Hi there, everyone....I've just bought my first phantom, the p4, and I'm pretty appalled at the quality of the video; it has a mushy, soft appearance with next to no detail.
Attached are links to a clip done in 1080p, one done at 2.7k and the last at UHD.
Before recording I reset the camera, reformatted the card and set the colour style to none and am using standard picture setting.
This is not good enough surely?

1080p first:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k1gou0c4adeflfi/1080p4.MOV?dl=0

2.7k:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4fajr4e60yeax3i/2.7k%20p4.MOV?dl=0

UHD:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1x2g1tgg7nkrx8j/full4kp4.MOV?dl=0

That indeed does not look good at all. I can say the P4 video and photos are really incredible and very sharp and crisp.
You took off the plastic film lens protector right?
If so, then your camera may indeed have an issue.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-4-29 10:06
That indeed does not look good at all. I can say the P4 video and photos are really incredible and v ...

thanks for your response
have doubled checked to see if the lens protector is still on and it isn't....I think it's stuffed?

Do NOT post videos on DROPBOX, the compression is HUGE!!! I can take a footage from RED in 6K D-Log and color corrected and put it on DB and is garbage.
Use YouTube and download there. Always shoot in 1080P/60 and shutter speed at 120 to 240. Upload in YT as is from the SD card.
Here are my YT videos shot in 1080P/60 raw from the SD card.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT_0JlmeSBCbL4bkLq7FXVA

danny.condruti Posted at 2016-4-29 10:49
Do NOT post videos on DROPBOX, the compression is HUGE!!! I can take a footage from RED in 6K D-Log  ...

That is not true, if you post a file then download that file, there is no compression. You only get it if you view the material using the Dropbox player, which is apallingly bad.

Having said that, I downloaded the 4K clip and I cannot see anything wrong with it. The scene itself is just about the worst scene you could choose for any system that uses MPEG compression, as it is almost entirely small foliage which does not compress well. Other than the fact that it was under-exposed, it looks fairly typical to me.

You might advise what computer you are watching it on (specs etc) and which player you are using.

Try disabling the 3D Noise Reduction if you haven't done so already.

I'm using an 2011 imac which plays the files of the the card fine. There are people posting on phantom pilots with similar problems...poor detail in bushes and trees.

COberschneider Posted at 2016-4-29 14:59
Try disabling the 3D Noise Reduction if you haven't done so already.

I have diabled the noise reduction.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-4-29 10:06
That indeed does not look good at all. I can say the P4 video and photos are really incredible and v ...

Thanks ken..I have heard that the p4 footage is very good which is why I cant understand whats going on with this stuff...ive been chatting with a guy on phantom pilots who has used phantoms since the word go and he's got a bad copy as well....he posted still images from his video showing exactly the same blurryness in bush and trees as im getting.

Just an FYI a too high of shutter speed can cause this as well if shooting video.

dpcam1 Posted at 2016-4-30 02:02
Thanks ken..I have heard that the p4 footage is very good which is why I cant understand whats goi ...

And you tried different settings, frame rates, and you are in auto and not manual ?

DJI-BladeStrike Posted at 2016-4-30 06:05
Just an FYI a too high of shutter speed can cause this as well if shooting video.

hi there...I have an nd 8 on the camera and had the shutter speed down to about 160...still too high to me...

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-4-30 06:28
And you tried different settings, frame rates, and you are in auto and not manual ?

I'm in manual mode for these shots....i reset the camera and formatted the card before filming.

dpcam1 Posted at 2016-4-30 03:17
I'm in manual mode for these shots....i reset the camera and formatted the card before filming.

Try auto and see if you get the same results.

My phantom 4 "suffers" the same kind of problems, I've tested many configurations, disabled 3D noise.... but I keep thinking my old P3 footage is much better....

Dropbox example: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9k3rwr ... om4_sample.zip?dl=0

Have had a successful conclusion to the video quality problems with my p4..the company I bought it of agree things are not right with it and have notified the new zealand distributor that I will be returning it.

dpcam1 Posted at 2016-4-30 02:38
Have had a successful conclusion to the video quality problems with my p4..the company I bought it o ...

This morning I had a curious experience. I've been flying my P4 for the past month with no image quality issues. Everything has looked great. This morning all my footage looked smeared and generally like crap. In comparison to my previous footage you'd think it was a completely different camera.Both 4k and HD footage look horrible, with the HD almost unwatchable.  All footage was shot at ISO 100 with sharpness at 0 (which is usually pretty crispy looking). 3d NR is off and the camera settings are set to manual.

My first suspicion was that as my card was nearing full, that somehow the phantom was lowering the data rate and compressing the hell out of the footage. That turned out to be wrong as the data rates are the same between that footage and a freshly formatted card. Next I started playing around with sharpness settings, and all of a sudden, magically the detail returned. I'm still testing this out because it's frightening that the camera could just lose detail like that, intermittently. It's not a subtle phenomenon.

