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Hello Everyone, we have a major problem with our latest shot that we did today in a very remote location (after a crazy 8 hour travel to get there). We recorded footage in 422 HQ prores in 4k HD and the 4K HD onto SD card internally. After every flight we checked back to see the footage and it looked great, so we thought everything was fin. But when finally arriving tonight in our hotel and checking the Prores files, we could not believ our eyes. Pretty much all footage is corrupted and basically unusable. I attached some stills from teh footage to check out. We have another two shoot days ahead and shoot tomorrow morning, but i am not sure what to do at this point. The bird flies and operates totally normal, does not give any error and recording look fine when checked back after flight. But teh master files are all unusable. Any help woudl be relaly appreciated. Thanks so much. Best, Martin

That's not good at all.

Just something to make note of, when you are playing back the file using the app directly off the Inspire, you are watching the H.264 file off the SD card, not the ProRes ones. Do these files look the same?

Hello Isky,

yes, the files are the same, but when played back on the iPad monitor scaled down the image looked fine. The lines are throughout the whole image as you can see but very fine and i guess if there is some line skipping in the small playback version, it might smooth things out, as to not being visible. But once you see full footage it is totally unusable.

This really is a huge problem and not sure what related to. DJI support has of course not responded at all, which is the most bothersome, as our client here is freaking out, since we lost a very expensive shoot day.

Crazy that this can happen upon changing nothing but upgrading to new firmware. We shot with this bird for hours of good footage before and never had an issue. I can only relate this to the firmware we upgraded to a day before the shoot, thats the only thing that changed. We shot tests and tried the firmware to see if everything worked and everything was fine back at the office.

But now this disaster. One thing to notice is that this effect pops in and out of the footage, like some takes might start out fine for 3 seconds and then this line pattern pops in for 20 sec. Then it is clear for 5 sec again and then the rest is all full of the pattern. Unfortunately pretty much 75% of the footage has the pattern, so we will have to reshoot at our expense.

Arrrgghhhh.

fans7fd13045 Posted at 2017-3-10 08:18
Hello Isky,

yes, the files are the same, but when played back on the iPad monitor scaled down the image looked fine. The lines are throughout the whole image as you can see but very fine and i guess if there is some line skipping in the small playback version, it might smooth things out, as to not being visible. But once you see full footage it is totally unusable.

Just to clarify, what were your settings for the ProRes footage? Have you tried resetting the unit to factory settings in the Assistant 2 Software and see if it helps?

Have you figured it out yet? Hopefully you have backup aircraft and camera.  What part of the country are you shooting?

Hello Guys, and thanks for comments. We are beyond fuming here, since we encountered another major problem with the software while shooting again yesterday. And yes, fans82, we luckily have a good old Inspire 1 as backup and send out a splinter unit to reshoot the desert shots, while we were filming with the Inspire 2 on the main unit.

We re installed the new firmware twice on Thursday night and shot a ton of test footage again, all looking perfect, no problems. We then also played with the new menu functions that were added, like applying the look up table while shooting in Log mode, which as it states in the on screen menu and printed menu is just for viewing and the recordings will still be in Log mode and not have the look up table applied.

Guess what, after shooting the second shoot day, full of amazing shots, of course we play back every single shot from the Drone, to make sure that it has no corruption. But then again, as we know, this only plays back the MP4 files, not the SSD media. So after the first flight we check out proves media and guess what???? All shots are basically super dark - again unusable. Luckily we learned our lesson to check the media after first flight and then went back up again and reshot everything in log mode without the Look up toggled on and gets what all footage is fine.

This is beyond crazy - is anyone over at DJI actually testing your new firmware before releasing? This is really not acceptable to sell a drone and market for professional market and have bugs in the software that render footage useless. Especially if they are supposed to be a function to use for professional monitoring, while log recording.

We are beyond mad at this - and get this until today not a single response from DJI support ??????

Here are some stills from what the bird recorded onto the micro SD card with the correct log recording and then the corresponding Prores version, which is actually even darker than the look up table would show.

UNBELIEVABLE - BEYOND WORDS.

