terrible video quality with phantom 4

thanks for everyone's input.....AlexLim's post with photos of his footage is exactly the kind of blurry, poor detailed footage I've been getting which seems much worse in dlog, so thanks Alex
Someone asked why am I wanting to know about the quality of 1080p...I work in the tv industry in new zealand and 1080p is used a lot for delivery. I would be happy if the p4 did decent 1080p but doesn't seem to be so at the moment.....what I'm going to do this morning is record three clips, one at 1080, one at 2.7k and one at 4k....I'll make them short, shot .mov and with standard settings for the camera. I'll upload them to dropbox straight of the card to avoid any compression issues....I'd love someone to definitely say the quality is not what is normal for the p3 or p4.....then I'll be returning it.
 
dave perry said:
thanks for everyone's input.....AlexLim's post with photos of his footage is exactly the kind of blurry, poor detailed footage I've been getting which seems much worse in dlog, so thanks Alex
Someone asked why am I wanting to know about the quality of 1080p...I work in the tv industry in new zealand and 1080p is used a lot for delivery. I would be happy if the p4 did decent 1080p but doesn't seem to be so at the moment.....what I'm going to do this morning is record three clips, one at 1080, one at 2.7k and one at 4k....I'll make them short, shot .mov and with standard settings for the camera. I'll upload them to dropbox straight of the card to avoid any compression issues....I'd love someone to definitely say the quality is not what is normal for the p3 or p4.....then I'll be returning it.
Click to expand...
Real quick and I'm sorry to whoever in not answering but you don't want to use the Phantom as a professional broadcast deliverable because h264 is not broadcast quality.

Also, you should start at UHD resolution (NOT 4K) and down-rez to 1080p which is a derivative of UHD 4K. Exactly the 4K version of 1080p as opposed to 4K which is exactly the resolution aspect ratio of film as opposed to TV.

Put simply, 4K is a cinema format (or home cinema) and UHD is a television format.

I deliver final deliverables at 1080P.

I'm at lunch with my mom who just flew in but I'll look over the rest and help when I can. I have like 20 people on the docket at the moment.

I will do whatever to help you troubleshoot the issue.

Take care.
 
AlexLim said:
Yea just saw that vid. It has it's issues with tilting noise and artifacts, but **** that SO MUCH SHARPER AND CLEANER than mine! Gonna use my RMA now...
Click to expand...
Always going to have major artifacts and motion blur when encoding to h264. Goes with the territory but there are things you can do to improve on it but pre and post.
 
dave perry said:
Ok, so I've done a test....this is the 1080p clip:

Dropbox - 1080p4.MOV

...the 2.7k

Dropbox - 2.7k p4.MOV

....the UHD

Dropbox - full4kp4.MOV

Camera Setting: .mov files
standard picture
none selected in colour setting

...it looks like complete mush to me...poor at 1080, almost as bad at 2.7K if not a little worse, with quite an improvement at 4K.
Click to expand...
DL'd the 4k clip... looks better than mine! I'd be curious what +1 on sharpness would give you, I feel like the leaves and foliage are still kinda pastel-like, but typically when you try to increase sharpness parameters in the Go app it's not worth it, adds too much noise and crap, a post sharpening tool would do a better job.

1080p looks kinda poops, but could just be my viewing experience on 5k iMac, and I'm not used to evaluating 1080 footage.

This is just speculation, but it seems to me a lot of the issues just stem from product variance... (as there always is, with ALL products). Like with DSLR lenses, different copies just aren't created equal. I've seen some stock P4 (and P3) footage that seemed magically sharper and more detailed than anything I could ever produce, regardless of settings or optimal lighting conditions. Without being able to shoot the same scene side by side though it's impossible to objectively compare.

I'm gonna keep swapping until I get a 'good' copy!
 
AlexLim said:
DL'd the 4k clip... looks better than mine! I'd be curious what +1 on sharpness would give you, I feel like the leaves and foliage are still kinda pastel-like, but typically when you try to increase sharpness parameters in the Go app it's not worth it, adds too much noise and crap, a post sharpening tool would do a better job.

1080p looks kinda poops, but could just be my viewing experience on 5k iMac, and I'm not used to evaluating 1080 footage.

This is just speculation, but it seems to me a lot of the issues just stem from product variance... (as there always is, with ALL products). Like with DSLR lenses, different copies just aren't created equal. I've seen some stock P4 (and P3) footage that seemed magically sharper and more detailed than anything I could ever produce, regardless of settings or optimal lighting conditions. Without being able to shoot the same scene side by side though it's impossible to objectively compare.

I'm gonna keep swapping until I get a 'good' copy!
Click to expand...

It's the 1080 that concerns me the most as I deliver video to a client at that frame size. I've just uploaded another 1080 clip and will post...
 
dave perry said:
It's the 1080 that concerns me the most as I deliver video to a client at that frame size. I've just uploaded another 1080 clip and will post...
Click to expand...
If you deliver at 1080P, you should be shooting in UHD (not 4K) and you will have a better picture.

You would shoot UHD at 24fps, change it to ProRes for editing and deliver a final @ 1080P and depending on the client, you might also offer him the 4K ProRes master.

I am not sure why you are hung up on shooting at 1080p unless you want the faster frame rate which you never mentioned.

Also, have you tried putting in a different filter or at the very least, unscrewed (twist off) the one that is in there now and make sure it is seated correctly and calibrated properly?

Would be a happy sort of funny if this is just the glass on the UV filter that it comes with is sitting on a bad seat or something.

Remove it, and WITH THE PROPER lens cleaning tools (the pens) clean your lens and make sure the UV filter is set perfectly straight! Or even better, twist on a polar pro ND 4 or something and with a polarizar you'll get some amazing day time footage.

