D-Cinelike 4K/30 H.264 Drone Footage from DJI Mini 3 Pro Compatible?

Alan-Shadduck wrote on 3/25/2023, 12:32 PM

Just installed the trial version of MAGIX Movie Studio 2023 Suite. Footage from my new drone (DJI Mini 3 Pro) imports and runs perfectly when recorded in "Normal" mode, but all I get is a black screen when recording in D-Cinelike mode. Is there a fix for this? Am running on Windows 10 Pro. Video is recorded at 4K/30 H.264.

Comments

CubeAce wrote on 3/25/2023, 12:51 PM

@Alan-Shadduck

Hi and 'welcome to the user to user forums.

I think you have put the wrong Codec in your title. As far as I'm aware H264 does nor support a BT2000 colour space.

Ray.

 

Windows 10 Enterprise. Version 22H2 OS build 19045.5011

Direct X 12.1 latest hardware updates for Western Digital hard drives.

Asus ROG STRIX Z390-F Gaming motherboard Rev 1.xx with Supreme FX inboard audio using the S1220A code. Driver No 6.0.8960.1 Bios version 1401

Intel i9900K Coffee Lake 3.6 to 5.1GHz CPU with Intel UHD 630 Graphics .Driver version Graphics Driver 31.0.101.2130 for 7th-10th Gen Intel® with 64GB of 3200MHz Corsair DDR4 ram.

1000 watt EVGA modular power supply.

1 x 250GB Evo 970 NVMe: drive for C: drive backup 1 x 1TB Sabrent NVMe drive for Operating System / Programs only. 1X WD BLACK 1TB internal SATA 7,200rpm hard drives.1 for internal projects, 1 for Library clips/sounds/music/stills./backup of working projects. 1x500GB SSD current project only drive, 2x WD RED 2TB drives for latest footage storage. Total 21TB of 8 external WD drives for backup.

ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB. nVidia Studio driver version 560.81 - 3584xCUDA cores Direct X 12.1. Memory interface 192bit Memory bandwidth 360.05GB/s 12GB of dedicated GDDR6 video memory, shared system memory 16307MB PCi Express x8 Gen3. Two Samsung 27" LED SA350 monitors with 5000000:1 contrast ratios at 60Hz.

Running MMS 2024 Suite v 23.0.1.182 (UDP3) and VPX 14 - v20.0.3.180 (UDP3)

M Audio Axiom AIR Mini MIDI keyboard Ver 5.10.0.3507

VXP 14, MMS 2024 Suite, Vegas Studio 16, Vegas Pro 18, Cubase 4. CS6, NX Studio, Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio. Mixcraft Pro 10 Studio.

Audio System 5 x matched bi-wired 150 watt Tannoy Reveal speakers plus one Tannoy 15" 250 watt sub with 5.1 class A amplifier. Tuned to room with Tannoy audio application.

Ram Acoustic Studio speakers amplified by NAD amplifier.

Rogers LS7 speakers run from Cambridge Audio P50 amplifier

Schrodinger's Backup. "The condition of any backup is unknown until a restore is attempted."

johnebaker wrote on 3/25/2023, 3:44 PM

@Alan-Shadduck

Hi

I would suggest you check the recording format of the D-Cine like video clips. My Action 3 records D-Cine like in the HEVC (h.265) video encoding format.

To check the encoding format download and install MediaInfo and analyse one of the clips causing the issue and post the results, see this tutorial on how to setup MediaInfo and analyse a video clip for all the data required.     

The trial version does not have the HEVC (h.265) codec, this is one of the restrictions with the trial version, as it requires a separate activation which can only be done in the full version.

You will also need a DJI LUT to colour correct the D-Cine like video, as it will appear very flat without this correction as shown below.

HTH

John EB
Forum Moderator

VPX 16, Movie Studio 2025, and earlier versions 2015 and 2016, Music Maker Premium 2024.

PC - running Windows 11 23H2 Professional on Intel i7-8700K 3.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, RTX 2060 6GB 192-bit GDDR6, 1 x 1Tb Sabrent NVME SSD (OS and programs), 2 x 4TB (Data) internal HDD + 1TB internal SSD (Work disc), + 6 ext backup HDDs.

Laptop - Lenovo Legion 5i Phantom - running Windows 11 23H2 on Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB DDR4-SDRAM, 512GB SSD, 43.9 cm screen Full HD 1920 x 1080, Intel UHD 630 iGPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB GDDR6)

Sony FDR-AX53e Video camera, DJI Osmo Action 3 and Sony HDR-AS30V Sports cams.

Alan-Shadduck wrote on 3/25/2023, 5:20 PM

Thanks for all the great feedback! I have resolved the issue by selecting H.265, instead of 264, in the drone's camera settings. (Those are the two options it offers, coupled with either "Normal" or "D-Cinelike" color space.) Before taking delivery of the new drone I had prepped by watching numerous tutorials, one of which advised 264 over the newer 265. Should have just asked here first! Thank you again for the great responses!

CubeAce wrote on 3/25/2023, 6:31 PM

@Alan-Shadduck

Hi.