And DJI Jamie, thanks for being the only and first person from DJI to respond, i will PM you about all this craziness. Maybe smart to pull the firmware until it is actually ready to ship and without major bugs like this.
Thanks for everyones input and help.

Can you explain what you mean when you say "We then also played with the new menu functions that were added, like applying the look up table while shooting in Log mode" ?   When I have enabled SSD mode and selected 422HQ (ProRes) I have a 'Looks' option for DLOG or Standard.  What do you mean by applying a lookup table while shooting in LOG mode?  I see only a choice between two 'Looks'... DLOG or Standard.

ScooterC5 Posted at 2017-3-11 12:58
Can you explain what you mean when you say "We then also played with the new menu functions that were added, like applying the look up table while shooting in Log mode" ?   When I have enabled SSD mode and selected 422HQ (ProRes) I have a 'Looks' option for DLOG or Standard.  What do you mean by applying a lookup table while shooting in LOG mode?  I see only a choice between two 'Looks'... DLOG or Standard.

I have nothing to offer in terms of suggestions.  Just wanted to say I agree with you about the support issue and about the total lack of consistency and quality when it comes to updates, as well as DJI support.  It's absolutely unacceptable and equally terrifying.  I've made it a policy to not update until I absolutely have to.  Anyway, sorry to hear about your issues and I hope you get it sorted out.

ScooterC5 Posted at 2017-3-11 12:58
Can you explain what you mean when you say "We then also played with the new menu functions that were added, like applying the look up table while shooting in Log mode" ?   When I have enabled SSD mode and selected 422HQ (ProRes) I have a 'Looks' option for DLOG or Standard.  What do you mean by applying a lookup table while shooting in LOG mode?  I see only a choice between two 'Looks'... DLOG or Standard.

Hey Scooter,
the new firmware offers a display LUT for your tablet preview. If you shoot LOG you will see a new icon pop up in your normal Pilot view on the upper right corner. If you click this it will give you a display LUT for viewing while flying, so your client and your operator can look at a more colorful and contrasty representation of your log images while flying.

Needless to say it shoudl not affect any of your recording media - which it unfortunatley did for us.

Here are some pictures to explain

are you sure enabling that upper right icon effected your video?  When you adjusted your exposure settings, did you have this enabled?  That could explain whey your exposure was off and very dark, since this artificially brightens everything.  Exposure settings should be done with this turned off for a more true setting based on what the camera is expected to record.  Did you do a test and toggle it off and on and then preview the recorded video to see if the video exposure toggled as well, to confirm that pressing this icon really was effecting the video recording?

Scooter,

the display LUT makes your image more contrasty and darker, so if setting exposure with the LUT enabled it would actually make your recorded image even brighter not darker and on top of that the Micro SD card shows the exposure correct  and thats what the system uses to play back and display. The Prores files are dark since there seems to be an error in what Gamma tag the files received when recorded.
It would be impossible to monitor and fly with an image as dark as what was recorded by the prores file.

It is a very strange occurrence and might be related to the firmware not working proper, or our drone having a problem, i would hope other users can maybe check and record on their units to see if they could replicate the error or if maybe our unit is having a technical issue and needs repair.

thanks

fans7fd13045 Posted at 2017-3-13 06:42
Scooter,

the display LUT makes your image more contrasty and darker, so if setting exposure with the LUT enabled it would actually make your recorded image even brighter not darker and on top of that the Micro SD card shows the exposure correct  and thats what the system uses to play back and display. The Prores files are dark since there seems to be an error in what Gamma tag the files received when recorded.

I know for a fact that Premiere Pro doesn't work well with the RAW files and makes them look extremely dark and magenta... Have you tried using the same ProRes files in Resolve and noticed the same effect?

ScooterC5 Posted at 2017-3-13 09:19
I know for a fact that Premiere Pro doesn't work well with the RAW files and makes them look extremely dark and magenta... Have you tried using the same ProRes files in Resolve and noticed the same effect?

Hey Scooter, yes, all the same in all applications we open the files in. If you look at the images you see that we are not talking about a slightly darker color or luminance cast but an almost black image.

thanks

ScooterC5 Posted at 2017-3-13 09:19
I know for a fact that Premiere Pro doesn't work well with the RAW files and makes them look extremely dark and magenta... Have you tried using the same ProRes files in Resolve and noticed the same effect?

