What SD Micro card best suited for Mavic 2Pro camera?

[gnirtS]

I would like to be capability of copying the whole card to my iphone or ipad.

I can just plug it into my android device and it reads as a removable drive.

 

[gnirtS]

I choose 128gb because I want to be able to record continuously for three batteries and have a comfortable margin to spare. Plus like many shooters I don't normally reuse cards while on a trip, so that potentially requires a lot of card capacity.

My workflow is to have files in two places while traveling, plus do a continuous cloud upload of anything special. Using prepaid (no contract) phone plan allows me to switch to a premium unlimited data plan during times when I'm creating a lot of good footage and stills. Losing a camera bag to theft also usually means losing the laptop.

I use a different work flow. Generally i'll take between 0 and 30 seconds of video a flight (most flights ill take none). Its entirely photos.

In case the drone gets lost i don't want lots stored on a single card because they i'd lose everything in the event of a loss or fault. So i take 3 or 4 32GB or 64GB cards and if i've got useful things from a flight, i'll swap the card out before the next one to protect it.

Then i'll either copy the card contents to my laptop or table in the evening.

 

[Whack]

So final test for today, after hours of incessant rain the clouds broke just before dark long enough for me to scramble my bits together and send the M2P out for one last experiment. This time I planned to record footage onto the internal storage and also onto the micro sd card to see if there was an difference in playback.
I flew out about 200mtrs at approx 100mtrs height in P mode which I saved on the sd card and the return journey I saved on the internal memory. While out I also managed to capture a quick timelapse which recorded onto the card.
Both recordings saved to my phone and played back smothly as did the sd card that i removed from the drone and placed in the phone. Good start but this was never the problem.
Next onto the MacBook Air, which I know is not a video editing powerhouse but I have used it to edit photos in the past and surely it can handle playback of a video file, anyway I connected the drone directly first via the usb port and saved the recording onto the Mac harddrive. Playback was like before glitchy & skipping, so not the result I was looking for. After this I placed the SD card into the Macbook and again saved the recording to the harddrive and again the footage was anything but smooth!!
Going on this basis it looks like the Mac is unable to handle the playback of this type of recording.
Funnily the timelapse played perfectly on the Macbook, but presumably this is because it's a compilation of photographs stitched together to create a video.
Any experts here have any other suggestions?
Timelapse test

 

[Whack]

My understanding is that iOS won't copy files it can't read, like H.265 video files. Perhaps there is some trick, but in my experience iOS just ignores the files on the card. In my experience it won't even copy .DNG files, which it can display, if there is a jpeg also present on the card.

The workaround is just to shoot H.264. So far I'm not impressed with d-log, so I may just do that. The "Hasselblad" false warmth in d-log and DNG stills is really annoying. I can undo the color cast in post, but I don't see the point so far.

But surely if ios will not copy/read the h.265 files then Should not see anything when I attempt to play the footage on the Macbook whereas I do get playback but it seems to skip every couple of seconds?

 

[gnirtS]

It just means the CPU isnt good enough to decode and play it back in real time.

 

[Anthony]

As already said here making sure you are buying a genuine card is really important, I used the Samsung 64 gig in my MP and it has been perfect so I will do the same with my M2P when it arrives.

 

[lil Glock]

I went with this one fom sams club.

Works great what little I have used it.

SanDisk Extreme 64GB microSDXC UHS-I Card

 

[Roamer105]

No just tried a windows laptop with vlc & gom media players and again each stutters on playback yet when I put the card into a Samsung galaxy s7 the playback is smooth

The problem is most likely VLC. It is pretty slow playing back H265 UHD at 10bits. I usually pull it into Resolve and play it in the scrub window - no problem there.

If you put an SD card into the M2 it will tell you the card is too slow if it is. If not, you should be fine.

 

[gnirtS]

For what its worth this card arrives today and *works*:-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ex...up+to+100+MB/s,+Class+10,+U3,+V30,+A1+-+64+GB

No speed warnings, no lag. The first card ive found that works.

 

[brobbo]

For what its worth this card arrives today and *works*:-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Extreme-microSDXC-Memory-Adapter/dp/B06XYT37NK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536519619&sr=8-1&keywords=SanDisk+Extreme+Pro+microSDXC+Memory+Card+Plus+SD+Adapter+up+to+100+MB/s,+Class+10,+U3,+V30,+A1+-+64+GB

No speed warnings, no lag. The first card ive found that works.

