Hello, Newby here, I purchaced a P4A+ refurb a while ago and have not been able to get the video to play properly on my windows computer. Only the top half of the picture appears on the screen and then it freezes. I have just changed the format from MOV to MP4 but have not tested yet. I would have thought the sandisk card that came with the AC should be ok but have ordered a new and upgraded card. Anyone have any thoughts on the format change? Photos are no problem.
MOV- MP4 Format?
- Thread starter Danno12345
- Start date
MOV = Apple
MP4 = everything else (including Windows)
The SanDisk micro SD card is most likely ok
MP4 = everything else (including Windows)
The SanDisk micro SD card is most likely ok
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Mov/MP4 makes no difference to the video quality.
Which Sandisk card did you get? - they make faster and slower cards.
The usual cause of replay issues isn't at the drone end.
Are you copying the video file to the hard drive or playing straight from the SD card through an adaptor.
You could try a test video at lower resolution to see if the computer just has a problem with 4K video.
For me and my devices it's not a matter of video quality.
I have several Windows computers from 7 to 10 and none of the video players on any of them will play MOV files. Instead, I have the same problem described in the OP.
There are probably Windows video players that will do so but when MP4 is just a different 'container' for the same video stream, I don't see any good reason to search for a Windows video player that can handle MOVs
You can do a test inside, without having to actually fly. Just leave the props off, power everything up as normal as if to fly, and start video recording for a few minutes. Stop the recording as usual, power everything down, pop the SD card into an adapter, into your computer, copy it over, and play it
Most likely the problem is with your computer being unable to play 4K videos. Try setting the recording to regular HD and see how that goes. You can download the free VLC Media Player that can handle most any video file format, and also allows playing at speeded up or slowed down speeds.
Thanks for the suggestions people. Gives me a few things to try. I have changed format to MP4 as I said but will allocate some time to the problem soon as work is getting in the way. I do try to play video sraight off the card..works no problem with my spark, but then again that is not 4K. Will try another computer etc. Card should be fine according to research.
Good to try and find out problems before driving 2 hrs to the shop for help.
Cheers Danno.
Good to try and find out problems before driving 2 hrs to the shop for help.
Cheers Danno.
That could be at least part of the problem. Try copying the video to your computer hard drive before trying to play it. 4K is 4 times the data per second compared to regular HD. If your SD card can successfully record the incoming video, it should have no problem feeding it back, since flash memory is faster at reading than it is at writing data. But then there's your card reader as a possible bottleneck. If you're using a built-in card reader in your computer, it's probably based on USB 2.0, and if you use an external USB card reader it also may be only USB 2.0. Even if the reader is USB 3.0, if you plug it into a USB 2.0 port, then you will only get USB 2.0 data transfer, and USB 2.0 is not fast enough to transfer 4K video at normal playback rate.
Turned out this was the problem. 1080 works fine.Usb 2 not cutting it obviously.
Time for a new computer.
Cheers for the help all.
Thank you. That is a very useful piece of information, never seen or heard that before and still haven't tried it but I'll take your word for it...
I'd heard the phrase 'MOV and MP4 are the same information stream just in a different container'.... but didn't know it was just a matter of changing the filename extension.
My first Phantom defaulted to MOV out of the box, so before I learned to change it to MP4, I have several of my very early videos I didn't think I'd ever be able to play without a Mac ?
Had changed format to MP4 before the test but still had the computer freeze screen. Dropped res to 1080 took new footage and all worked well .Was downloading to computer before viewing this time. I dont think the prob was the format but I hav'nt put it back to MOV to check it yet. Thinking the prob was using windows 7 with usb2 ports with 4K.
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I use MOV. I especially learned a lot of information from this article https://mac.eltima.com/best-mov-players/