Oh and by the way these are not raw DNG files but Prores files, they don't have LUT's or any colorspace as a meta file, like the raw files.

Thanks anyway.

fans7fd13045 Posted at 2017-3-13 06:42
Scooter,

the display LUT makes your image more contrasty and darker, so if setting exposure with the LUT enabled it would actually make your recorded image even brighter not darker and on top of that the Micro SD card shows the exposure correct  and thats what the system uses to play back and display. The Prores files are dark since there seems to be an error in what Gamma tag the files received when recorded.

So I tried shooting PRORES 422HQ in 23.98, 47.950, and 59.94 in 3840 x 2160 and 5.2 k where possible.  I tried 1/120th at f 16... as well as 1/50th and  1/100 where appropriate.

I tried each in standard, d-log, and dlog with the display lut.  

I could NOT replicate your results.  

Hello Thomas Akira,

thanks so much for your help and tests. Thats pretty much what i was afraid to hear. So i am guessing something in our bird is bad :-(

I also finally got a reply from DJI support this morning, this is their response:

Dear Martin,

We do apologize for the late response to your email. We are sorry to hear what happened to the footage's that you've taken on your travel. We don't want that to happened to your next schedule to shoot.

Hopefully it is working properly to your next footage.


AND THATS IT!!!!

I guess some video compression hardware or some sort of internal processing unit is not working properly. We will try one last firmware installs when we are back home and test yet once again, but otherwise will ask for replacement unit. Until then we are flying our Inspire 1 :-)

Thanks again.

Best,

Martin

fans7fd13045 Posted at 2017-3-11 11:24
Hello Guys, and thanks for comments. We are beyond fuming here, since we encountered another major problem with the software while shooting again yesterday. And yes, fans82, we luckily have a good old Inspire 1 as backup and send out a splinter unit to reshoot the desert shots, while we were filming with the Inspire 2 on the main unit.

We re installed the new firmware twice on Thursday night and shot a ton of test footage again, all looking perfect, no problems. We then also played with the new menu functions that were added, like applying the look up table while shooting in Log mode, which as it states in the on screen menu and printed menu is just for viewing and the recordings will still be in Log mode and not have the look up table applied.

I've responded to your PMs.

Hello Jamie,

great thanks. I just replied. Just wanted to point out and ask the community if others have also the same petty bugs to deal with as ourselves in order to figure out if we have a bad drone or just the same problems as anyone else.
We installed the firmware now 5 times, and finally the recordings work as expected, but now our before fixed "camera black image startup" problem is back.
Does anyone else still deals with that problem after newest firmware?
Basically we turn on remote and tablet and then after some 5 sec waiting the Inspire 2 itself. The bird initializes and the Pilot app comes on with the FPV camera showing an image, but the main camera shows black. The only way to get an image is to reboot the bird between 1 and 3 times until we finally have picture. Is everyone else experiencing that issue and if yes, when will this finally be fixed??
Other problem that is still existing is the gimbal yaw smoothness adjustments causing the drone to fly with almost uncontrollable slow yaw movements.
When we adjust the gimbal yaw smoothness to anything as high as 50 - 100% the drone literally stops to be able to be controllable in terms of Yaw movement.
I know that issue has popped up numerous times in the forums, but again, no change with new firmware, the bug is still imminent.
Next issues is still no EXFAT file support for SSD drives, which truncates the Prores files into multiple chunks. Normally not a big issue but we had now 3 videos with frames missing from one chunk to the next and read other posts with the same issue. DJI's marketing material on their website still shows the SSD as FAT32 and EXFAT capable , but the truth is it can only be formatted in the drone itself in FAT32, making it unable to write files bigger than 4GB.
All these issues are amounting to so much headache in a production environment when you actually need to shoot and need the footage to be usable and reliable captured.
We would love to see what everyone else deals with and if people are just getting used to work arounds or if we indeed have a bad bird like some others and rather send back for a swap since we bought the care refresh service.

thanks to everyone who can shine a light on their experience.

Best,

Martin