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"Stutterless" 4K video

I deleted those posts. Up until 21 secs it plays fine. Then it become hugely erratic after that. I really think it’s your card. As someone else mentioned that the mavic really is hard on cards when shooting at 4K. Do you have another card laying around just to do an A/B test?
 
Aah, the real issue starts at 20sec! I never went that far since on youtube those first 20 seconds did stutter and that was the characteristic stutter of framerate conversion (confirmed, the source file doesn't have it). But yeah the rest is totally down to a poor card.
 
The card may well be the issue here, but as there is no artefacting which is typical with a dodgy card, so also I would have a look at firmware and your app installation too. The video you shot is NOT H.265, but standard 8 bit H.264, with an overall bitrate of only 28Mbps, at 29.97fps (I got this from checking the metadata on the original file), so hardware playback issues can be discounted. The benchmarking test does suggest the card is very slow, but 28Mbps bitrate is not at all high, so it may be worth reinstalling your firmware too. For good measure, I would delete and reinstall the DJI Go 4 app too, as that itself seems to cause a load of issues after firmware changes. Once you have a 'clean' system, try with a new, higher specced card too!

Here's the metadata for you too:

General
Complete name : /Volumes/DOWNLOADS/DJI_0004.MP4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size : 709 MiB
Duration : 3mn 32s
Overall bit rate : 28.0 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2019-03-11 13:30:56
Tagged date : UTC 2019-03-11 13:30:56
Writing application : Lavf56.15.102

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings : CABAC / 1 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=29
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 3mn 32s
Bit rate : 28.0 Mbps
Width : 3 840 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 8.400 fps
Minimum frame rate : 0.156 fps
Maximum frame rate : 29.970 fps
Original frame rate : 29.970 (30000/1001) fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.402
Stream size : 709 MiB (100%)
Encoded date : UTC 2019-03-11 13:30:56
Tagged date : UTC 2019-03-11 13:30:56
Codec configuration box : avcC
 
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The M2 records at 100Mbps, the 28Mbps number is BS, probably corrupted (like the "8.4fps" framerate) due to the broken file.

You can confirm it in vlc stats while playing the first 20 seconds.
 
Not BS, but a useful measure of where the the initial problem might lie. At 4K , the bitrate should be 100mbps (both for H.264 and H.265). The reading shows that somewhere there is a mismatch and it's probably the speed of the card. The M2P does record different resolutions at different bitrates (at 30p 4K - 100mbps, 2.7K - 50mbps, 1080 - 35mbps), which suggests there could also be a software glitch, which could be fixed by reinstalling the software/firmware. Those are definitely 'could', but it's always worth being methodical. Most likely it'll be fixed by getting a new card, though!
 
Just a side note: the number of fake cards out there is astounding. Especially if purchased third party on amazon. This might be the case. At any rate, try another card (and brand) and get your money back on that one if you determine it’s garbage.
 
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The card may well be the issue here, but as there is no artefacting which is typical with a dodgy card, so also I would have a look at firmware and your app installation too. The video you shot is NOT H.265, but standard 8 bit H.264, with an overall bitrate of only 28Mbps, at 29.97fps (I got this from checking the metadata on the original file), so hardware playback issues can be discounted. The benchmarking test does suggest the card is very slow, but 28Mbps bitrate is not at all high, so it may be worth reinstalling your firmware too. For good measure, I would delete and reinstall the DJI Go 4 app too, as that itself seems to cause a load of issues after firmware changes. Once you have a 'clean' system, try with a new, higher specced card too!

Here's the metadata for you too:

General
Complete name : /Volumes/DOWNLOADS/DJI_0004.MP4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size : 709 MiB
Duration : 3mn 32s
Overall bit rate : 28.0 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2019-03-11 13:30:56
Tagged date : UTC 2019-03-11 13:30:56
Writing application : Lavf56.15.102

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings : CABAC / 1 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=29
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 3mn 32s
Bit rate : 28.0 Mbps
Width : 3 840 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 8.400 fps
Minimum frame rate : 0.156 fps
Maximum frame rate : 29.970 fps
Original frame rate : 29.970 (30000/1001) fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.402
Stream size : 709 MiB (100%)
Encoded date : UTC 2019-03-11 13:30:56
Tagged date : UTC 2019-03-11 13:30:56
Codec configuration box : avcC

Thanks for all the detail. This is a brand new mavic pro 2. Freshly updated firmware on the remote and aircraft, and first install of the Go4 app.
 
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Just a side note: the number of fake cards out there is astounding. Especially if purchased third party on amazon. This might be the case. At any rate, try another card (and brand) and get your money back on that one if you determine it’s garbage.

+1 to this. I think this is the root of the problem. Here in Shenzhen, not only is it the electronics center of the world, it's also the part of the world where electronics are faked or repaired, and resold to the rest of the world at very low costs. I didn't want to pay the 899元 for a card half the size at the DJI store. At that price of card should be 512GB, not 256GB.

Here is a link to the cards I use for my FDXLR3000 that are completely lossless.
 
Last edited:
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I may have missed this but are you stream recording to your phone from the drone (the drone only has MicroSD not SD)? If so, I could see frames being dropped because of that.
You would want to record it directly in the drone which I think you are doing. My guess is your MicroSD card is too slow. Try recording at 2k and see if it keeps up.
 
I may have missed this but are you stream recording to your phone from the drone (the drone only has MicroSD not SD)? If so, I could see frames being dropped because of that.
You would want to record it directly in the drone which I think you are doing. My guess is your MicroSD card is too slow. Try recording at 2k and see if it keeps up.

I have asked the question earlier on. I don't know how it works. Apparently the aircraft and the DJI app record it's own individual videos. I certainly don't need two copies of everything. Either way, again, the drone settings are default with exception to height\range limits. What I do know is that the video recorded from the DJI app is lossless and the video recorded locally to the aircraft is not.
 
I know all about the fakes here. My wife couldn't possibly let me forget ;) Most fakes are painfully obvious. But look at this, it looks identical to the real thing. It was also the exact same Samsung blister packaging and everything. Had me convinced :). Unfortunately they'll never let you ubpackage the product to test before you buy. Who does that? Lol

20190313_093622.jpg

Careful of Fake Chinese SD Cards!

Interesting article on the fake card thing.
 
I also unwittingly bought a fake Samsung card, buying a genuine one, the printed text on the card is sharper, clearer, like the fake had literally been scanned and then printed. Read/write we similar to your results, rather than the higher rates it should most definitely be. Lost an outing of practice video shots but you live and learn.
 
Also be sure to double check the speed ratings on the card. The old Class 10 rating isn't necessarily fast enough. The newer ratings are U3 for "100MBps" speeds("100Mbps" is 8 times slower). There is also a V30 rating for video recording speed. There is also another rating "A2" that indicates faster read/write for small files if you were going to use it in a smartphone for application data storage. Here's a card that has all of the ratings: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FCMKK5X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_cEpKCbB6NCC5Z

Here are the cards I've been using in my Mavic Air: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XWZWYVP/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_bEpKCb8P23WZF
 
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