Freezes in recorded video

bsartist · Feb 12, 2018

Took my first long flight with the new P4P. I am noticing that after some time into the flight I’m getting periodic momentary (1 sec or less) freezes in the video. The time code in my player and final cut keep going so it’s not the player or editor freezing up. And the freezes are in the exact same spot in the video right off the card.

I’m shooting at 4K UHD format. 30fps.

Is my card too slow? I did a bunch of research on this and thought my card was up to spec. Am I wrong? Attached is a pic of my card. Happy to buy a new one if that’s the issue.

I can provide sample video once it’s uploaded. May not be necessary.

alokbhargava · Feb 12, 2018

Normally I don’t use the card to play the video directly, I copy it to my Mac and then run.

Buffer sizes are also limited in laptops and running a huge file compared to the buffer size might cause such problems.

bsartist · Feb 12, 2018

alokbhargava said:
Normally I don’t use the card to play the video directly, I copy it to my Mac and then run.

Buffer sizes are also limited in laptops and running a huge file compared to the buffer size might cause such problems.

I did not play from the card. Nor obviously edit from the card. I copied to the MAC first.

I have a very recent iMac desktop with plenty of CPU and memory. Been editing my P3S 2.7k videos for a year with no sweat.

alokbhargava · Feb 12, 2018

If you are running directly from Mac, why did you doubt your card? Did you find any bad recordings?

AndrewCCM · Feb 12, 2018

The card looks pretty used.

I use that same card in my other lower bitrate drones and video cams and it works great. However, I use the Extreme Pro for my Phantom without issue. Truth be told, that regular Extreme should be fine...I just wanted to be sure for those longer recordings that it didn’t go into a buffer state, etc.. I use the Extreme Pro’s in my dSLRs that I use for sports photojournalism and can tell a difference between the standard and pro (which ultimately made me decide to be safer than sorry when I got the P4P).

AndrewCCM · Feb 12, 2018

BTW: P4P 4K video can make even fast machines stutter when dealing with native files on occasion. My brand new MacBook Pro will on occasion for sure...

AndrewCCM · Feb 12, 2018

EDIT: I saw you already answered this question.

bsartist · Feb 12, 2018

Ok. I’ll be more specific/explicit.

I copied the MOV files off the card to my Mac using a USB adapter that the card plugs into.

I edit in FCP X. I see the same freezes in all of the following:

The transcoded media within FCPX. This is seen while playing back my timeline.

The file on hard disk that was copied right from the SD card. This can be seen using the QuickTime player.

It’s also seen in the uploaded video on YouTube. This is not a CPU issue. The freezes happen in the exact same spots in all cases. I’ve edited lots of drone videos from a P3S. The P4P is new. So I don’t know if there is something wrong with it, or if the card can’t keep up with the higher demands from P4P. It’s the same card I used in the P3S

AndrewCCM · Feb 12, 2018

bsartist said:
Ok. I’ll be more specific/explicit.

I copied the MOV files off the card to my Mac using a USB adapter that the card plugs into.

I edit in FCP X. I see the same freezes in all of the following:

The transcoded media within FCPX. This is seen while playing back my timeline.

The file on hard disk that was copied right from the SD card. This can be seen using the QuickTime player.

It’s also seen in the uploaded video on YouTube. This is not a CPU issue. The freezes happen in the exact same spots in all cases. I’ve edited lots of drone videos from a P3S. The P4P is new. So I don’t know if there is something wrong with it, or if the card can’t keep up with the higher demands from P4P. It’s the same card I used in the P3S

I’d say try the Extreme Pro. No issues with 4K on my P4P using it.

bsartist · Feb 12, 2018

Check the video here. The first one is at evactly 3:15. If you want to stick with it there are more after this point.

bsartist · Feb 12, 2018

AndrewCCM said:
I’d say try the Extreme Pro. No issues with 4K on my P4P using it.

Yeah. I probably will. I guess I was trying to avoid the spend if it was a problem with the drone. I thought some folks could spot a card write throughput issue easily.

bsartist · Feb 12, 2018

alokbhargava said:
If you are running directly from Mac, why did you doubt your card? Did you find any bad recordings?

I doubted whether the card has enough write throughput because obviously the original video written to the card has problems. But I don’t know for sure. I know the P4P has higher write demands in 4K mode.