I put this in my Mavic zoom and it complained it was too slow, it wasn't sold directly through amazon so guessing mine was a fake so returned it

 

[JD2020]

Ok, let's talk about memory cards.
When you are shooting in 4K on a Mavic you generate about 1GB of data for every two minutes of video, so a 64GB card will hold around 2 hours of 4K video and require a microSDXC card. 64GB is what I use as I don't shoot more than around 1 hour of video on any given day, after which I move the files onto my computer (which has nearly 30TB of storage) so that the card is ready for the next shoot. If I needed to shoot more than two hours of video, I could either buy another 64GB card, and/or buy a bigger card (128GB or 256GB).

@jwblair: You mention a 256GB micro SD card, but the owner's manual for the Mavic 2 Pro & Zoom states that (for both of them), "Supporting Micro SD with capacity up to 128 GB and R/W speed up to UHS-I Speed Grade 3." I know that sometimes cameras say they will only support up to a certain size of card, but they actually support larger. Do you know if a 256GB card would work in the Pro/Zoom (or any earlier Mavics)?

 

[GradyGaugler]

So for my M2P I have a 64GB Sandisk Extreme (thought it was a plus but isn’t). Like I tend to do I went down a deep hole researching everything about these cards. I have seen that the U3 rating among others do not determine as much as we would all like, and the products and ratings are confusing as hell, every answer leads to more questions. Even within a certain product like (such as Sandisk extreme pro) there are several variants. Sequential write speeds do not mean real world write speeds. Correct me if I’m wrong, but something like video recording can be random as opposed to sequential writing and often a card will perform much worse at this.

This next part is both a mention and a question. My extreme began giving me write is too slow while filming, never got that before while filming the same before many times for hours. My only guess is that it either got damaged or as it fills up gets slower at writing?

I’d appreciate thoughts and info. Thanks!

 

[ff22]

So for my M2P I have a 64GB Sandisk Extreme (thought it was a plus but isn’t). Like I tend to do I went down a deep hole researching everything about these cards. I have seen that the U3 rating among others do not determine as much as we would all like, and the products and ratings are confusing as ****, every answer leads to more questions. Even within a certain product like (such as Sandisk extreme pro) there are several variants. Sequential write speeds do not mean real world write speeds. Correct me if I’m wrong, but something like video recording can be random as opposed to sequential writing and often a card will perform much worse at this.

This next part is both a mention and a question. My extreme began giving me write is too slow while filming, never got that before while filming the same before many times for hours. My only guess is that it either got damaged or as it fills up gets slower at writing?

I’d appreciate thoughts and info. Thanks!

If I understand the question, any file can be stored, well, kind of randomly. If you just erased a small document or file, that space is now available for use in the next WRITE operation. If you have a series of small openings (you erased lots of 1k files), then even a photo will be stored in those various openings. Not necessarily sequential. Clearly, video files are probably larger and can get stored anywhere there's room. The system takes care of dealing with storage and retrieval.

Now, I don't know enough of the tech details, but faster cards (those various cryptic codes) should be able to keep stashing/storing the video as you record it. That's why you are generally paying more for those faster "codes."

I'm sure someone will have a better explanation.

 

[GradyGaugler]

If I understand the question, any file can be stored, well, kind of randomly. If you just erased a small document or file, that space is now available for use in the next WRITE operation. If you have a series of small openings (you erased lots of 1k files), then even a photo will be stored in those various openings. Not necessarily sequential. Clearly, video files are probably larger and can get stored anywhere there's room. The system takes care of dealing with storage and retrieval.

Now, I don't know enough of the tech details, but faster cards (those various cryptic codes) should be able to keep stashing/storing the video as you record it. That's why you are generally paying more for those faster "codes."

I'm sure someone will have a better explanation.

Thanks so much for the reply!
Yes, what I was thinking was along those lines... I think. Thanks for the feedback!
Im wondering if it has to do with exfat. I believe it stores in very roughly 5GB chunks for video and that’s close enough to what I had left for storage.

That does make sense and may have been the cause... I have completed my research and found a great deal on samsung’s Top of the line card so I ordered that. May or may not end up needing it, but I want the best for my M2!