UHS-III - Does anyone have one?!?!

[Jussaguy]

Sounds like the Sandisk UHS-II U3 class 10
Extreme Pro is the way to go.

According to this review the read speeds got as high as 264mbps and write speeds got as high as 112mbps. And since its u3, it will never drop below 30mbps so if you're writing at that speed and the P4 is only 60mbps, the chances of dripping a frame are almost zero.

SanDisk Extreme Pro 275MB/s 64GB UHS-II microSDXC Memory Card Review - Camera Memory Speed Comparison & Performance tests for SD and CF cards

****EDIT: I am reading this before reading all the posts below that are probably pointing out that the P4 needs 60mbps not 60kbps. That was just brain flatulance. Pardon if I confused anyone. Now to go read if I did.

 

[Jussaguy]

DJI advertises 64GB as the maximum in the Phantom 4 specs. Most larger memory cards work just fine though.

That's because you can start to get caught up without super fast cards after 64. If you try and record 64 straight, the chances of dropping frames.

In all honestly, you shouldn't really need to use larger cards than 32. The smaller the better for quality and at h.264, even at 4K you can get a ton of footage on a 32 gig card and then of course 64.

 

[GadgetGuy]

The dropped frames cannot be eliminated with the current video recording algorithm, but they can, perhaps, be minimized. Writing each 4GB chunk to the card, and starting a new one, has some overhead time that loses frames, that no one so far has been able to totally prevent on a P3 or P4. If you can, you'll make a lot of people very happy.

 

[GadgetGuy]

That's because you can start to get caught up without super fast cards after 64. If you try and record 64 straight, the chances of dropping frames.

In all honestly, you shouldn't really need to use larger cards than 32. The smaller the better for quality and at h.264, even at 4K you can get a ton of footage on a 32 gig card and then of course 64.

You would have to record more than 33 minutes of continuous 4K video to even exceed the capacity of a 16GB card! Even with externals, you'd find very few people who are capable of flying that long on a P3 or P4.

 

[Jussaguy]

The dropped frames cannot be eliminated with the current video recording algorithm, but they can, perhaps, be minimized. Writing each 4GB chunk to the card, and starting a new one, has some overhead time that loses frames, that no one so far has been able to totally prevent on a P3 or P4. If you can, you'll make a lot of people very happy.

Format in exFat if you have a Mac. It was made to be able to act pretty much the same compatibility as the VERY old format of Fat32 but will allow a 32gig file but not with the P4. I am not ever really shooting for frame accurate stuff with the Phantom so it's never really been an issue for me that I cared about.

I shot some footage I want to piece together in Avid when I was just out East and I will let you know how my dropped frame situation was.

Will get back to you on it.

I did a nice shot of a church POI shot around the corner from where my brother in law lives and I will post it and see if there is any dropped frames.

 

[Jussaguy]

You would have to record more than 33 minutes of continuous 4K video to even exceed the capacity of a 16GB card! Even with externals, you'd find very few people who are capable of flying that long on a P3 or P4.

EXACTLY! I am not sure what the hubbub is for this reason. We shoot in takes.

 

[GadgetGuy]

EXACTLY! I am not sure what the hubbub is for this reason. We shoot in takes.

It's the loss of frames in continuous video recording that is the real issue to solve. You never know when you might later discover something in the video that you don't want to have ruined by the bad timing of lost frames due to the 4GB chunking of your recording! Inspire owners have the same issue.

 

[Jussaguy]

It's the loss of frames in continuous video recording that is the real issue to solve. You never know when you might later discover something in the video that you don't want to have ruined by the bad timing of lost frames due to the 4GB chunking of your recording! Inspire owners have the same issue.

Are you formatting ExFat?

 

[GadgetGuy]

Are you formatting ExFat?

No Mac...all formatting is done in the bird.

 

[Jussaguy]

No Mac...all formatting is done in the bird.

Since when?!?

Now that you mention it, I have noticed that the last few times I've been out, my pre-formatted cards now say "card full" and I have to format in the bird.

Didn't used to be the case. Always formatted exFat.

Why would they purposely downgrade the way you format the card?

I know the answer, because it is now even less of a prosumer camera and they can't trust us to know what we are doing and so we have to format it their way. That blows. DJI is still without a doubt the best, especially in the higher end stuff. The Matrice 600 with Ronan by the way guys, is the best photography UAS on the market, but they are going to lose restricting things more and more.

