l had issues with my camera on the first day of uploading with overheating, beeping, warnings, green half-screen flashes on my ipad, etc.
When it cooled off the next day, the warning was gone, status was good, l put it in the air. Wow! Do these things ever fly well!
Anyway, from the ground l thought everything went smoothly, l had no beeps, no warnings, l brought it in front of me and put the camera down then up then in position l wanted. All smooth. So l thought it had just overheated the night before and all was well.
Then l looked at the video.

The default player was Quicktime and the video was very jerky. Every second it would jump ahead, there was no smoothness at all, just jump, jump, jump.
Needless to say l was disappointed and ready to send it back. ln order to do that l wanted to send the video to show what was happening. Lo and behold when l uploaded to youtube the jerking was gone. Put it on vimeo the jerking is gone. Even watching the same video in windows media player the jerking is gone.

Sorry to be so long-winded but l'm tense about this and don't trust that it's normal. l'm within my window of opportunity to return it, but l want to keep it if it's normal.

So my question is, is it normal for quicktime to play like that? Does it struggle with this type of video?

Given that the gimbal overheated badly the night before, and the warning that gimbal can't receive MC data, and the ipad was getting half-screen green flashes on it, does this add up to a defective unit or am l being paranoid?

This is what l did pre-flight:
gimbal guard off
foam piece removed
controller update successful
copter update successful
IMU cal as the app requested
gimbal cal
sticks/wheel cal
compass cal in field

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Change the video type (in app) to mp4 instead, as a suggestion, or get .MOV codecs for your player.  If not available, get a player that supports mov. Just for video play back.

So you think the jerking issue is only from the player and nothing to do with the Phantom/recording? That would be a relief.
l'll switch to mp4 in the app and see how that goes next flight, thanks for the suggestion.

As a first course, yes.  The only time I get the same, I fix as above. .mov, apple stuff.

On a windows platform, of course.

l'm hoping people will give their opinion on this unit as l'm leaning towards sending it back. The video is terrible, but l don't know enough to know if l'm doing something wrong or if it's defective.
Video l get from the P2V+V3 isn't this bad. lt was just a low check flight to see if everything was working.

This is a minute long snippet of the original video ran through Premiere Pro and uploaded to youtube as h264



This is the plain video l referred to in the first post, uploaded as it was filmed, straight to youtube:

CapitAn Posted at 2015-5-10 05:43
l'm hoping people will give their opinion on this unit as l'm leaning towards sending it back. The v ...

Well, you put the camera to the hardest test for a compressed stream like what is recorded with the P3 and most other videocameras below pro-level); grass and intricate tree-branches, in movement (across each other). Grass and movement is a killed for compressed video. Look at how beautiful e.g. the building looks.

You've been hit with the fact, that the 4K video from the P3Pro is "only" 60mb/s. So keep that in mind when filming - that exact thing you tried is close to the worst thing you can do with the camera (well, you know what I mean ). Other cameras will do it too. I'm afraid it is a limitation of the bitrate. I think it is likely it would have happened less for that particular shot, if you were in 1080p60, where it is also the max bitrate of about 60mb/s but lower resolution (but more frames). You could try that yourself.

I don't see anything wrong with your camera. We should play at its strengths rather than its weaknesses when we do our moviemaking with the Phantom 3 Pro. With your shot, you played it hard at one of its biggest weaknesses

Perhaps you could mitigate it a bit by shooting LOG-color (colorgrading yourself) and turning down saturation and contrast in "Style: Custom". I'm not sure - but the point of that would be for the camera to get a much more flat image (meant more to mitigate the other major weakness of the camera; the relatively low level of dynamic range - to avoid the sky being blown out - or the shadows/blacks being crushed). It *might* also help a bit on that very challenging shot you did with movement, a very complex tree with tiny branches and grass behind it

FantomDK Posted at 2015-5-10 08:02
Well, you put the camera to the hardest test for a compressed stream like what is recorded with th ...

