Hello!

New forum-user and drone operator here!

I haven't had my P4P for long now but on a recent shoot I got home and found out that while all the H.264 files were fine, all the H.265 files were corrupted.

The strange thing is that the H.265 files play back fine and are all saved individually on the microSD. But when I come to import them into Premiere or Media Encoder, they say that the files are damaged/corrupted. (The H.264 files load into adobe just fine).

I have done several tests of different cards and setups/firmware but the problem is persisting. Repackaging the files using VLC player has been suggested but does not work, and the main problem is that the drone keeps churning out corrupted videos anyway.

It is definitely a recent problem because during my first tests flights with the drone the H.265 files recorded, played and edited just fine.

I can't seem to find anyone else who has this problem so please let me know if you even have an idea of what I can do, if anything.

Many thanks!

JP

The standard setting is H264 so your initial tests might have been recorded with this encoding without you have noticed it. you could try resetting the camera settings to default and set up again from scratch, remember the file counter unless you like all files to be numbered from 0001 again.
If playing without issues it sound like your software has a problem using HEVC encoded files.

This link may be useful

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2248908

Did you change the output file format on the drone to MOV?  As per the above thread, the solution is to rename the file to MP4 and upload the file.  

Not sure if this helps but worth a try

Hello!

Thanks so much for your help. It appears I've been a complete dope as some of the initial tests I did actually were h264, so the corruption message actually is the software not recognising the codec!!! Which is a relief, but you definitely pointed me in the right direction. Thank you so much!! Stress over - haven't broken my drone! Gunna pay this good karma forward guys

Ta!

JP

Good to hear you that solved the problem  

Rivi Posted at 2018-6-11 01:34
Good to hear you that solved the problem

Problem is definitely not solved.

As a baseline presumption, everyone should be shooting in H.265 without any debate, as it offers higher quality compression at the same 100 Mbps bitrate (e.g., lots of leaves fluttering in a tree get much more faithfully reproduced).

My Phantom 4 Pro V2.0 spits out about 1 corrupt file out of every 10 or so.  Premiere cannot ingest it, and the only stopgap is to do a destructive render outside of the Creative Cloud ecosystem (I use Handbrake).

Since we should only be using H.265 now (seriously), and this is a known problem, we shouldn't let this become a "who makes the first move" situation.  DJI and Adobe need to put their heads together and figure it out.

A lot of people here shoot at high framerates and would stick to H264 as the processor is not up the task when using H265.

You might have a problem similar to OP and then you can choose to use H264 or find some software that are able to manage the H265 recordings you insist to shoot, it really is that simple.

hpmoon Posted at 2018-6-13 08:59
Problem is definitely not solved.

As a baseline presumption, everyone should be shooting in H.265 without any debate, as it offers higher quality compression at the same 100 Mbps bitrate (e.g., lots of leaves fluttering in a tree get much more faithfully reproduced).

It is a classic case of Adobe blaming everyone but themselves.

To be fair, the footage I thought was H265 that was actually H264 looked NUTS!!! Plus, and I've only shot a couple of other things so far but, as above, I will tend to shoot at 50 frames anyway as a failsafe. So I definitely do want to start shooting some H265 stuff but I'm not in a massive hurry. Just glad the actual drone isn't broken!

Just to specify, my post in #7 was a reply to #6, don't know why it didn't include the cite.

If you want to shoot H265 at 50fps you are limiting your self to 2.7K @80Mbps or less, a list of all modes is found in the specs and the end of the manual.

Hi guys. Any new thoughts on this? My P4Pro+ has made some corrupted H265 25fps 4k files that AME won't make proxies of for editing, which is a PITA. They PLAY (and in a few you can actually see some glitching) but won't recode. I was inclined to blame the SD card but what's this re CPU overload in the drone?? If that's the case is the quality of (?max CPU loading?) 2.7k in H265 better than 4k in H264?
Many thanks for any info
Richard

Richness Posted at 2-26 16:28
Hi guys. Any new thoughts on this? My P4Pro+ has made some corrupted H265 25fps 4k files that AME won't make proxies of for editing, which is a PITA. They PLAY (and in a few you can actually see some glitching) but won't recode. I was inclined to blame the SD card but what's this re CPU overload in the drone?? If that's the case is the quality of (?max CPU loading?) 2.7k in H265 better than 4k in H264?
Many thanks for any info
Richard

The files produced by the aircraft are fine, and the SD card cannot affect the quality of the file. The 'CPU overload' is a red herring. The problem is with the software you are using to handle the files. BTW, the aircraft already creates proxies for you anyway, they are in a seperate folder on the SD card.

This problem persists to this day and the files ARE faulty. This can be seen in Windoze Media Player and VLC. Generally the first second (first 25 frames) there is corruption. AME points at the problem but is hopelessly fault intolerant.

I have tried both .MP4 and .MOV formats and the problem remains.

I'm afraid that DJI are responsible for this one. Yes AME should be smart enough to 'see' the problem and deal with it, but the problem should not be there in the first place.

If you run a broken file through VLC you will notice the glitch in the first second or so of footage, thereafter it is okay.

My only work-around is to run it through Handbrake for now, but this is a patch, not a fix, and it lays another layer of processing/degradation on the footage.

I'm four flights into a seven flight client project and every flight has at least one of the files broken. The current edit is eight files with one broken. The previous flight was twelve files with three broken.

We should be running the latest compression tools so this really is unacceptable from DJI.