Hi,

I'm convinced I'm not crazy! On each of my last 5 flights, the second video file (after the 4GB split) from the SD Card is always unplayable after about 3 second! Happens with iOS or Android app! Phantom 3 Pro 4K 30FPS NTSC. Always stop recording before powering off the drone... Figured if it was the memory card, it wouldn't always be 3 seconds into the second file...

Is anyone else having this problem? Was happening before and after this week's firmware update...

No replies so I guess it's unusual.
Two points - are you stopping the recording well in advance of turning off the phantom?
It needs a minute or so to clear any buffer and close the file.
Secondly it's best to format the card in the camera, from the app.
Some report no problem formatting in the computer then using it, but in general with any recording device it's best to format in the device before using.

Otherwise it might be a faulty card, they aren't 100% reliable even if you buy a top brand.
It's worth having a couple of spare ones anyway in case you lose the tiny thing.
You must have a fast one too, look for UHS-1 and write speed at least 30mb/s

Sounds similar to my experience today. First file 3,91gb is ok, the second file jams at 35 secs. Third file 3,91gb is ok, the fourth jams in the very beginning.

No trouble before, just after the recent update.

I always format my card through the app before flying.

Nine minutes of footage at a time, then.

Just curious, how do Android and/or iOS come into play?  Obviously there's something I don't know but I assume you're talking about the files on the card in the camera?  The reason I'm asking is because I playback my files on my mac with a card reader, with the quicktime program.  If there's some way to playback files on an OS device keep in mind that 4K video files are huge.  If you're having problems with the file size limit just press your record button during flight occasionally to close the file and then press record again to start another one.

also, no problems with the new firmware.  I flew a couple orbits with the simulator before flying circles around the tree in my yard.  Its pretty awesome

Firstly, the App has nothing to do with the recording on the aircraft's SD card, it is entirely controlled by the gimbal mount. Then I would ask how you lift the file off the SD card after the flight, do you then erase the files or do you format the card again?

The best course of action is always to copy the files off, then format the card in the camera. Do not delete the files from the card, as that makes it harder for the system in the gimbal to write new files to the card. I could explain this more deeply, but that is the simplest explanation.

Geebax Posted at 2015-9-11 21:23
Firstly, the App has nothing to do with the recording on the aircraft's SD card, it is entirely cont ...

Tried with a new card, 2 flights... One pair of files was OK, the second file on the second flight wasn't. Always format the card with the app in the drone...

Was thinking the app might have something to do with it because the Android one always crashes.. At some point I'll sit down and use a hex editor to figure out what exactly is going on with these files, but even if I stop the recording more than a minute before powering down it still sometimes messes up.  Seems like other people are having this problem, so maybe it's a problem with the firmware with 4k/30fps...

Perhaps I should try dropping it down to 24fps...

LarryBanks Posted at 2015-9-12 21:58
Tried with a new card, 2 flights... One pair of files was OK, the second file on the second flight ...

Did another flight yesterday, second file wasn't playable again, even though I stopped recording before even landing, long before powering down.

This is going to get a bit nerdy: I opened the old hex editor to see what was going on in the file... Fun thing about MP4 files is that they conform to an ISO standard, and there are rules about what should be where.

In this case, byte 32 of the file contains the hex offset to the "movie box", the part of the file that tells the decoder where the information about what exactly is in the file and how to decode it is, which in MP4s is stuffed into the end of the file. In this file, it was empty (00 00 00 00)... I searched in the file for the MOOV box, got the offset, put the value into byte 32 (59 99 57 58 in my case, different for every file), save it, and voila! Working MP4 file!

So in this case, the gimbal isn't correctly finalizing the second file for some reason... Other failures I've seen are random corruption of frames, which breaks the decode. That wasn't the case here - that might be caused by underperforming memory cards, or something else. Will continue poking around in the hex editor.

I'm no expert on this, but perhaps it may be worth re-loading the firmware for the gimbal, as that is the section responsible for writing to the card.