I would not be surprised if this is a lens issue. I bet it shoots just fine.
 
Last edited:
Jussaguy said:
If you deliver at 1080P, you should be shooting in UHD (not 4K) and you will have a better picture.

You would shoot UHD at 24fps, change it to ProRes for editing and deliver a final @ 1080P and depending on the client, you might also offer him the 4K ProRes master.

I am not sure why you are hung up on shooting at 1080p unless you want the faster frame rate which you never mentioned.

Also, have you tried putting in a different filter or at the very least, unscrewed (twist off) the one that is in there now and make sure it is seated correctly and calibrated properly?

Would be a happy sort of funny if this is just the glass on the UV filter that it comes with is sitting on a bad seat or something.

Remove it, and WITH THE PROPER lens cleaning tools (the pens) clean your lens and make sure the UV filter is set perfectly straight! Or even better, twist on a polar pro ND 4 or something and with a polarizar you'll get some amazing day time footage.

I would not be surprised if this is a lens issue. I bet it shoots just fine.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all that
I wI'll probably just shoot in 4k...you mention calibrating the lens
..how do you do that?
 
Jussaguy said:
If you deliver at 1080P, you should be shooting in UHD (not 4K) and you will have a better picture.

You would shoot UHD at 24fps, change it to ProRes for editing and deliver a final @ 1080P and depending on the client, you might also offer him the 4K ProRes master.

I am not sure why you are hung up on shooting at 1080p unless you want the faster frame rate which you never mentioned.

Also, have you tried putting in a different filter or at the very least, unscrewed (twist off) the one that is in there now and make sure it is seated correctly and calibrated properly?

Would be a happy sort of funny if this is just the glass on the UV filter that it comes with is sitting on a bad seat or something.

Remove it, and WITH THE PROPER lens cleaning tools (the pens) clean your lens and make sure the UV filter is set perfectly straight! Or even better, twist on a polar pro ND 4 or something and with a polarizar you'll get some amazing day time footage.

I would not be surprised if this is a lens issue. I bet it shoots just fine.
Click to expand...

Should have added that most of my flights have been with an ND 8 on
 
dave perry said:
Thanks for all that
I wI'll probably just shoot in 4k...you mention calibrating the lens
..how do you do that?
Click to expand...
Actually I said shoot in UHD, NOT 4K.

4K is a derivitive of 2K film, while UHD is a dirivitive of 1080P. Multiply 1920x1080 x2 and you get 3840x2160 (UHD resolution). 1920x2 = 3160 and 1080x2 = 2160 so 2K HD television of TV formats gives us the UHD format of 3840x2160 with a progressive square pixel aspect ratio of 1.85 anamorphic.

4K is a wider aspect ratio and is 4096x2160 and is for either 4K televisions, or a theater, or a UHD tv with some minor letter-boxing but there is a difference between 4K and UHD both in resolution and in the default refresh rates and frame rates. You guys need to understand the different formats or you are flying blind (no pun intended).

As for calibrating the lens, I meant just make sure the ND filter is seated correctly but if you have a filter in there, then check that. It certainly didn't seem like there was an ND filter on, if there was, your setting are all off because that was over saturated footage and soft.

There used to be a way to calibrate the actual lens in the "wrench" menu of the video/photo preference settings in the app. I would contact DJI support and ask them for help on calibrating your lens. At the very least, I would unscrew it and see if it has any bubbles you cant see, or if maybe your filter is not resting flat or is dirty or something. Your footage doesn't look SO BAD that it's probably not a turn of something or a movement of something else that will bring you into proper focus. I'm guessing though.
 
Guys make sure when recording 4k video that you are using a 4k SD card . Just bought this little bundle and my 4k video is really sharp and great.. no blury trees or grass everything nice and sharp. Hope it works for you
 

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DJI has a habit of breaking D-LOG depending on which firmware version you are on. On the X5, D-LOG is unusable and delivers complete mush. It used to work. So be sure to mention your FW version. And I would only compare untouched, straight from the camera footage. Anything that has been processed, put on Youtube, etc. is pretty useless for comparison.

P.S. The card speed is not going to fix mushy trees. If your card is too slow, it will simply stop recording.
 
To my relief, I've just been called by the company who sold me the drone; they've viewed the footage I posted and have said things aren't right, so I'll be taking it back to the new zealand agents on Tuesday. .
I just wished I'd done some flying with it before doing the firmware update. ..I reckon something in that process has screwed things up
 
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It's been an incredibly frustrating experience because the stability of the camera makes for such beautiful camera movement.
 
dave perry said:
To my relief, I've just been called by the company who sold me the drone; they've viewed the footage I posted and have said things aren't right, so I'll be taking it back to the new zealand agents on Tuesday. .
I just wished I'd done some flying with it before doing the firmware update. ..I reckon something in that process has screwed things up
Click to expand...

Again it's the firmware updates that can do this, havnt done a firmware update out of the box with my advanced, and probably never will


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
dave perry said:
To my relief, I've just been called by the company who sold me the drone; they've viewed the footage I posted and have said things aren't right, so I'll be taking it back to the new zealand agents on Tuesday. .
I just wished I'd done some flying with it before doing the firmware update. ..I reckon something in that process has screwed things up
Click to expand...

I shall be contacting them next week too, I haven't got a scrap of footage worth keeping since I got the P4. In direct comparison to my P3s footage it fails miserably. I've tried everything in settings/ post, everything. I hope the NZ agents are accommodating because I have a $2700 drone that I won't be using anymore. :(
 

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