Extreme Jitter in Smart Controller Video Feed
850 4 2021-6-30
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dwillis
lvl.2
Flight distance : 1613642 ft
United States
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I'm posting this here so I can link to it in the issue description for my service request.

Whenever I fly the Mavic Air 2 using the Smart Controller, the video feed starts out mildly jittery and, if I do nothing else, the issue will get slowly worse and worse. However, if I start recording a video, the issue immediately becomes so bad the video feed cannot be reliably used to frame shots. Screen recording will also exacerbate the issue somewhat but not to the extent that video recording does.  Here's a screen recording of the problem:
I purchased the MA2 Fly More combo with the Smart Controller back in January of this year and did not have any problems with the video feed at that time. The problem began sometime in May, I think it was, after an update to something. I made sure the aircraft, controller and Fly app were all up-to-date but the problem persisted. I set the Transmission tab settings to "Smooth," "Dual-band," and "Auto" but this did not help. Then I tried rolling the Smart Controller's firmware back from version 1.01.0058 to version 1.01.0040 using the DJI Assistant 2 for Mavic program but this made no difference either. The aircraft itself has no option to roll back any firmware updates and neither does the Fly app. I've performed a factory data reset and I've installed an SD card in the Smart Controller so there is a total 35.5GB of free space available to the controller but this made no difference either. The aircraft's distance from the controller does not seem to be a factor as it happens at all distances.

Edit:
BTW, I discovered that downgrading the SC to 1.01.0040 caused the controller to be unable to charge rapidly even when using the cable and charger provided by DJI. Restoring the firmware to 1.01.0058 allowed it charge rapidly again.
2021-6-30
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Mobilehomer
Second Officer
Flight distance : 18135846 ft
United States
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I noticed you are in Sport mode. DJI warns that there will be problems when recording this way. How does it perform in Cine or Normal.
2021-6-30
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DanielVieira
lvl.4
Flight distance : 4633533 ft
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Portugal
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Do you have external memory card in the SC? If so, maybe thats the problem, slow SD card can cause that...

Try to disable Cache in DJI Fly and check avaiable free space in the SC.
2021-7-1
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dwillis
lvl.2
Flight distance : 1613642 ft
United States
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Mobilehomer Posted at 6-30 18:50
I noticed you are in Sport mode. DJI warns that there will be problems when recording this way. How does it perform in Cine or Normal.

I was not aware of that but it performs the same in Normal and Cine modes. I often shoot in Normal mode to smooth out the starts and stops. I didn't in the video because it was just a demo and I wasn't aware that the mode could have an impact. Are these "potential problems" to do with the video recorded to the aircraft's SD card or is it something else? For me, the issue is only with the video feed on the smart controller. The aircraft itself and the video it records have no issues.

@DanielVieira
I have the issue both with and without an SD card in the controller. The controller has 7.95GB of free space internally and the SD card I'm using is a 32GB Samsung EVO Plus which brings the total amount of free space to 35.5GB. I'll give it a try with caching disabled later today.
2021-7-1
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dwillis
lvl.2
Flight distance : 1613642 ft
United States
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DanielVieira Posted at 7-1 01:30
Do you have external memory card in the SC? If so, maybe thats the problem, slow SD card can cause that...

Try to disable Cache in DJI Fly and check avaiable free space in the SC.

Disabling the cache made a significant improvement. It jitters a little but it's minor. Re-enabling the cache makes it worse again but still not as bad as it was before. The cache was set to "Auto."

Thanks for the suggestion! I don't ever use the cached files so I think I'll just leave it disabled and cancel my support request with DJI as it seems like sending it in to them won't help.
2021-7-1
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