Does SD card write speed matter?

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What effect does the write speed of your SD card have on the video quality? I've been making short films and have found that my video quality is poor compared to footage I see on Youtube. I compare apples-to-apples shooting in 1080 and compare to 1080 Youtube videos from other P3S users and my footage looks like garbage. No clarity at all. Is it because my SD card may be writing too slow? One of my cards is a speed class 4 and another is speed class 10. Will upgrading to a UHS speed class 3 improve my video quality?
 
Class 10 might be okay for recording 1080 but it's going to be on the low end. UHS 3 might be better.

Are your camera settings correct while recording, are you doing any post editing? Those videos that you see on YT could have different camera settings and hours of post editing. I know I spend considerable time editing my videos before uploading to YT.
 
Class 10 might be okay for recording 1080 but it's going to be on the low end. UHS 3 might be better.

Are your camera settings correct while recording, are you doing any post editing? Those videos that you see on YT could have different camera settings and hours of post editing. I know I spend considerable time editing my videos before uploading to YT.

Camera is set to 1080p 24fps. I am doing color correction editing and exporting out of my editing software in 1080p. I have to upload to YT over WiFi since my modem isn’t close enough to my computer to do hardwire Ethernet connection. Figured uploading over WiFi would just take longer but shouldn’t affect video quality once on YT. I’m making sure to set the YT video quality to 1080 when I watch comparison videos.

My footage is just not crystal clear like other videos. It’s grainy as if it’s being recorded in 720 or lower. I’m watching on a 4K desktop computer monitor.
 
Your SD card has to be fast enough but after that a faster/more expensive card won't record better or faster.
Your Class 4 card is definitely not up to spec.

So if the class 4 card isn’t up to spec, what effect would that have? Will my video have less clarity or not be as smooth? Trying to identify the symptoms of an SD card that’s not up to snuff.
 
Are you taking the video clips right off the SD card or your display device?

I insert the micro SD into an adapter and slide that into my desktop SD card reader slot. Drag the video clips onto my computer hard drive, open my video editor, then import the videos from my hard drive and start editing.
 
Thats the best technique. Try 30 fps or changing cards. Also, check your playback program settings, and your lens on the ac. I use VLC Media Player.
I insert the micro SD into an adapter and slide that into my desktop SD card reader slot. Drag the video clips onto my computer hard drive, open my video editor, then import the videos from my hard drive and start editing.
 
I insert the micro SD into an adapter and slide that into my desktop SD card reader slot. Drag the video clips onto my computer hard drive, open my video editor, then import the videos from my hard drive and start editing.

Does the video right from your HD not look good? That is, before uploading to YT.
 
You will need a fast computer (laptop) and a good graphics card to play 4K well. Try recording in 1080 and see what the differance may be, if it plays well your system does not have the power to run 4K.
 
You will need a fast computer (laptop) and a good graphics card to play 4K well. Try recording in 1080 and see what the differance may be, if it plays well your system does not have the power to run 4K.

Like I stated above, I am recording in 1080 already and my desktop is powerful enough to run 4K. Standard can’t record in 4K anyways...
 
The speed of your SD card does matter, but it should not have any effect on sharpness of your footage. If your card is too slow to keep up with the video stream from the camera then it will just drop frames which results in footage that stutters but the sharpness should remain consistent. Grainy images/video is usually the result of a higher ISO or low light situations so check and make sure that your ISO is set to 100. The higher the number the more noise (grain) there will be in your video. I also have a P3 Standard and my video is usually sharp. I use a 16GB Sandisk Extreme card and a 16GB Lexar card.

Chris
 
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The speed of your SD card does matter, but it should not have any effect on sharpness of your footage. If your card is too slow to keep up with the video stream from the camera then it will just drop frames which results in footage that stutters but the sharpness should remain consistent. Grainy images/video is usually the result of a higher ISO or low light situations so check and make sure that your ISO is set to 100. The higher the number the more noise (grain) there will be in your video. I also have a P3 Standard and my video is usually sharp. I use a 16GB Sandisk Extreme card and a 16GB Lexar card.

Chris

How did you settle on ISO 100?
 
How did you settle on ISO 100?

Do you have your camera set to auto? This will usually determine the best exposure (ISO and Shutter speed) automatically. However if the lighting is less than ideal the camera will increase ISO thereby causing more grain which may be why you are getting grainy video. I mistakenly assumed you were using manual camera settings where you can adjust the ISO and shutter speed manually. If you are using the auto settings the camera will do all the settings for you but as I mentioned above can cause problems in less than ideal lighting. The camera settings are underneath the record button in DJI GO.
 

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