Why are my Avata Video limited to 3min 45sec?

[Kilrah]

Unless I'm out of date, exFAT adoption is still way way behind FAT32 use simply because of compatibility. While exFAT support has become widespread, adoption as the default FS for SD cards seems, in my lookin' around, is still very scarce.

You are, ExFAT has been the required format for SD(XC) cards >32GB, since 2009. Any device that supports a card >32GB (basically anything nowadays) thus has to support ExFAT.

 

[Xitor]

Why does it make a difference? If you have a good video editor you can splice all your footage together. Even my go pro does this with my bike footage. Even when the clip I want is the 30 seconds that span two clips its easy enough to trim them in a video editor and put together.

 

[rktman]

You are, ExFAT has been the required format for SD(XC) cards >32GB, since 2009. Any device that supports a card >32GB (basically anything nowadays) thus has to support ExFAT.

Sorry if I was unclear... I'm talking about adoption, not support. Just about everything out there seems to assume a card is formatted FAT32 and splits files. It's simpler to just assume this, thereby being near universally compatible, rather than do something different if an exFAT card is inserted.

As I said before, exFAT support is pretty widespread.

 

[rktman]

Why does it make a difference? If you have a good video editor you can splice all your footage together. Even my go pro does this with my bike footage. Even when the clip I want is the 30 seconds that span two clips its easy enough to trim them in a video editor and put together.

Because such concepts are a more advanced operation than what they're used to, which presents a barrier to the sort of one-push operation that most people expect.

The vast majority of smart phone users are not video editors, and aren't interested in learning how. Most consumer drone owners are pretty much the same.

 

[Jeff A]

This morning I finally got to fly without a myriad of glitches and menu snafus (My faults), tangled cords and other crap. I finally got to fly a battery out. Why am I posting this here? A screenshot shows my 9 minute movie from the Avata. No breaks, a solid 9 minutes. Please note the file size.

 

[rktman]

@Jeff A your point?

It's meaningless without knowing resolution, fps, and color depth.

Notably, everything we've been saying about file size here is confirmed with your experience.

 

[Kilrah]

Why am I posting this here? A screenshot shows my 9 minute movie from the Avata. No breaks, a solid 9 minutes. Please note the file size.

You're not gonna fool us though - that's a file from the Goggles' card. Of course it's much smaller since it's the low res/quality live transmitted feed.

 

[rktman]

You're not gonna fool us though - that's a file from the Goggles' card. Of course it's much smaller since it's the low res/quality live transmitted feed.

Aha!

 

[Jeff A]

Can't tell you you haven't seen something you say you have, but you have the ONLY device (not just drone) in the entire world that somehow can store files larger than 4GB on the very old, MSDOS-originated FAT32 file system.

FAT stands for "File Allocation Table", a part of the overall file system structure that indexes the blocks of data in a file. FAT was originally developed in 1977 using an 8-bit index for the file storage, sufficient for indexing files on floppy discs, the state-of-the-art in small computer storage at the time. Over the next 15 years the design of FAT was updated to a 12, 16, and finally 32-bit index as storage technology grew.

FAT supports random access to the file with byte resolution using a 32-bit pointer. 32 bits can index 2^32, or a bit over 4B bytes. Therefore you can not index – point to, read, write, etc. – any byte in a file beyond 4GB.

Again, only you can speak to your experience. However, given that it is impossible for you to have stored a file larger than 4GB on a FAT32 filesystem, I can say with 100% confidence that you were hallucinating

BTW, I'll see your 2-3 years DJI experience and raise to 9 on my side, across Phantom 3, Mavic Pro, Mavic 2 Pro, Mavic Air, Air 2, Air 2S, Mini 2, Mini 3, DJI FPV.

I think across all those years, models, and hundreds of hours of sometimes quite sophisticated production turning that footage into amazing video I would have noticed NOT needing to splice footage.

I have a new wrinkle for you rktman, but 1st, a correction. Both of my Micro SD cards in my Avata kit are formatted exFat. Now frankly, you know a lot more about this stuff than I do but I just bring this up because of the inaccuracy of your statement about how my cards were formatted. BTW, no hallucinating here.

Secondly, I have shot some pretty long video with my Mavic 2 Pro and Mavic 2 Zoom as I was doing Litchi missions with both of those drones. I don't remember how the SD card was formatted in those drones but I'll attempt to find out when I fly the Mavic next time.

Now the interesting part, at least it is to me. To begin, When I bought the Avata, I purchased two new 128 GB Samsung SD Cards and formatted them in exFAT as recommended. I had a couple of flights when I was wrestling with technical and menu issues, so no chance to just fly and record until yesterday. So I flew and recorded video twice, by that I mean I shot a video that was around 9 minutes in 4K 60. That screen shot was that video laying on my system. It is 1.9 GB. That video was on the SD card inside the Avada. Note the filename DJI_0017.MOV. So a little later, I went after the recording of the Goggles view of the same flight showing the telemetry. What I found was 4 separate recordings. I have attached a Screenshot of those files with the properties of one of them open so you can see it. The almost all the same except for the *#75.MP4 which was 407 MB and 20 seconds in length. So now I have a few questions. The 1st would be, why would DJI record to an MP4 file in one place and a .MOV file in another. Of course we have only one camera in play here. Your a clever guy so please tell me. The next thing I noticed was recordings from my Sony a7 IV Hybrid camera records to MP4 format. I can record 4K 30 with that camera until my 80 GB card is full and there will be no breaks. They wouldn't be able to sell the camera if it broke up video after 3 or 4 minutes, Lastly, in my hard drive storage area on my Windows 10 PC, Windows has one icon for an MP4 from the Avata and another icon for the MP4's from my Sony. I'm all ears my friend!