If you want to take full advantage of H265 I would advise buying VPX over MMS if you really want to export to a higher bit depth but hopefully to get the best experience I hope you have a 10 bit colour monitor and powerful enough system to edit the files smoothly as they can become quite demanding on a system to edit. H265 will give a similar quality export for a smaller file size over H264 generally speaking but H264 is easier to handle in an editor and does not need as powerful a system to edit with. Both can still be quite a handful at 4K though. Please note that the system specs quoted on the website are the minimum requirements to get the program to run and should where possible and especially where larger files with more complex codecs are involved exceed all of them by a good margin.

You will find editing programs much more demanding than just being able to play a file in a video player. A lot of people come onto the forums complaining of performance issues just because they can play a file but then find they can't edit it without their system freezing up or causing some sort of playback or export problem.

If you have never edited video before I suggest staying away from any file type that gives you a variable frame rate video as they will be more difficult to edit than video that has a constant frame rate. If you are not quite sure what I mean by this then you probably should start reading up some more and do some Google searches on video editing topics and maybe search the forums for various topics. If you have edited video before but not 4K HDR, welcome to another level of editing.

Ray.

Last changed by CubeAce on 3/25/2023, 6:33 PM, changed a total of 1 times.

 

Windows 10 Enterprise. Version 22H2 OS build 19045.5011

Direct X 12.1 latest hardware updates for Western Digital hard drives.

Asus ROG STRIX Z390-F Gaming motherboard Rev 1.xx with Supreme FX inboard audio using the S1220A code. Driver No 6.0.8960.1 Bios version 1401

Intel i9900K Coffee Lake 3.6 to 5.1GHz CPU with Intel UHD 630 Graphics .Driver version Graphics Driver 31.0.101.2130 for 7th-10th Gen Intel® with 64GB of 3200MHz Corsair DDR4 ram.

1000 watt EVGA modular power supply.

1 x 250GB Evo 970 NVMe: drive for C: drive backup 1 x 1TB Sabrent NVMe drive for Operating System / Programs only. 1X WD BLACK 1TB internal SATA 7,200rpm hard drives.1 for internal projects, 1 for Library clips/sounds/music/stills./backup of working projects. 1x500GB SSD current project only drive, 2x WD RED 2TB drives for latest footage storage. Total 21TB of 8 external WD drives for backup.

ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB. nVidia Studio driver version 560.81 - 3584xCUDA cores Direct X 12.1. Memory interface 192bit Memory bandwidth 360.05GB/s 12GB of dedicated GDDR6 video memory, shared system memory 16307MB PCi Express x8 Gen3. Two Samsung 27" LED SA350 monitors with 5000000:1 contrast ratios at 60Hz.

Running MMS 2024 Suite v 23.0.1.182 (UDP3) and VPX 14 - v20.0.3.180 (UDP3)

M Audio Axiom AIR Mini MIDI keyboard Ver 5.10.0.3507

VXP 14, MMS 2024 Suite, Vegas Studio 16, Vegas Pro 18, Cubase 4. CS6, NX Studio, Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio. Mixcraft Pro 10 Studio.

Audio System 5 x matched bi-wired 150 watt Tannoy Reveal speakers plus one Tannoy 15" 250 watt sub with 5.1 class A amplifier. Tuned to room with Tannoy audio application.

Ram Acoustic Studio speakers amplified by NAD amplifier.

Rogers LS7 speakers run from Cambridge Audio P50 amplifier

Schrodinger's Backup. "The condition of any backup is unknown until a restore is attempted."

Former user wrote on 3/25/2023, 6:41 PM

@Alan-Shadduck Hi, H264 (AVC) is more widely compatible as it has been around for a long time, H265 (HEVC) is just a newer 'better' way of compressing files, because of 4k & 8k being more widely used that create bigger files sizes they had to find a solution, only prob is a lot of programs are still not 100% happy with H265 format,

So just for the record & out of curiousity as to why this solution worked for you it'd be helpful if you would you share one of the H264 files on Google Drive or another file sharing site, then we can look & try it out to see why?,

CubeAce wrote on 3/26/2023, 5:44 AM

@Alan-Shadduck

Hi.

I managed to get DJI mini 3 Pro HEVC (H265) files and try it out. (From a previous problem on which member @Colorz supplied short files for testing purposes. Original problem post is here). It is compatible to edit within MMS 2023 but you won't be able to export it as a 10 bit HDR file. Only an 8bit file. For exporting to a 10 bit HDR file you will need VPX 14. The other oddity with the DJI drone footage is although the setting is 30fps it will be 29.970fps but must be edited and exported as 30 fps or when the drone turns or has slow moving objects running across the frame it will produce a slightly juddery looking export.

