Yesterday I did some flying and took several pictures and movies.

Everything seemed to work fine.  Today I continued taking more pictures and making a couple more movies.  I even took a movie, downloaded it to my ipad and published it on youtube.  All worked well except I was not happy with the resolution after I downloaded it to my ipad.  

So now I get home and decide to take the SD card out and put it into my computer.  The video quality form the day before on the movies was spectacular so I was stoked.  Then I tried to open a move from today and got this error. " Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file."  So I ran a little experiment and tried to make another video and it did not write properly either.  It's funny, you can view and video on my ipad but taking the SD card to my laptop just won't work on videos.  Still pictures works fine.  

Did I change a setting?  I cna't figure out what went wrong.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,


Mark Miller

HI : Get the vlc player ( free )   http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html , and your video playback issues will be gone ..

You may have accidentally corrupted the video file. This happens if you do not stop recording before switching off the aircraft. If this occurs, then the file is not finalised. It can be repaired by placing the card back in the aircraft and switching the aircraft on for 30 senods or so, but if you have since recorded another clip, then it will fail. The file can be repaired using the DJI Fix application.

Hello Mark, it is recommended to use VLCPlayer or PotPlayer to play the videos. But if the video are corrupted by accident, you may need some video repair software to fix it such as Grau GBR video repair software.

Hi Mark,

Have you set the videos to .mov in the camera settings. If so on your pc try renaming the .mov to .mp4 because .mp4 is a subset of .mov and very often you can just change the extension and it will play.
I also agree that its best to download VLC media player (its free) its what I use without any problems.

HTH

George

'It's funny, you can view and video on my ipad but taking the SD card to my laptop just won't work on videos.  Still pictures works fine.'

I just picked up on this comment by you. The copy of the video on your iPad is down-scaled 720p copy of the main 4K video, that's why it plays OK. Whereas the file on the SD card is the full 4K resolution. It is likely that your laptop simply cannot deal with 4K, not enough horsepower. Still photos will display OK on almost any computer.

Geebax Posted at 2016-5-10 07:50
You may have accidentally corrupted the video file. This happens if you do not stop recording before ...

Geebax,

Where can I get the DJI Fix application?  I didn't see it in the app store.

I agree the VLC Media Player is good to have in your toolbox.  One little tip, you'll want to click on Subtitle in the menu bar, then click Subtrack and Disable -- otherwise the GPS and other data from the DJI_xxx.srt file will show up on the screen!

Thanks to all for all your help.  I am confused with one thing.  Will VLC fix my current problem or just fix things from this point on.  

I am pretty sure I turned off the phantom before stopping the recording of the video.  My problem is now I cannot record any videos that I can read using any video editing software.  I haven't tried VLC yet but I just want things back as they were.  Working fine before I made this mistake.  Again I can view the videos from my ipad but the file on the sd card is unreadable.  The old ones as well as any new files I try to record now.

Thanks,

Captainmarkie Posted at 2016-5-10 18:01
Geebax,

Where can I get the DJI Fix application?  I didn't see it in the app store.

The FIX-DJI program is actually open sourced by Live Networks and is available here. It was recently update in April 2016:

FIX-DJI Utilityto attempt to repair corrupt video files

Ok I will download the fix and attempt to repair the existing video files.  However, what about any new ones that I take?  Ever since this has happened I cannot record a video without a read error.  Should I reload the software on the drone itself?

Captainmarkie Posted at 2016-5-10 19:52
Ok I will download the fix and attempt to repair the existing video files.  However, what about any  ...

Probably should start by cleaning off your SD Card and try reformatting it on the Phantom to see if the SD Card has the issue... It may have written a bad sector. Remember to always power off the aircraft before inserting or removing the SD Card...

I tried a completely new sd card and did a new format as well.  I am still getting the movie files on the sd card but cannot read anything new since this started.  I am out of options other than to reload the firmware.

Anyone else have any ideas.  

Captainmarkie Posted at 2016-5-10 22:31
I tried a completely new sd card and did a new format as well.  I am still getting the movie files o ...

Captain this sounds more like a codec issue on your PC... The Phantom records compressed H.264 video into either a MOV file or a MP4 file. Your PC needs the correct "uncompressor" (codec) to play the video. Most current PCs should have appropriate H.264 codecs, but stranger things have happened.....

That's why the recommendation to install VLC as it will safely bring current codecs to your PC in case they have been lost or corrupted. (downloading codecs from bad sites can infect your PC). Since you have iOS products, you can also try installing Apple Quicktime which should also bring current codecs if needed. I thought iTunes would also bring Quicktime player, but iTunes alone won't update codecs.

Either VLC or Quicktime are certainly worth a try... Make sure you get VLC from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ or iTunes/Quicktime from Apple (iTumes)...... or Get the latest Windows Quicktime here...

If after all this the videos won't play, then verify that you've checked what Geebax suggested, and record the lowest resolution video possible and see if it is a PC resource issue.... edit: (actually you may want to do what Geebax suggest first and try a low resolution video before wasting time.)

Good luck & fly safe!!!!

Terry,

Thanks but I can read all of my mov. files that I took before I made the mistake of turning off the drone before turning off the recording.  After that i'ts like something happened to the firmware.  I can still read the older movie files just fine from windows movie maker, etc.  It's just anything that was made after that particular incident.  This is why I don't think anything is wrong with the PC or it's software.  Let me you if you think I am thinking wrong.

Thanks

Captainmarkie Posted at 2016-5-11 01:49
Terry,

Thanks but I can read all of my mov. files that I took before I made the mistake of turning  ...

Sorry, some day, I'll learn how to read an entire thread!

Clearly not a codec issue or PC issue then!  Shutting down the aircraft while recording shouldn't affect the camera operation/firmware -> worst case corrupt the SD Card... But you swapped out and reformatted the card....

Would you be willing to create and post a test video as a download and let us look at the file for formatting, and see if it will play for us?

I would be willing to make a quick movie tonight when I get home and post it.  This is the strangest thing.  I am also going to try and reload the firmware just in case.  Can't hurt anything just in case that did get corrupted.  I have tried everything.  I can understand the current file being corrupted because of my error, what is puzzling is that it keeps making movies I can't use on ANY reader, movie editing software, or viewer.  Before this all happened I could read everything fine and STILL CAN, as long as the movie was made prior to the shut down mistake.

Thanks to everyone for all the advice and help.  It's greatly appreciated

Mark

I suggest - Verify the resolution of the image. As a Ph3 can film at 4K resolution, your screen may not show that large amount of data.