Thank you for this detailed and very helpful response, l appreciate it.

l did choose to stay low over grass and to get up close and personal with the tree to see how it would handle it, having to deal with close, mid-range and far branches in a moving shot. The P2 actually does a pretty good job with this, l think that's why l thought there was something wrong.
But you're right, l'm not giving it a fair shot. l'll take it up high and get broad aerial footage to see how it looks.

l don't know anything about photography or editing so all these settings are new to me, and once l've settled into believing it's not defective {:3_61:} l'll start experimenting with actual photography rather than just flight testing. l have the Adobe Creative Cloud but l don't know how to use it yet, all part of the learning experience l guess.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

I had this today but can happily report that it was entirely down to the media player on my laptop. Check the instant playback on whatever device you have connected to the controller, if it's okay there then it's not going to be different later.

The other issues you're having on the other hand...

CapitAn Posted at 2015-5-10 08:22
Thank you for this detailed and very helpful response, l appreciate it.

l did choose to stay low  ...

You are welcome.

I'd be surprised if you would not experience the same case of the video breaking up with the Phantom2 Vision+ if you were doing the exact same move the exactly same place+conditions. The P2V+ has a lower bitrate (10-12mb/sec if I recall correctly) so that sort of thing where the video "collapses" because of compression should be even more prevalent. The 60mb/sec for the 4K isn't very high (but as high as GoPro4) - but 4K has four times the pixels of 1080. As you could see, it looked very nice when not moving - but when you panned across the large grassy field (it taking up most of the image) the image collapsed.  Thats just something to keep in mind. If you're filming such things, it helps to be super-smooth and slow or these unfortunate things might pop up.

There is a very jerky, jumpy, flickery problem with the Phantom 3 Pro.  It is built in.  It is the bit rate of only 60mbps.  That is not at all fast enough for 4K video.  It is in fact about what a good 1080p camera records at, but 4K is 4X the resolution, supposedly.  My Panasonic Lumix fz1000 4K video camera has a bit rate of 100mbps, which is very excellent quality.   But at the P3P's cruddy 60mbps, compromises are made in image quality.  I discovered the limits of the  Phantom 3 Pro while flying over a corn filed in daylight and cloud shadows.  As the cloud shadows moved across, and my P3P moved slowly ahead, the amount of image information coming into the camera far surpassed the 60mbps, and the result was a very odd phenomenon; the cloud shadows seem to only move every 8th frame (this is a form of artifacting)!  Everything else moves normally, but the cloud shadows literally stand still for 7 frames, then jump forward.  It results in video so poor that it is unusable, unless you go to time lapse at 400% speed or beyond (800% is better).  But this is not always a usable solution, since time lapse accentuates any drone movements and you don't always want things to move extra fast.  So the 60mbps is the Phantom 3 Professional's biggest flaw.  I would buy a better camera for it right now, if DJI made one. A bit rate of at least 100mbps is essential for 4K video.  That is a fact and DJI has dropped the ball on this one feature. Other than that, I love the Phantom 3 Professional, but this is a very big issue.

CapitAn Posted at 2015-5-10 05:43
l'm hoping people will give their opinion on this unit as l'm leaning towards sending it back. The v ...

I see a smooth playing video at 2160p.
So what's the problem? (hardware?)

giant Posted at 2015-7-14 19:54
I see a smooth playing video at 2160p.
So what's the problem? (hardware?)

In 95%+ of situations, the P3P does an amazing job and gets spectacular 4K videos. But in some situations, with lots of detail and lots of motion, the 60mbps data recording rate falls short and the video is wrecked by artifacting, blurring, and jumpy video. The example I gave above, cloud shadows moving across a landscape, is a very good example of a common, every day situation that the P3P's camera simply can't handle!  Cloud shadows always move jerky, only moving every 8th frame (as totally odd as that sounds). The camera needs at least a data rate of 100mbps to overcome these shortcomings.  Please DJI, make a camera upgrade available ASAP, maybe even a recall of these cameras to give people what they paid for.

Just ordered a super fast sd card. I'm hoping it helps some of the playback stuff.

jimcloud74@yaho Posted at 2015-7-27 23:21
Just ordered a super fast sd card. I'm hoping it helps some of the playback stuff.

Please, let us know if anything changes with faster SD card!

Fabio Dell Posted at 2015-10-21 23:40
Please, let us know if anything changes with faster SD card!

Seems to be the same. If I slow down the frame rate it seems to do better. Just started playing with some ND filters too. We shall see.

