DJI Inspire 2 footage slow to work with

HeavyMetal wrote on 4/3/2018, 2:21 PM

Does anyone else have trouble with UHD footage off the Inspire 2 in Vegas 15? I am on build 311, reluctant to go to build 321 in the middle of a tight deadline project. Its just very slow to work with. Not talking raw footage, just MOVs right off the SD card. Really don't want to transcode something as simple as typical MP4/MOV files, not sure what makes them not play nice in the software, but sure makes editing with it a chore.

Comments

ddm wrote on 4/3/2018, 4:44 PM

Not sure if this could be your problem, but I had some 4k files from the Inspire 2 that were h265 saved as MOV's instead of the other option mp4, and they were super slow. Had the client switch to saving as mp4, same data rate but not in the mov wrapper and they played fine.

NickHope wrote on 4/4/2018, 1:51 AM

In VP15 it generally shouldn't make much difference whether the wrapper is MP4 or MOV, unless that change actually changed the stream recording format from HEVC to AVC or vice versa. HEVC should be handled by the mxhevcplug.dll codec and AVC should get handled by so4compoundplug.dll, although DJI AVC is currently "blacklisted" so that it is handled by the older compoundplug.dll.

@HeavyMetal Any chance to share a sample MOV file from the Inspire 2 on a cloud service such as Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, mega.nz, wetransfer.com or mediafire.com so that we can link the developers to it to take a look?

HeavyMetal wrote on 4/4/2018, 2:06 AM

In VP15 it generally shouldn't make much difference whether the wrapper is MP4 or MOV, unless that change actually changed the stream recording format from HEVC to AVC or vice versa. HEVC should be handled by the mxhevcplug.dll codec and AVC should get handled by so4compoundplug.dll, although DJI AVC is currently "blacklisted" so that it is handled by the older compoundplug.dll.

@HeavyMetal Any chance to share a sample MOV file from the Inspire 2 on a cloud service such as Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, mega.nz, wetransfer.com or mediafire.com so that we can link the developers to it to take a look?

Happy to. Here is a link to a random sample clip: https://www.dropbox.com/s/j41oszi7cw0wfxo/DJI_0085.MOV?dl=0

HeavyMetal wrote on 4/4/2018, 2:20 AM

Best way to describe the issue with the files is; while playing through a timeline, when it gets to an Inspire clip, the timeline keeps playing through but the video preview hangs while it 'loads' the clip, and then picks up 2-3 seconds into it, and is never quite smooth, chugging through it. When scrubbing through or extending or shortening a clip, it is painfully sluggish in keeping up with the preview window, this is on 1/2 Preview quality, even 1/4 quality. My system is pretty strong and I deal with RED raw on the regular without any issues.

Marco. wrote on 4/4/2018, 4:06 AM

I second what Nick says but tried what happens if that file is re-wrapped to MP4 (without re-encoding) and this boosted the playback performance more than ten times on my system. While the MOV version playbacks with about 2 fps (preview set to "Preview/Half"), the MP4 version playbacks with full 24 fps.

So try re-wrapping your MOV files to MP4.

NickHope wrote on 4/4/2018, 4:32 AM

Thanks for the sample. The MOV clip is AVC, not HEVC, and it is indeed "blacklisted" so it gets decoded in recent versions of VP15 by compoundplug and not so4compoundplug. It's playing pretty responsively on my system with GPU acceleration off and at "Best (Full)" preview quality. It very quickly reached full 23.976. You can see my system specs in my profile by clicking my username.

If I rewrap it to MP4 like Marco suggested, then it gets decoded by so4compoundplug because the "DJI" metadata is lost and I get the opposite behaviour to Marco: playback is terrible.

Anyway, to try that on your system, the process to rewrap files from MOV to MP4 with FFmpeg is described in this post: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-how-to-convert-mov-video-e-g-iphone-to-mp4-for-vegas-pro--106154/

If you find that the rewrapped clips play better with so4compoudplug than the original MOV clips played with compoundplug, then instead of rewrapping you could try bypassing the DJI/GoPro/Xiaomi Yi blacklisting so that the clips get decoded by so4compoundplug. Hold SHIFT while clicking Options > Preferences, change to the Internal tab, search "blacklist", then change the found preference to FALSE and restart Vegas.

In any case, something in the usual tips for smooth playback might help.

john_dennis wrote on 4/4/2018, 11:15 AM

Ever curious about the effects of different formats on preview performance, I rewrapped and converted the DJI sample file and looked at the preview performance in Vegas Pro 13-453. This was on a i7-3770(k) with on-die HD4000 graphics adapter. I'll try later Vegas Pro versions if I get a round tuit.

Original File ~ 22 FPS

 

FFMPEG Rewrap to MP4 ~22 FPS

 

Converted to Sony XAVC-I ~14 FPS

There is a fair amount of experimental error associated with variations in when I happened to strike the Print Screen key. I found the MOV and the MP4 to be the same. The XAVC-I caused a big hit to performance on this machine with this Vegas Pro version. Magic YUV wasn't anything to write home to Mama about, either.

john_dennis wrote on 4/4/2018, 3:49 PM

"My system is pretty strong and I deal with RED raw on the regular without any issues."

Could you be a little more scientific than that? Is it bigger than a breadbox? Does it use enough energy to light a small city? Is it made by Intel or AMD?

My i7-6850 with AMD RX480 plays the files at the full frame rate in Vegas Pro 14-270 no matter what the wrapper.

When converted to Magic YUV, my Q9450 machine with an Nvidia GTS450 plays the file at full frame rate in Vegas Pro 11.

 

HeavyMetal wrote on 4/4/2018, 3:58 PM

"My system is pretty strong and I deal with RED raw on the regular without any issues."

Could you be a little more scientific than that? Is it bigger than a breadbox? Does it use enough energy to light a small city? Is it made by Intel or AMD?

My i7-6850 with AMD RX480 plays the files at the full frame rate in Vegas Pro 14-270 no matter what the wrapper.

When converted to Magic YUV, my Q9450 machine with an Nvidia GTS450 plays the file at full frame rate in Vegas Pro 11.

 

Sure, didnt think I was to a point to start listing specs when I posted that.

i7-5820K

64GB ram

Radeon HD 7970 3GB GDDR5

I can play the files at full frame rate, its complicated to explain. If I put the timeline cursor at the clip, let it appear in the preview menu, and play it from there, itll be smooth. If I start playing before the clip, and it gets to the clip-start while playing, it hangs and stutters once it gets to it. Its like it has trouble initially starting playback of the clip upon reaching it, or it needs to load it first in the preview window before it plays smooth. Scrubbing the clip length is also full of slow down. Hard to explain.

john_dennis wrote on 4/4/2018, 4:04 PM

Thank you. You've explained a lot.

HeavyMetal wrote on 4/5/2018, 8:52 PM

So I rewrapped the footage as explained, no difference. I can transcode it via Adobe Media Encoder to an H264 4K mp4 and it works like butter (on even Best Full quality). I am not sure what is unique about the file out of the drone. When scrubbing through or clicking through the native footage like in the recorded clip below, I can watch my CPU load spike to 90-100% every time, meanwhile on the transcoded version, it never spikes above 60% or so. Something in the native footage in the editor taxes the CPU immensely. For the record it plays smooth and easy as ever in VLC or otherwise.

I took a video to show what I mean of the behavior.