Barry Goyette Posted at 2017-2-1 19:22
Hi Gybo,

I downloaded your x5sbad file and it plays back just fine on my MacBook Pro 2012.

Thank you for your input. It is appreciated, but I think there is one key thing that is being missed....
ill give an example.
Tomorrow, I take off and shoot a hand full of clips.. lets say 10. Out of those 10, 5 will play back 100% fine... and never will have an issue playing back or editing in FCPX while the other 5 have horrible issue playing back or editing.. forever. does not matter where they are located (SD card to external NVME SSD with over 1000MBps data rate) it does not change day to day or anything.

I fully understand the issues with codecs vs RAW and all... im passed that...
What I want to know is what is making certain clips play fine while other do not? It ends up being a matter of luck... not a matter of my system cant play the file and I just have to deal with it.

Do you understand what I mean?
there has been one occasion I took off and shot 5 clips or so.. and there was no issue playing them back, and still do not.
THAT is the inconsistency that I am wanting to know about.
I dont feel its right for someone to say, get another computer to fix the issues, vs... the inconstancy being addressed
Its like the I2 is doing something to specific to some files that make it an issue for being played back on my computer, while it does not do that thing to the others... I honestly feel that is what is happeneing. it may only be an issue for me vs you on ur macbook pro because of the old designed CPU... but why can the I2 not be consistant on making the "good" files?

Mike-the-cat Posted at 2017-2-1 20:47
Nice reply and points  I think Gybo is too emotionally entangled to see clearly but lets hope he finds a solution because its not DJI's problem here....

I am a little frustrated, I will agree there, but mainly because I am not sure the issue is fully getting across. I 100% believe there is an inconsistency that is being missed that could easily fix this issue.
If the "older" Xeon based processor I have is the reason for the problem I am having, would you agree it should be on every clip that the I2 spits out?  not, certain ones? Meanwhile I have the ability to play random h256 clips from the I2 (4k/c4k/30fps/60fps) So I know the system / CPU is capable of playing back full clips with no issues.

Im running out of ways to explain this... This would be so much easier to talk to somone and explain lol

Gybo102 Posted at 2017-2-1 22:42
I am a little frustrated, I will agree there, but mainly because I am not sure the issue is fully getting across. I 100% believe there is an inconsistency that is being missed that could easily fix this issue.
If the "older" Xeon based processor I have is the reason for the problem I am having, would you agree it should be on every clip that the I2 spits out?  not, certain ones? Meanwhile I have the ability to play random h256 clips from the I2 (4k/c4k/30fps/60fps) So I know the system / CPU is capable of playing back full clips with no issues.

Video compression is a dynamic process depending on the content of the scene. If you have a very bland, low contrast scene that does not change much, this is very easily encoded and decoded.

Scenes that usually give trouble are those involving high contrast images with lots of fine spatial detail (leaves, wavelets, blades of grass) and when motion causes changes of scene information. These require more computation to encode and decode. If this is the type of scene causing problems, then you have your solution

h.264 and all modern codecs have variable bit rate encoding so although the spec limit is 60 (old gen craft+ Mavic) or 100mbps (P4P, I2) the actual bit rate is lower in the first example and close or at the limit for the latter case.

Baby Lake's next generation of processors (so they say) will have h.265 decoding built into its processor. This is not so now. As stated,  there are options on how the manufacturer can choose parameters for h.264 encoding. There have also been several generations of h.264 itself (see my wikipedia reference). I suspect  is what's causing differences across different machines on the same OS X platform.

Anyway, DJI has talented engineers. If yours is a problem more people encounter, it will get fixed.

I think mike has nailed the answer to your " inconsistency" question. There are so many things that can effect the compression/decompression of a video file. Besides scene complexity, sharpness settings, shutter speed, ISO, even aperture could effect playback, as all may contribute to the complexity of the file that's being played back. Add to that all the things on the playback device side, there are many answers to your "why is this happening" question. At this point, I've seen nothing to indicate that this is a codec issue.

Barry Goyette Posted at 2017-2-2 11:13
I think mike has nailed the answer to your " inconsistency" question. There are so many things that can effect the compression/decompression of a video file. Besides scene complexity, sharpness settings, shutter speed, ISO, even aperture could effect playback, as all may contribute to the complexity of the file that's being played back. Add to that all the things on the playback device side, there are many answers to your "why is this happening" question. At this point, I've seen nothing to indicate that this is a codec issue.

The issue I have been dealing with never seems to be an issue based on content ( contrast, detail, etc )
when it is an issue for the whole clip, not just a portion or a couple seconds. it also interrupts the video playback in a pattern. Fast forward to yesterday, first time flying in some time, the first real time im going out and shooting with the I2 and X5s. Took MANY clips of various things, moving cars, trains and random scenery. 99% of everything I shot was 4k@ 30fps... there was a couple of clips shot 4k@ 60 fps.. and those were the only ones that had issues playing back. there are other times the 60p content was fine and the 30p content would have issues.
I am going to keep note of things, and pay attention to settings.. I know you and Mike are looking at this like im crazy... and its cool... but im not going to give up on this. Im not going to accept that I need a new computer when 99% of the clips play fine one day and the opposite happens on another day.
With the footage we capture with our aerial platforms, there is always high detail and high contrast, we are looking at the sky trees, water, and moving objects. Im not on the ground looking at a stationary object.. all my clips should have issues based on that way of thinking, but that is not the case

Would It help to show exactly what happens when I play the content on my computer, to show exactly what I deal with?

Dear Gybo,
I have checked your videos, I found the resoluton info as follows(you can use the MediaInfo tool to get the same info or more detail info ):
1. X5s Good.MOV  --> resolution: 3840*2160P29.97;
2. X5s Bad.MOV      --> resolution: 3840 *2160P59.94;
3. X4s Good.MOV  --> resolution: 3840*2160P29.97;
4. X4s Bad.MOV --> resolution: 3840*2160P59.94;

You can find the bad playback video FPS is double than the good one. I think this is the root cause of your question.

So could you help us to check whether each 4KP30 video can be edited and played smoothly in your PC？Maybe the OSX can handle the 4KP30 smoothly in your PC, but once you handle the p60 video, it will met the performance issue.