I have my new bird now for a week and was able to some first test flights ans as wel shoot some footage. Something weird is happening:
Turning on video creates a perfect MP4 file. But if I turn in video again It still creates a file, but the second file can't be played.
For playback I am using VLC and also tried Window media player, same results with both players.
my storage is  a Samsung EVO 32G (class10) micro SD. The fact that there is no trouble with the first file and the video can be watched tells me the SD card is working correctly.
After that happened once, I thought it might be my fault somehow. But I had now the same experience on 3 different occasions, always the same: only the first file can be played.

Anyone having the same issue or even mor important having an idea while that might happen?

Are you making the 2 videos on the same flight, and are you turning off the Phantom before you stop the second video with the phone app?

Gerry1124 Posted at 2014-12-12 10:24
Are you making the 2 videos on the same flight, and are you turning off the Phantom before you stop  ...

Good question and I do not have a definite answer for it. So much other stuff to focus on ..... I would say, I have turned it off between flights but left the sd card in the phantom. Whether I turned the video off on the phone ...... I would say I did, but can't be 100%sure. If these facts are important, I will definitely make some flights, checking out different conditions, unless someone tells me WHAT NOT TO DO, so I don't need to recreate a situation others already established as being false.

Are you changing batteries between videos? I've found when I do that and forget to turn the camera off between changing batteries. After the change of battery, the first video is "finalized" but if you don't shut the camera down (stop recording) land then turn off battery the second video is not completed. Insert the sd card back in the Phantom, turn on the battery, wait several minutes then turn off battery remove the sd card, I'll bet the second video will be ok

If you turn off the battery on the Phantom while the video is still running, the video will be corrupted and not viewable.  I did the same thing, so I did a test in the house with the props off.  I made a short video and turned the video off before I turned the Phantom off, and then made a second video and turned off the Phantom battery first and that second video could not be seen. Then I made a third video and turned it off with the app on the phone before I turned off the battery.  The second one was not viewable and corrupt.

1) Make sure you stop the video in the DJI app BEFORE you turn off the Phantom (otherwise it will corrupt the end of the file)
2) If you didn't follow step 1, turn the Phantom back on and leave it on for at least 30 seconds and it should complete the end of the file.

Also, I discovered a little glitch when I would remove SD card to transfer the video files to my computer.  Sometimes when I would reinsert the SD card it wasn't making good contact and I would get symptoms like the video wouldn't appear or it wouldn't record.  Now, the first thing I do when opening the DJI app is to go into the album folder and see if the app can read from the SD card album, if I get the little "waiting" circle that means the card doesn't have a good connection so I shut down the Phantom, then eject-install-eject-install-eject-install the SD card.  Then it's restart the Phantom and retry the DJI App again.

I've now started transferring the videos via USB cable between the camera and computer.

Another day I learned something!

Thanks for all the advice and especially on the trick to recover the "lost" footage. It must have been operator error, shutting the bird down, while video was still recording. I plugged the SD card back in and fired up the phantom. I created another video. After shutting everything down, retrieving the SD card and put it in my laptop, I was able ON THE SECOND attempt to play the "lost" file in MS media player.
Interesting enough the properties of this file shows created: 12-11.2014 modified: 01-01-2008. Sure enough a sign of some problems with the file. I will make sure to turn off the video before shutting the Phantom down, but also know now how to rectify the problem should I forget again.

Thanks again.

BeachNerd Posted at 2014-12-12 11:23
Another day I learned something!

Thanks for all the advice and especially on the trick to recove ...

Good that you got it to work, Happy Flying.