji manual (page 38) recommends A UHS-1 Micro card max 64GB

You also need check the write speed as they vary, however it isn't that demanding to record 4K at bitrate of 60.
It's actually harder to do continuous stills - this is why taking a picture in RAW you still have to wait a second or two.

LakeTravis · Nov 10, 2016

Has anyone found specifications, or is smarter than me and can calculate, how many minutes of recording you can get on a 64GB micro SD?

Pricey · Nov 10, 2016

This could be an interesting test for someone with a mavic and 64gb sd card. It may vary bitrate and thus storage size based on what is in the frame. ie More colour and detail means more storage space used. Anyone up for a challenge?

Sent from my SM-G930F using MavicPilots mobile app

msinger · Nov 10, 2016

LakeTravis said:
Has anyone found specifications, or is smarter than me and can calculate, how many minutes of recording you can get on a 64GB micro SD?

You'll get about 2 minutes per 1 GB when recording in 4K. DJI GO will show you how many minutes are left at the top, right when you're recording.

chippie · Nov 10, 2016

Hey chaps, anyone know if using a UHS-II card over a UHS-I will make any difference when recording full 4k. Appreciate the lower spec cards can handle the speed of recording and that a UHS-II may be faster saving RAW files but would like opinions on the video side? Any advantages that spring to mind? Ta.

Pricey · Nov 10, 2016

msinger said:
You'll get about 2 minutes per 1 GB when recording in 4K. DJI GO will show you how many minutes are left at the top, right when you're recording.

This really good to know, 64gb will be more than enough for me. Thanks

Sent from my SM-G930F using MavicPilots mobile app

LakeTravis · Nov 10, 2016

msinger said:
You'll get about 2 minutes per 1 GB when recording in 4K. DJI GO will show you how many minutes are left at the top, right when you're recording.

Thanks, I tried to calculate in my head a 4K stream at 60 Mbps and came up (though I'm not sure how) that it should be about two hours. Looks like I was really close!! Serendipity, for the most part!

duhannig · Dec 16, 2017

I just did a speed test of the sd card that came with my mavic pro. The utility I used to test the speed came from H2testw
The test concluded that the sd card that came with mavic pro is 15 megabytes per second. The video I shoot at 4K with this card shows a lot of surging, it does not drop frames though. Definitely need to upgrade to a card that is rated of 90 megabytes per second

wytnyt · Dec 16, 2017

this is one of the things about mavic recordings im curious about is how well my video cards handle the processing,,last year they were tops at $800 each but have never worked with 4k videos.,

Mossiback · Dec 16, 2017

Toddsworld said:
... When I got back inside to view the movie clips from the SD card, I noticed several spots of frame freeze while in motion...

The computer could be the problem. 4K stuttered on my old anemic computer but ran fine on my tablet. Also, try downloading the video instead of reading directly from the SD card.

Xtreme Drone Pilot · Dec 16, 2017

duhannig said:
I just did a speed test of the sd card that came with my mavic pro. The utility I used to test the speed came from H2testw
The test concluded that the sd card that came with mavic pro is 15 megabytes per second. The video I shoot at 4K with this card shows a lot of surging, it does not drop frames though. Definitely need to upgrade to a card that is rated of 90 megabytes per second

Typically for SSD, the bigger the drive, the faster it is. So no surprise 16GB card is so slow. I bought x2 Samsung EVO 64GB - it says 60MB/s write on the package, and x1 128GB - 90MB/s. I'll use the faster one for Mavic, the other two - for video cache in my Wunderphones.

BigDaddyJoeJ · Dec 16, 2017

I record to .MP4, with the phantom 3 viewed footage via VLC media player, with my new mavic, VLC player stuttered quite a bit. Switched to Windows media player and resolved.

Gavinwr27 · Dec 17, 2017

Toddsworld said:
You know what? You got me thinking, I never had this problem with any SD card recordings from my Phantom 3 Advanced. But that was shooting movies in 2.7k and the Mavic may have been set to record in 4k video (I didn't Check), it was my first flight so I really didn't get into any camera settings. If it was recording in 4k video, maybe my computer's video card can't quite handle it, even though I do have a heavy handling computer with 8gb ram.

I flew mine today for its maiden flight and used the included card to record in 4K. When I viewed the footage on my desktop PC, there was quite a bit of freezing and stuttering. I was very disappointed. However when I played it on my laptop there was a substantial improvement. So thankful that it wasn’t a prpblem with the Mavic. Looks like I might have to try shooting at a lower resolution and see how that goes.

Callum · Dec 17, 2017

duhannig said:
I just did a speed test of the sd card that came with my mavic pro. The utility I used to test the speed came from H2testw
The test concluded that the sd card that came with mavic pro is 15 megabytes per second. The video I shoot at 4K with this card shows a lot of surging, it does not drop frames though. Definitely need to upgrade to a card that is rated of 90 megabytes per second

Even at 15MB/s as you tested, it's still should be fast enough for mavic.

That's 120Mb/s.

chippie said:
Hey chaps, anyone know if using a UHS-II card over a UHS-I will make any difference when recording full 4k. Appreciate the lower spec cards can handle the speed of recording and that a UHS-II may be faster saving RAW files but would like opinions on the video side? Any advantages that spring to mind? Ta.

No it wouldn't, UHS-II is hardware dependant as has extra pins on card.

Toddsworld said:
Hello everyone,

I received my Mavic today and after charging, I took it out for a quick flight before sunset.

I took several movie clips as well as photo shots while I was flying. When I got back inside to view the movie clips from the SD card, I noticed several spots of frame freeze while in motion. I think this is because a faster SD card is needed to process the video recorded from the Mavic.

The micro SD card included is: Lexar 16gb, class 10, U1.

I just ordered, from Amazon another card to try to see if I can get recordings that don't have freeze-frames...I ordered a: SanDisk 32gb, extreme, U3.

Please let me know if you are experiencing the same

The card that came with mine was a SanDisk extreme U3.

U1 cards are rated at a guaranteed minimum write speed of 10MB/s and normally test around 15 -20.

U3 cards are rated at a guaranteed 30MB/s+.