1st disturbing find on P4

[GadgetGuy]

It seems that when you use faster cards, the dropped frames between split files are less or even almost unnoticeable. Can someone confirm?

I have a couple of the San Disk Extreme Plus 90 Mbs write speed on the way, and will be testing. If true, that would be really good news. They definitely shorten the recovery time between 5 shot bracketed AE series of shots. However, those are still frames, and not video.

 

[GadgetGuy]

It may make a marginal difference but you will still have at least one lost frame.

Thank you. 1 frame is far better than what currently seems like 10-12 with the included Lexar 633x microSD card, which only writes at 20Mbs, but reads at 90 Mbs.

 

[FredzMaxxUAV]

Right. I lose at least half a second on those normal cards, if not more!

 

[GadgetGuy]

Right. I lose at least half a second on those normal cards, if not more!

It's a very noticeable jump in the video frame, after assembly! Minimizing it to a single frame would go a long way, especially if the skip happens at what turns out to be a decisive moment in your continuous video!

 

[FredzMaxxUAV]

What would be the fastest card to try to see if this makes a difference?

 

[suck it up]

.....................

 

[GadgetGuy]

What would be the fastest card to try to see if this makes a difference?

The San Disk Extreme Pro is 90 Mbs read and write.
The included 16GB Lexar 633x is 90 Mbs read and only 20 Mbs write.
Rumor has it that the real write speed on the San Disk Extreme Pro is closer to 60Mbs write in use, but still at least 3x faster.

 

[Consultant]

Wishful thinking regarding the SD card speed. I've got a UHS-1 Class 10 32gb card and the skip is VERY noticeable at 1080p 60fps. I think it's more noticeable the higher the resolution and frame rate. But I see no one has posted since May so safe to say getting the fastest card doesn't help??

I'm not sure why DJI would say this is "normal" - essentially that translates to me as really meaning "there is a known problem in the design of our product that we can't fix (or choose not to fix)" Would be nice to know why.

I saw someone mention that it's because the CPU in the drone isn't 64-bit. You don't need a 64-bit processor to write to a file larger than 4GB. You do need one to RAM memory beyond 4GB.

I believe they can fix it in the firmware and am *guessing* the 4GB file limitation may stem from the fact the firmware isn't checking the file system format of the SD card. FAT is the default format that the drone will format the card in and it doesn't support larger than 4GB files. Even if the drone was not capable of detecting the formatting they *might* still add the option in the DJI Go App to override the limitation. I didn't engineer their firmware and camera so I can't say for sure but it seems pretty likely.

If they can fix it, maybe the big picture here is that they haven't gotten enough complaints about it? Just think.... if all the professional reviews on their product and a large portion of the user reviews on major websites were complaining about it, it would have a significant effect on sales.

But what I think the case is that the vast majority of users of their products are more hobbyist types either not needing to a continuous video beyond 5-15 minutes (depending on resolution and frame rate), AND/OR, they are shooting video where the "skip" isn't a deal breaker (shooting for fun, not for a business service.) Therefore, DJI doesn't get a lot of complaints about it and reviewers don't even notice or realize it until far later.

If enough people banded together and complained to DJI and wrote poor reviews because of it, they would fix it, I guarantee it. My 6-year old pocket digital camera that I used for family videos films longer than 10 minutes without any "skips". The Chinese aren't stupid.