Filming 120FPS

Fallguy · Mar 19, 2016

Having a problem with my P4 . I use to film off my gopro 1080p 120 fps and then take it right to Powerdirector and be able to just put it in the timeline with other videos off other cameras that were filming 1080p 30fps. All footage was at normal speed (not slow motion) when I produced my final video without me having to speed up or slow down any of the files to make them match. Now with the P4 , I filmed in 1080P 120 fps , and on any player I try to review the footage on, it is already playing in slow motion and only a quarter of the video is present . I have been able to speed it up in a player (mpc-hc.org) at 4 times to get it to play nicely , even though the slider tops out a quarter of the way through and the video keeps playing the lost footage . So, is there something I am doing wrong here ? I never had this problem with the GoPro . Are my settings wrong in Powerdirector or on the P4 ? Am I expecting too much ?
I do understand the quarter speed of 120 is 30 , so please dont try and dumb things down too much for me .lol

NorthcountySD · Mar 19, 2016

Same problem here.. but I have just one flight at 1080p 120fps. I'm just thinking I didn't set something correctly but playback is in slow motion.

VLC player Windows 7

Same on my MAC with Final cut pro X

Fallguy · Mar 19, 2016

NorthcountySD said:
Same problem here.. but I have just one flight at 1080p 120fps. I'm just thinking I didn't set something correctly but playback is in slow motion.

VLC player Windows 7

Same on my MAC with Final cut pro X

Do you lose most of the video as well ?

Fallguy · Mar 20, 2016

Ran a test today on filming at 120 fps and 60 fps , both at 1080P . Here is what I found.
I had to speed up the 120 fps 4 times to make it play normal.
However 60 fps didnt need any editing .
The 60 fps looks pretty good and I am going to try using that for my settings for a flight , then switch to 4K at 30 fps and see which looks better.
Anyone have a personal preference on this ?
Seems like everyone is more interested in Ralph's so called fly away .

NorthcountySD · Mar 22, 2016

I don't lose any video I just can't seem to get the speed right... only one test yet.. waiting to do another..

Hawkeye1970 · Mar 29, 2016

As a very newbee, I have a couple questions. First I have the stock smart card filled up with video. All the flights are on my iPad. How do you erase the smart card? Second what size card are most of you using. Should I purchase a 64mb card. Thanks for your input on these questions.

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

KevMo Photog · Mar 29, 2016

Hawkeye1970 said:
As a very newbee, I have a couple questions. First I have the stock smart card filled up with video. All the flights are on my iPad. How do you erase the smart card? Second what size card are most of you using. Should I purchase a 64mb card. Thanks for your input on these questions.

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

You can format your SD card in the app itself on the right hand side. Go into the camera settings and format sd card is at the bottom I believe. I put a 64gb card in my bird and I think that is the max it allows.

Sal Ferrari · Mar 29, 2016

weirdness with 120 fps

m0j0 · Mar 30, 2016

Guys.. What you see is not a problem. It is by design. The camera is the same as the cam on the P3. The data rate has not changed which means....The reason the quality is lower is because it is actually overcranked 30p (29.97).

To put things in perspective, when you’re shooting at 30p (29.97) the data rate is 60mbps. Which means you are essentially spreading out that 60mbps of data over only 30 (29.97) frames. When you’re shooting at 120fps you are getting the exact same amount of data per second 60mbps, but now you are spreading it out over 4 times the amount of frames, which means each frame gets 4 times less information in it.

For the quality to remain the same, for each frame, the data rate would have to increase 4 fold.

m0j0 · Mar 30, 2016

I am trying to explain this as clearly and simply as possible. The long and short of it is the native format of your video is 1080 30p (29.97) it is overcranked to 120p. Which is why it plays in a 29.97 timeline in your video editor and also why it plays slow in video players. It is also the reason you see a degradation in video quality. Frame for frame the overcranked video is reduced in quality about 4X.

I could be wrong but I'm willing to bet I am not.

Fallguy · Mar 30, 2016

I understand fully what you said seems to be true, however that is deception to think you are getting true120fps . The true 120fps should play as a higher quality video giving YOU the ability to slow it down yourself to give you a HIGH QUALITY SLOW MOTION EFFECT.

Fallguy · Mar 30, 2016

In other words just film in 1080P 30fps and slow it down yourself and you will get the same quality as this junk they are trying to pull off as 120fps.

m0j0 · Mar 30, 2016

Fallguy said:
In other words just film in 1080P 30fps and slow it down yourself and you will get the same quality as this junk they are trying to pull off as 120fps.

No that isn't accurate. You are getting 120 fps.

m0j0 · Mar 30, 2016

Fallguy said:
I understand fully what you said seems to be true, however that is deception to think you are getting true120fps . The true 120fps should play as a higher quality video giving YOU the ability to slow it down yourself to give you a HIGH QUALITY SLOW MOTION EFFECT.

No, you are getting 120 fps. True 120 fps. You just are not getting the same data per frame.

Fallguy · Mar 30, 2016

So here is the issue, check this video I took of my son

, it was taken with a gopro hero 4 black at 1080p 120fps. I slowed the video down myself using Powerdirector. Now go use your P4 with the same settings , and see what you come up with .
This thread was to make users aware that this camera falls way short of expectations of people that were used to filming slow motion projects with their gopro , nothing else .

CornelDRAW · Jun 5, 2016

A superb explanation here:

Pity is in German.

OmegaStageThr33 · Jun 6, 2016

m0j0 said:
No, you are getting 120 fps. True 120 fps. You just are not getting the same data per frame.

You mentioned this on the other thread. Can you please explain this to me? Here's how I see it:

4k Video @30fps 60mbps max bit rate.
1080p Video @30fps should Ideally be 1/4 of that @15Mbps
1080p Video @120fps should be able to get a better bit rate than what it currently is

Either way, there is still issues with the file header being marked as 30fps and not as 120fps (which is why it plays in slow motion and cuts off 3/4 of the video)

PS my iPhone 6s takes 1000x better slow motion videos than the p4. That seems unacceptable to me.

Van · Jun 13, 2016

Been reviewing this thread for a while exploring whether 120fps actually does anything for your raw video, and rather than post the specifics of how I recorded it, here's an example of some footage with 1st half recorded at 120fps; and the 2nd half at 4k. Used iMovie to speed / slow things up / down.

The P4 captures way better at 4k. My 2 cents.

OmegaStageThr33 · Jun 20, 2016

Van said:
Been reviewing this thread for a while exploring whether 120fps actually does anything for your raw video, and rather than post the specifics of how I recorded it, here's an example of some footage with 1st half recorded at 120fps; and the 2nd half at 4k. Used iMovie to speed / slow things up / down.

The P4 captures way better at 4k. My 2 cents.

DJI replied to my support ticket with this:

Thank you for your patience whilst waiting for a response.

Please be reminded that the iPhone 6s has a more detailed pixels, due to the pixel size, compare to the camera of our Phantom series, that makes it produce better quality images, even on that similar bit rate. The fact also that the price of that device is almost twice the price of our product, hence, it produces better quality.

But we would like to introduce the Zenmuse X5R that may fit on the quality that you are looking for

They didn't even address my header file issue. :-/