They are just dying to be the Apple of UAS'.

 

[Sim597]

I personally like the 64gb cards. I don't intend to crash, but if I do, the last thing I care about is the media. Now, that's me, I get those shooting some important video, or a paid deal or something, and if I shoot something I know I want to DL, then of course I'll grab it out of the bird. But really, you guys that swipe out all these cards, I fly 3-4 times a morning sometimes, I already have a few 32s and 64s and a bunch of 16gb and it gets confusing. With a 64gb that's a lot of filming, over an hour, and when, like me I don't turn camera on unless there's something to film, meaning, for some of us, filming is secondary and flying is the main interest.
Again, I get those who do swap before flights, just saying some of us aren't needing the last footage of flying around like others might.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[GadgetGuy]

You really can't fully appreciate what you are missing until you review your continuous 4K video footage on a 28" 4K monitor, with the ability to examine it frame by frame, and extract out 5MB stills that you can zoom into and optimize in LR. The tablet is great for framing and choosing the camera view during flight, but the detail is sorely missing, especially at the lowest 4mbs video setting for long range FPV. For me, it's all about the captured video and stills, and the best part is reviewing them after, where the experience can be relived over and over, and shared, after editing. It's built as a flying photographic platform and wasn't really intended to be a performance racing machine, but it certainly can be used for both!

 

[GadgetGuy]

Since when?!?

Now that you mention it, I have noticed that the last few times I've been out, my pre-formatted cards now say "card full" and I have to format in the bird.

Didn't used to be the case. Always formatted exFat.

Why would they purposely downgrade the way you format the card?

I know the answer, because it is now even less of a prosumer camera and they can't trust us to know what we are doing and so we have to format it their way. That blows. DJI is still without a doubt the best, especially in the higher end stuff. The Matrice 600 with Ronan by the way guys, is the best photography UAS on the market, but they are going to lose restricting things more and more.

They are just dying to be the Apple of UAS'.

Formatting is always best done in the device that the card will be used in. Just as true for your DSLR as your P3 or P4. Formatting in the device allows you to immediately recover from forgetting to clear the card after the last flight, and having no remaining room on the card for the current flight, and prevents incompatible formatting.

 

[Jussaguy]

You would have to record more than 33 minutes of continuous 4K video to even exceed the capacity of a 16GB card! Even with externals, you'd find very few people who are capable of flying that long on a P3 or P4.

Yeah, but for example, if you are hiking up a Canyon, you don't want to have to carry a lap top with you to dump your dailies (term for shot 'in the form they are in of the camera before anything is done to them. In some countries other than the US, they call them RUSHES. I always just use the term rushes because people in the industry here use both terms so I cover my bases. I know that is off topic to even this reply but whenever I get a chance to throw in some learning, I will.

So, if you want to record a bunch of stuff throughout the day and cant dump you're rushes, having larger cards are good for some people although I agree with you that for most, 16 or 32 is fine. I use 32 because I am lazy.

Formatting is always best done in the device that the card will be used in. Just as true for your DSLR as your P3 or P4. Formatting in the device allows you to immediately recover from forgetting to clear the card after the last flight, and having no remaining room on the card for the current flight, and prevents incompatible formatting.

I don't disagree with this comment but I like to format in the computer because I like to format for exFat but I only just realized since the last update, if you initialize exFat, you lose your ability to record with that card as it shows up as full. This is a bizarre move by DJI and the only reason I can think of is that they want to save those type of formats for their more costly systems. ExFat, is much better as it doesn't work in 4G chunks but in 32G chunks. That's pretty much the only difference between Fat32 and exFat and with exFat, I never got dropped frames. So strange.

It's the loss of frames in continuous video recording that is the real issue to solve. You never know when you might later discover something in the video that you don't want to have ruined by the bad timing of lost frames due to the 4GB chunking of your recording! Inspire owners have the same issue.

Like I said, you don't have the issue because you can record continuously for 32gig with exFat.

"exFAT was introduced in 2006, and was added to older versions of Windows with updates to Windows XP and Windows Vista.

It’s a file system optimized for flash drives. It’s designed to be a lightweight file system like FAT32 without all NTFS’s extra features and overhead, but without FAT32’s limitations.