 

[Jeff A]

You're not gonna fool us though - that's a file from the Goggles' card. Of course it's much smaller since it's the low res/quality live transmitted feed.

You should take a look at my post to rktman.

 

[pedz]

To add to the noise. I plugged my Avata into my Mac via a USB-C cable. Both the internal and the SD card are formatted exFAT according to Disk Utility. The SD card is 128G.

I have never seen files chopped up like the Avata and I’ve had DJI equipment since the Inspire 1. I have a 9 minute video from the Inspire that is 3.9G. I’ve used a Mavic 2, a Mavic Mini, a DJI Pocket, and a Mavic 3 Cine. None chopped up the files. The largest DJI*.MOV file in my catalog is 4.2G.

 

[Kilrah]

So I flew and recorded video twice, by that I mean I shot a video that was around 9 minutes in 4K 60. That screen shot was that video laying on my system. It is 1.9 GB. That video was on the SD card inside the Avada. Note the filename DJI_0017.MOV. So a little later, I went after the recording of the Goggles view of the same flight showing the telemetry. What I found was 4 separate recordings.

You mixed up both cards, the one with the single small MOV was actually in the goggles, the other with the 4 MP4s (split, as discussed all along) was actually in the aircraft.
Also you posted the same screenshot twice, it seems that's not what was intended.

I’ve had DJI equipment since the Inspire 1. I have a 9 minute video from the Inspire that is 3.9G. I’ve used a Mavic 2, a Mavic Mini, a DJI Pocket, and a Mavic 3 Cine. None chopped up the files. The largest DJI*.MOV file in my catalog is 4.2G.

I don't have many split clips from those other aircraft for the simple reason that on those you'd usually start/stop recording multiple times in flight as you get to film something interesting, not the entire flight from motor start to stop in one go like with the FPV/Avata. So a single file that's long enough to split (especially on the older aircraft that have way lower bitrates = longer time before reaching 4GB) is less likely to ever be recorded in the first place.

 

[pedz]

My point is simply that the other DJI drones (products) did not split the files.

I also misspoke: "The largest DJI*.MOV file in my catalog is 4.2G.". That was files before 2022. The Mavic 3 Cine is producing huge files:

-rwxrwxrwx 1 pedz staff 63G Jul 10 09:20 2022-07-10/DJI_0012.MOV
-rwxrwxrwx 1 pedz staff 40G Jun 1 14:11 2022-06-01/DJI_0009.MOV
-rwxrwxrwx 1 pedz staff 38G Jul 10 09:15 2022-07-10/DJI_0011.MOV
-rwxrwxrwx 1 pedz staff 29G Jun 1 14:07 2022-06-01/DJI_0008.MOV
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 pedz staff 8.0G May 14 10:36 2022-05-14/DJI_0030.MP4
-rwxrwxrwx 1 pedz staff 4.9G Jul 10 09:11 2022-07-10/DJI_0010.MOV
-rwxrwxrwx 1 pedz staff 3.8G May 26 05:54 2022-05-26/DJI_0032.MP4
-rwxrwxrwx 1 pedz staff 3.6G May 26 05:50 2022-05-26/DJI_0031.MP4

 

[rktman]

Those of you who don't believe Mavics split files, prove it. Go out and shoot an entire flight from full battery to depleted. Mavic 3 excluded.

I'll do the same later today.

As for the Avata, Inspire 1, and M3Cine, don't have those birds so my statements have been based on informed speculation.

I would not be surprised that the M3C handles Apple ProRes differently, the nature of the format being very different than h264 and h265.

Given the low compression (ProRes is to video as Raw isxto photos, loosely), so splitting at 4GB would be impractical.

 

[pedz]

I no longer have any of the older drones. Just the Mavic 3 and the Avata. And... I'm honestly not trying to prove or disprove anything. Just adding data to be consumed by others. I have two files dated in 2015 so that would be the Inspire 1 greater than 4,000,000,000 bytes but not greater than 4,294,967,296. The Avata is moving to the next file after 3,775,000,000 bytes (roughly).

Edit: I've also asked on the DJI forum to see if anyone chimes in.

 

[Kilrah]

The M3 Cine won't split, it's prores and huge. All the others do. I still have them as well as footage from them. They split with varying margins from the limit. Also, GiB and GB confusion.

 

[pedz]

I'm curious, if you have time, if you could go out and verify some of the other drones you still own. In particular, I had a Mavic 2 Pro. It just seems like I would have had at least one big file although I'm not real surprised I don't. When doing semi-serious video, one long clip isn't what I was doing. I would make runs doing some maneuver time and time again until I got just the right shot and each of those was probably under a minute long.

All this is just curiosity for me. If I'm going to work with any of my videos, I am going to throw it into Premier Pro and edit the crap out of the clips anyway.

 

[Kilrah]

This is an M2 split file, got split at 3.5G and 5 minutes.
As mentioned I don't have many such long files with the non-FPV aircraft since I'd usually only record the interesting bits.

 

[rktman]

4GB = 4 × 1024 × 1024 × 1024 = 4,294,967,296

 

[Jeff A]

I no longer have any of the older drones. Just the Mavic 3 and the Avata. And... I'm honestly not trying to prove or disprove anything. Just adding data to be consumed by others. I have two files dated in 2015 so that would be the Inspire 1 greater than 4,000,000,000 bytes but not greater than 4,294,967,296. The Avata is moving to the next file after 3,775,000,000 bytes (roughly).

Edit: I've also asked on the DJI forum to see if anyone chimes in.

Thanks for your input. On another subject, I see you have a Smug Mug presence. I have photos on Flickr. Flickr is owned by Smug Mug. Do you happen to know why thees sites are separate. Given a little spare time, I'll spend more time looking at your photos. You are a Canon shooter and I shoot with a Sony A7 III and an A7 IV.