I've also detected that kind of behaviour, but cannot find the way of reproducing it... I also thought about the card not being fast enough, also in some kind of auto iso adjustment although it was set to 100....

I'll tell you what I've told everyone that has bought a P4 and has had issues. It's a new device and DJI is still working out the kinks, if you bought from Apple, Best Buy, or Amazon. Return it for free and get another.

barrygoyette@ma Posted at 2016-5-3 06:11
This morning I had a curious experience. I've been flying my P4 for the past month with no image q ...

I've just had exactly the same thing happen to me....I've had no problems for 3 weeks and suddenly, today, one minute my footage is mushy and awfull, totally unusable. I stop recording and start again  and the footage gets all the detail back.

barrygoyette@ma Posted at 2016-5-3 06:11
This morning I had a curious experience. I've been flying my P4 for the past month with no image q ...

Hi there. Is it possible for you to upload a still or a video from the poor footage...I'm trying to convince the New Zealand to support me in sending mine back...I want a replacement but he thinks the crappy footage is normal for the phantom.

fcg@elequipoe.c Posted at 2016-4-30 07:47
My phantom 4 "suffers" the same kind of problems, I've tested many configurations, disabled 3D noise ...

Hi there, I've downloaded your footage and it looks excellent compared to mine!!!

Can someone out there in Phantom land tell me if this is normal quality footage for the phantom 4....I've shown both these examples to the New Zealand dji agent and he says that's just how the Phantom's are sometimes.
They're both shot in uhd 4k...please download them in order to check their quality properly.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qp00mo6qdz2k6ww/DJI_0002.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4nbyn1ngwi2nhf9/DJI_0001.MOV?dl=0

To me, the one overlooking the port is not much better than sd quality and the looking over the trees is pure mush, absolutely no detail at all.

dpcam1 Posted at 2016-5-21 07:12
Can someone out there in Phantom land tell me if this is normal quality footage for the phantom 4... ...

Downloaded both of these and have to say they look ok to me - I certainly wouldn't say sd quality or pure mush at all - the port one in particular looks sharp and appears to have plenty of detail. One caveat I don't have a 4K monitor.

birdingbilly Posted at 2016-5-21 18:54
Downloaded both of these and have to say they look ok to me - I certainly wouldn't say sd quality  ...

Thanks for having a look much appreciated

dpcam1 Posted at 2016-5-21 08:22
Thanks for having a look much appreciated

One thing I might suggest is that you are flying towards a radio mast, looks like it has a number of direct line of sight microwave dishes, that probably wont help at all.

Edit, scrub my last comment. that was the dropcox playback I looked at. The downloaded files play back well on my surface pro 3 (@1080p), a little dark perhaps with the filter on the 1st, the 2nd was pretty good in terms of sharpness & detail.

dpcam1 Posted at 2016-5-21 07:12
Can someone out there in Phantom land tell me if this is normal quality footage for the phantom 4... ...

Just as a thought, is your playback device up to scratch for the 4k ?

dpcam1 Posted at 2016-5-21 08:12
Can someone out there in Phantom land tell me if this is normal quality footage for the phantom 4... ...

Like others have answered: I don't see anything wrong with these videos, they look perfectly normal and OK to me. So, either you expect too much (but that would then mean some extra high resolution that doesn't exist yet) OR the player you use to view these videos is not working as it should (often because the files are a bit too big for 'older' viewers. I can't even play my 4 K videos in Lightroom...

barrygoyette@ma Posted at 2016-5-3 02:11
This morning I had a curious experience. I've been flying my P4 for the past month with no image q ...

Hi there...did you work out what was wrong with your phantom droppings its bit rate randomly? I was able to get hold of another p4 to try out and it did exactly the same thing. I'm returning mine...it's too random a problem to be trusted in a professional setting.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-4-29 06:06
That indeed does not look good at all. I can say the P4 video and photos are really incredible and v ...

Hi ken, way back when you answered me with this issue I didn't realise you worked for Dji...I've since been able to use another phantom 4 which did exactly the same thing....randomly dropping bit rate and producing soft mushy video...if I was to get a replacement it will surely have the same problem?

dpcam1 Posted at 2016-6-15 10:25
Hi ken, way back when you answered me with this issue I didn't realise you worked for Dji...I've s ...

There is absolutely nothing at all wrong with your original files. I have downloaded and viewed each, and all are of reasonably good quality playback.
If you view these directly on the drop box player then they are atrocious (But that is drop box, not the Phantom 4).
What system are you trying to play these files back on, 4k video playback takes a good bit of processing power which even some of the newer machines cannot handle.

Aardvark Posted at 2016-6-15 18:25
There is absolutely nothing at all wrong with your original files. I have downloaded and viewed ea ...

Hi there, thanks for your reply. I've taken this footage and some others that are worse than this to the Dji sales person here in New Zealand and they agree that there's something wrong with the camera.