Like NTFS, exFAT has very large file size and partition size limits. This means you can store files that are larger than 4 GB apiece on a flash drive or SD card if it’s formatted with exFAT. exFAT is a strict upgrade over FAT32, and should be the best choice for external drives where you want a lightweight file system without FAT32’s file size limits.

exFAT is also more compatible than NTFS. While Mac OS X includes only read-only support for NTFS, Macs offer full read-write support for exFAT. exFAT drives can be accessed on Linux by installing the appropriate software.

While exFAT is compatible with Macs — and will be compatible with some devices that don’t support NTFS, like digital cameras — it still isn’t quite as compatible. Microsoft’s own Xbox 360 doesn’t support it, although the Xbox One does. The PlayStation 3 doesn’t support exFAT drives, although the PlayStation 4 reportedly does. Various other older devices may only support FAT32 instead of exFAT.

Compatibility: Works with all versions of Windows and modern versions of Mac OS X, but requires additional software on Linux. More devices support exFAT than support NTFS, but some — particularly older ones — may only support FAT32.

Limits: No realistic file-size or partition-size limits.

Ideal Use: Use it for USB flash drives and other external drives, especially if you need files of over 4 GB in size. Assuming every device you want to use the drive with supports exFAT, you should format your device with exFAT instead of FAT32."

That was quote from this article.

What’s the Difference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS?

You really can't fully appreciate what you are missing until you review your continuous 4K video footage on a 28" 4K monitor, with the ability to examine it frame by frame, and extract out 5MB stills that you can zoom into and optimize in LR. The tablet is great for framing and choosing the camera view during flight, but the detail is sorely missing, especially at the lowest 4mbs video setting for long range FPV. For me, it's all about the captured video and stills, and the best part is reviewing them after, where the experience can be relived over and over, and shared, after editing. It's built as a flying photographic platform and wasn't really intended to be a performance racing machine, but it certainly can be used for both!

I have a 27" 5k monitor so BAM! Where did you get a 28" 4k? That's non-standard size but my friend has a 29" 4k from some weird company from China that I never heard of. I would recommend to prosumer users the 27" 5k iMac. I got it for my wife and it's one of my favorite computers and contrary to what it says, it can take 64 gigs of memory from Other World Computing but only if you have the new SkyLake chipset. Speeds are exponential and while people think that RAM just gives you more preview and stuff, they are wrong. It gives it a bucket to hold info while it prepares to render and therefore stops the bottlenecking. Trust me that going from 32gigs to 64gigs of ram increases your speed on everything exponentially. I can show you some benchmarks if ya like.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Yeah, but for example, if you are hiking up a Canyon, you don't want to have to carry a lap top with you to dump your dailies (term for shot 'in the form they are in of the camera before anything is done to them. In some countries other than the US, they call them RUSHES. I always just use the term rushes because people in the industry here use both terms so I cover my bases. I know that is off topic to even this reply but whenever I get a chance to throw in some learning, I will.

So, if you want to record a bunch of stuff throughout the day and cant dump you're rushes, having larger cards are good for some people although I agree with you that for most, 16 or 32 is fine. I use 32 because I am lazy.


I don't disagree with this comment but I like to format in the computer because I like to format for exFat but I only just realized since the last update, if you initialize exFat, you lose your ability to record with that card as it shows up as full. This is a bizarre move by DJI and the only reason I can think of is that they want to save those type of formats for their more costly systems. ExFat, is much better as it doesn't work in 4G chunks but in 32G chunks. That's pretty much the only difference between Fat32 and exFat and with exFat, I never got dropped frames. So strange.



Like I said, you don't have the issue because you can record continuously for 32gig with exFat.

"exFAT was introduced in 2006, and was added to older versions of Windows with updates to Windows XP and Windows Vista.

It’s a file system optimized for flash drives. It’s designed to be a lightweight file system like FAT32 without all NTFS’s extra features and overhead, but without FAT32’s limitations.

Like NTFS, exFAT has very large file size and partition size limits. This means you can store files that are larger than 4 GB apiece on a flash drive or SD card if it’s formatted with exFAT. exFAT is a strict upgrade over FAT32, and should be the best choice for external drives where you want a lightweight file system without FAT32’s file size limits.

exFAT is also more compatible than NTFS. While Mac OS X includes only read-only support for NTFS, Macs offer full read-write support for exFAT. exFAT drives can be accessed on Linux by installing the appropriate software.

While exFAT is compatible with Macs — and will be compatible with some devices that don’t support NTFS, like digital cameras — it still isn’t quite as compatible. Microsoft’s own Xbox 360 doesn’t support it, although the Xbox One does. The PlayStation 3 doesn’t support exFAT drives, although the PlayStation 4 reportedly does. Various other older devices may only support FAT32 instead of exFAT.

