Which has better clarity and better for editing/uploading?  Also, is there a way to save the footage from the Phantoms in an MP4 format?

Quality is the same.

The DJI Go App allows you to access a menu item that selects whether the aircraft uses MOV or MP4. There is no difference in the quality, they both contain exactly the same material, just the file wrapper is different.

Geebax Posted at 2016-4-15 13:35
The DJI Go App allows you to access a menu item that selects whether the aircraft uses MOV or MP4. T ...

Thanks for your help.  I changed it.  

joey.lopina Posted at 2016-4-15 20:27
Thanks for your help.  I changed it.

Is there any file size difference?

Haven't paid attention.

I personally use mp4

Geebax is correct. .mov and .mp4 are simply containers or wrappers, and in this case, they house the same Sony AVC codec; therefore, the file sizes and quality are the same. I suppose DJI does this to give you some flexibility in working with different editing programs as some work better with one container or the other.

It is easy to shoot some test footage (one in .mov and one in .mp4) and do a side by side comparison to see for yourself. You just change the settings in MENU/VIDEO.

This is a little confusing because normally .mp4 is associated with higher compression and posting videos to the Internet whereas .mov is QuickTime and associated with ProRes, which is a higher quality, visually lossless codec.


However, since the DJI camera has a Sony sensor, it makes complete sense that they would have also gone with the Sony AVC codec, which is a very good codec in terms of compression vs quality.

Thank you

You can use DJI Go App to set the output format. Whether in mov or in mp4, the quality depends on the codec the video adopted. I like mkv since I always transcode mp4 to mkv for playback with subtitles. However, MP4 (H.264/AAC) should be the most compatible with most devices.