CapitAn Posted at 2015-5-9 19:22
Thank you for this detailed and very helpful response, l appreciate it.

l did choose to stay low  ...

Andrea,

Glad to see you in the P3 world! Guys like Fantom and others here are real professionals. You already know my skill level with the video part of these things, absolutely atrocious! None and nada. Personally, I think you'll be quite pleased with this bird coming from the P2. I don't think you're concerned about 4k, are you? I'm doing everything at 1080p 60fps and it's night and day when compared to the P2. Read some of the posts from these guys and start playing with a few of the settings and I think you'll become equally impressed.  

Jerry

JtrJr-UAV Pilot Posted at 2015-10-22 22:14
Andrea,

Glad to see you in the P3 world! Guys like Fantom and others here are real professionals. ...

Hi Jerry,

Thanks for responding. You're right of course, l do love this thing. The post was about my inaugural flight from first week in May. l guess my expectations were too high and l've since learned the camera's limitations and try to avoid those conditions whenever possible. The video is pretty crisp, not bad overall.
l'm with you on the editing front but l'm slowly picking up enough tips to make my videos at least presentable. l got an imac so l could switch to FCPX and l do like that better.
Good to see you back

Andrea.

CapitAn Posted at 2015-10-23 04:42
Hi Jerry,

Thanks for responding. You're right of course, l do love this thing. The post was about ...

Andrea,

Whoops, didn't catch the date! I saw it just before bedtime. Obviously, you're way ahead of me! Good to see you here anyway. You need a new avatar!

Jerry

Hi all.
Do the fastest micro sd cards would help with 4k recording of P3P ?

Ι have the Lexar 633x  and thinkig if something faster would help with the jerky video?

JtrJr-UAV Pilot Posted at 2015-10-23 10:14
Andrea,

Glad to see you in the P3 world! Guys like Fantom and others here are real professionals. ...

Amen brother!

I added a faster sd card but it didn't help.  Then someone told me to install the MPC-HC x64 app on my Windows 7 pc and that really helped smooth the video out.  There is even a tab setting to speed up the video.  Worked for me.

I need help please with jerky video. I just received my P4. When I put the card in my home Mac computer the video playback was jerky really bad using the Quick time player. Am I doing something wrong or is the problem the 4k 60 frame thing? If so, what setting on the bird should I use to get stable video?

I can't help you with the MAC, but I've tried using Quick time with 4k @ 30 fps on my windows desktop here with all the power I could want, and quicktime cannot play it back smoothly, very jerky.

My same desktop using windows 'Films & TV' App' it is smooth...

Is there another player you could try ?

I just tried it with video setting on bird at 1080 and 60 fps ans still same thing?

blknotkpr@earth Posted at 2016-6-16 03:59
I just tried it with video setting on bird at 1080 and 60 fps ans still same thing?

it's the computer not being able to keep up with the processing power needed.
Can you try a quick clip in 720, certainly your computer should play 720 video just fine.

Changed Mac display to 720, did the same tthing. Played it back through the bird to the ipad mini 2 I'm using to fly and it plays fine. I do not understand why its not playing smooth on my home Mac running OSX 10.6.8 2.5 Ghz i5 4 GB memory?

blknotkpr@earth Posted at 2016-6-15 22:20
Changed Mac display to 720, did the same tthing. Played it back through the bird to the ipad mini 2  ...

Have you tried a player other than quicktime ?

I tried that VLC player, and I think that might do the trick.I'm going to try real flight today and see. I just did a short hand held garage flight last night and it seemed to work. will let you know.

blknotkpr@earth Posted at 2016-6-15 08:04
I need help please with jerky video. I just received my P4. When I put the card in my home Mac compu ...

Use VLC, Quick time doesn't handle 4K well

FYI . . . for those whom this may apply to, when unpacking the Phantom be sure to remove the foam block behind the gimble.  You don't notice it unless you turn the drone upside-down.  A friend of mine didn't remove this and his gimble was jerky resulting in the camera jerking and not always being perfectly level.  Hope this helps some of you with jerky video.

Thanks to those that suggested switching from Quicktime, I thought I had a problem with my camera and using Media Player fixed it.

Download VLC media player.  Jerkiness gone.. Windows media player, quicktime and others are all terrible..