Compatibility: Works with all versions of Windows and modern versions of Mac OS X, but requires additional software on Linux. More devices support exFAT than support NTFS, but some — particularly older ones — may only support FAT32.

Limits: No realistic file-size or partition-size limits.

Ideal Use: Use it for USB flash drives and other external drives, especially if you need files of over 4 GB in size. Assuming every device you want to use the drive with supports exFAT, you should format your device with exFAT instead of FAT32."

That was quote from this article.

What’s the Difference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS?


I have a 27" 5k monitor so BAM! Where did you get a 28" 4k? That's non-standard size but my friend has a 29" 4k from some weird company from China that I never heard of. I would recommend to prosumer users the 27" 5k iMac. I got it for my wife and it's one of my favorite computers and contrary to what it says, it can take 64 gigs of memory from Other World Computing but only if you have the new SkyLake chipset. Speeds are exponential and while people think that RAM just gives you more preview and stuff, they are wrong. It gives it a bucket to hold info while it prepares to render and therefore stops the bottlenecking. Trust me that going from 32gigs to 64gigs of ram increases your speed on everything exponentially. I can show you some benchmarks if ya like.

My 4K Dell monitor is, indeed, 27" not 28". Good catch! No need for a laptop to clear cards in the field when cards are so cheap and take up so little room. I have some 25 microSD cards, so I never have to erase any of them until all 25 are full, even after I have dumped them. Wasn't aware of the exFAT format ever working in Phantoms, but now I wish it still did. The equivalent iMac to my Dell PC would cost twice as much and still lack a dedicated SSD, as Apple seems to be promoting their Fusion drives over SSD's, and using i5 processors instead of i7's, and shipping with 8 GB of RAM instead of 24 GB or more, with unupgradeable graphics cards. Nice compact package, after upgrading the RAM, though.

 

[Jussaguy]

My 4K Dell monitor is, indeed, 27" not 28". Good catch! No need for a laptop to clear cards in the field when cards are so cheap and take up so little room. I have some 25 microSD cards, so I never have to erase any of them until all 25 are full, even after I have dumped them. Wasn't aware of the exFAT format ever working in Phantoms, but now I wish it still did. The equivalent iMac to my Dell PC would cost twice as much and still lack a dedicated SSD, as Apple seems to be promoting their Fusion drives over SSD's, and using i5 processors instead of i7's, and shipping with 8 GB of RAM instead of 24 GB or more, with unupgradeable graphics cards. Nice compact package, after upgrading the RAM, though.

Yeah, that Dell 27 5k is a sweet monitor. I own one for my PC. I would suggest though, if you still have the option, for just a few hundred more dollars than the cost of that beautiful Dell and get a beautiful Apple monitor but it also comes with an iMac and the difference in price (barebones) is a couple hundred bucks. I got mine fully decked thought. Ordered It with the lowest RAM and added 64 with 8 16s.

The limitations come in a highest video card being a Radeon ATI 4GB GRAM video card but it's fast as all get out for a pro and a prosumer.

 

[msinger]

Yeah, that Dell 27 5k is a sweet monitor. I own one for my PC.

How are the speakers on it?

 

[GadgetGuy]

How are the speakers on it?

Not bad. Mine came with a cutom sized sound bar, that attaches to the bottom of the monitor unobtrusively.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Yeah, that Dell 27 5k is a sweet monitor. I own one for my PC. I would suggest though, if you still have the option, for just a few hundred more dollars than the cost of that beautiful Dell and get a beautiful Apple monitor but it also comes with an iMac and the difference in price (barebones) is a couple hundred bucks. I got mine fully decked thought. Ordered It with the lowest RAM and added 64 with 8 16s.

The limitations come in a highest video card being a Radeon ATI 4GB GRAM video card but it's fast as all get out for a pro and a prosumer.

My Dell 4K monitor was only $500 at B&H, and a few hundred dollars more sadly won't come any where close to buying any iMac I have seen, inside a 5K monitor!
Dell P2715Q 27" Ultra HD 4K Monitor P2715Q B&H Photo Video
Perhaps you are confusing my 27” Dell 4K monitor with the more pricey $1,600 27” Dell 5K monitor?

 

[msinger]

My Dell 4K monitor was only $500 at B&H

So, you don't have the 5K?