Jerky 4K playback on Macbook

[Jeff48920]

Just finished my first test flight. 11 minutes of amazement. First off this P3P is a quantum leap forward in handling and control. Had a P2V and still have my P2V+.
Live Video link is amazing and playback through my iPhone 6 is smooth and clear.
My late 2008 MacBook Pro may be to blame. It has a Duo Core 2.8, 4 ram. And 256 video.
I have tried all different types of players but still is super jerky. I've tried to read it directly from the SD card and also from a transferred file to both the HD and an external HD.
I have not tried a 1080 video yet.
Any input is appreciated.

 

[LuvMyTJ]

This would be a Santa Rosa edition correct? I used to own one and had no issues. Are you maxed out on the ram? Don't forget they hold more ram than they say it can.

 

[Jacob]

Yeah, RAM is very important. Go to system settings and check the ram slots.

 

[Jacob]

http://www.macinstruct.com/node/422

 

[Jeff48920]

This would be a Santa Rosa edition correct? I used to own one and had no issues. Are you maxed out on the ram? Don't forget they hold more ram than they say it can.

OWC says 8gb is possible. I have 4gb installed.

 

[Jacob]

OWC says 8gb is possible. I have 4gb installed.

Go to your local Best Buy and tell them your RAM type and buy as much more as possible. I would bring your computer with you so they can tell you which RAM to buy.

 

[LuvMyTJ]

More ram is always good, my current Mac has 24gb of ram. I believe it is DDR3 which I may have lying around, probably not large enough. Check this site, I believe I chose the correct model, check to be sure... http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade/DDR3

Also, most Macs are tested to support more than what they say. I believe yours is stated it will take 4gb but it will support 8gb. Again, check that I chose the correct model, it appears to be a 'Unibody" - http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...-2.8-aluminum-15-late-2008-unibody-specs.html

 

[Jeff48920]

Yup I just ordered 8gb from other world computing (macsales.com). I checked my Mac's firmware and it is correct to take up to 8GB. Should get it Wednesday. In the meantime I used iMovie to downscale 57 seconds of the 4K to 1080. Success!!! Smooth clean video. Better than the native 1080 of my P2V+. Cleaner pans, better response to light changes and the flatter FOV is way nicer.
So far no regrets about the upgrade!!!!

 

[mvigs]

I would of thought a2.8ghz core 2 would struggle with 4k no matter how much ram it has. I have 8gb in my MacBook Pro and it struggles big time.

 

[Jeff48920]

I would of thought a2.8ghz core 2 would struggle with 4k no matter how much ram it has. I have 8gb in my MacBook Pro and it struggles big time.

What processor do you have in the MBP? Guessing it was a waste of $$$ to upgrade the MBP to 8 gb. Or maybe the 8 will process the video faster.....

 

[mvigs]

What processor do you have in the MBP? Guessing it was a waste of $$$ to upgrade the MBP to 8 gb. Or maybe the 8 will process the video faster.....

2.8ghz. The graphics card really lets it down.

 

[Jeff48920]

2.8ghz. The graphics card really lets it down.

Yeah. I was wondering if the 256 mb graphics card was the bad guy.

 

[Russ]

Yup I just ordered 8gb from other world computing (macsales.com). I checked my Mac's firmware and it is correct to take up to 8GB. Should get it Wednesday. In the meantime I used iMovie to downscale 57 seconds of the 4K to 1080. Success!!! Smooth clean video. Better than the native 1080 of my P2V+. Cleaner pans, better response to light changes and the flatter FOV is way nicer.
So far no regrets about the upgrade!!!!

I am new to quadcopters, in fact the P3P is my very first one and I love it. When I play back 4K video it is very jerky, for want of a better expression, I have not tried to process the 4K video in I Movie yet, you said downscale 4K to 1080, will I Movie do this for you automatically. Thanks in advance for any help or advice you can help me with.

 

[Jeff48920]

After you edit the clips and have the movie the way you want it, click "Share". Then pick "Share to file". It will ask what resolution you want it saved to. Select the 1080 option.

 

[Russ]

After you edit the clips and have the movie the way you want it, click "Share". Then pick "Share to file". It will ask what resolution you want it saved to. Select the 1080 option.

That worked fine thanks, but still playing jerky, mind you I am on an old I Mac, I think I will shoot in the 1080 mode for now, when I get home back to Malta I have a 27inch I Mac with 16GB of ram, so I presume it should play everything better. Thanks for your help Jeff. Have a good one mate..

 

[Deanster]

4K video is demanding even for new computers, and there's NOTHING on a 2008 MBP that's well-suited for running 4K. I'd guess that the issue are, in descending order of importance: the hard drive - probably a 5400RPM drive, and if it's more than half full, you're trying to pull video from the slower center tracks; Front Side Bus - If yours is an early 2008 'Penryn' model, it only has an 800mhz FSB - that just limits the amount of data it can push; The 256MB video card - it just can't handle that much data; CPU - that's a good CPU, but 4K is very demanding; RAM - more RAM always helps, and at ~1 GB/minute, your RAM is going to be working overtime to handle 4K video.

However, given that the hard drive can't even come close to pushing a gig a minute, all the other issues can't even begin to be addressed until you get something faster there.

My guess is you probably need a 2011 MBP or newer, preferably with an SSD, to run 4K comfortably. I've just recently started working with 4K, and my 2012 Macbook Air plays it fine but struggles to edit/render it, my 2011 27" iMac does pretty well, and my 2014 MBPr does very well, until the 500GB SSD starts to run out of space, which is pretty quickly.

Long story short, I'm new to Phantoms, but pretty experienced with Macs and video. 4K playback/editing/storage/management/rendering, etc. is just a giant firehose of data, and it's going to take a pretty stout system to handle it smoothly, doubly true for laptops, which are usually running smaller/slower/less energy-intensive components.

 

[Phantom Dr1]

I'm glad I found this thread. About a week and a half ago I had a small wipeout with my P3P where it flipped a couple time on the grass (Testing out the bottom sensor and it wasn't adjusting fast enough for the speed I was going at....I'm dumb)

Anyways, been shooting 4k video a little before and also after the wipeout but didn't realized I haven't really had time to watch my recordings. Just loaded up some of the videos to my 2014 Macbook Air with 1.4 GHz i5 with 4GB of RAM and all of my videos were super choppy.

My first thought was, OH NOOOO, my wipeout a couple of weeks ago broke something in the camera and now the video recordings capabilities are all ruined. Pictures were fine and super clear but video where nowhere near smooth.

Now I know that my bottleneck is my laptop. I'm still going to test out my recordings on 1080p tomorrow just to make sure it's the laptop and not the camera. Hopefully it's just my wimp computer.

Thanks all for the insight