File info

General
Complete name                            : D:\UHD content\4K10bit_DcinelikeH264_06E89A2A.MP4
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media
Codec ID                                 : isom (isom/iso2/mp41)
File size                                : 298 MiB
Duration                                 : 26 s 861 ms
Overall bit rate                         : 93.0 Mb/s
Encoded date                             : UTC 2022-05-27 09:45:55
Tagged date                              : UTC 2022-05-27 09:45:55
Writing application                      : Lavf56.15.102

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : HEVC
Format/Info                              : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile                           : Main 10@L5@Main
Codec ID                                 : hvc1
Codec ID/Info                            : High Efficiency Video Coding
Duration                                 : 26 s 861 ms
Bit rate                                 : 93.0 Mb/s
Width                                    : 3 840 pixels
Height                                   : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
Original frame rate                      : 29.000 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.374
Stream size                              : 298 MiB (100%)
Encoded date                             : UTC 2022-05-27 09:45:55
Tagged date                              : UTC 2022-05-27 09:45:55
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709
Codec configuration box                  : hvcC

You see there is a second reference to the frame rate of 29fps which is not a standard frame rate and best set to 30fps for both importing into the project and for exporting. Then the speed difference is hardly noticed and the export footage is smooth.

[ UPDATED VIDEO TO SHOW BOTH MOV AND MP4 FORMATS USED ]

[Edit] The re-encoding this site has done to my file above has made the video look much jumpier than it is as I am getting a smooth playing export but the colour is pretty accurate to what I am seeing on my pc.

I don't have a DJI LUT but did manually adjust the colour / contrast and it shows on the second pass.

On my machine at least it does not seem to make any difference to performance whether you record to MP4 or choose MOV.

General
Complete name                            : D:\10 bit files\4K10bit_DcinelikeH264.MOV
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : QuickTime
Codec ID                                 : qt   0000.02 (qt  )
File size                                : 374 MiB
Duration                                 : 33 s 734 ms
Overall bit rate                         : 92.9 Mb/s
Encoded date                             : UTC 2022-05-27 09:46:32
Tagged date                              : UTC 2022-05-27 09:46:32
Writing application                      : Lavf56.15.102

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : HEVC
Format/Info                              : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile                           : Main 10@L5@Main
Codec ID                                 : hvc1
Codec ID/Info                            : High Efficiency Video Coding
Duration                                 : 33 s 734 ms
Bit rate                                 : 92.9 Mb/s
Width                                    : 3 840 pixels
Height                                   : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
Original frame rate                      : 29.000 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.374
Stream size                              : 374 MiB (100%)
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2022-05-27 09:46:32
Tagged date                              : UTC 2022-05-27 09:46:32
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709
Codec configuration box                  : hvcC

Bits rates are roughly the same.

[Further edit] I have just noticed that both of the files have a BT.709 colour profile. I would not have expected that.

Ray.

Last changed by CubeAce on 3/27/2023, 7:44 AM, changed a total of 8 times.

 

Windows 10 Enterprise. Version 22H2 OS build 19045.5011

Direct X 12.1 latest hardware updates for Western Digital hard drives.

Asus ROG STRIX Z390-F Gaming motherboard Rev 1.xx with Supreme FX inboard audio using the S1220A code. Driver No 6.0.8960.1 Bios version 1401

Intel i9900K Coffee Lake 3.6 to 5.1GHz CPU with Intel UHD 630 Graphics .Driver version Graphics Driver 31.0.101.2130 for 7th-10th Gen Intel® with 64GB of 3200MHz Corsair DDR4 ram.

1000 watt EVGA modular power supply.

1 x 250GB Evo 970 NVMe: drive for C: drive backup 1 x 1TB Sabrent NVMe drive for Operating System / Programs only. 1X WD BLACK 1TB internal SATA 7,200rpm hard drives.1 for internal projects, 1 for Library clips/sounds/music/stills./backup of working projects. 1x500GB SSD current project only drive, 2x WD RED 2TB drives for latest footage storage. Total 21TB of 8 external WD drives for backup.

ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB. nVidia Studio driver version 560.81 - 3584xCUDA cores Direct X 12.1. Memory interface 192bit Memory bandwidth 360.05GB/s 12GB of dedicated GDDR6 video memory, shared system memory 16307MB PCi Express x8 Gen3. Two Samsung 27" LED SA350 monitors with 5000000:1 contrast ratios at 60Hz.

Running MMS 2024 Suite v 23.0.1.182 (UDP3) and VPX 14 - v20.0.3.180 (UDP3)

M Audio Axiom AIR Mini MIDI keyboard Ver 5.10.0.3507

VXP 14, MMS 2024 Suite, Vegas Studio 16, Vegas Pro 18, Cubase 4. CS6, NX Studio, Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio. Mixcraft Pro 10 Studio.

Audio System 5 x matched bi-wired 150 watt Tannoy Reveal speakers plus one Tannoy 15" 250 watt sub with 5.1 class A amplifier. Tuned to room with Tannoy audio application.

Ram Acoustic Studio speakers amplified by NAD amplifier.

Rogers LS7 speakers run from Cambridge Audio P50 amplifier

Schrodinger's Backup. "The condition of any backup is unknown until a restore is attempted."

Reyfox wrote on 4/1/2023, 7:04 AM

@CubeAce wrote:

You will find editing programs much more demanding than just being able to play a file in a video player. A lot of people come onto the forums complaining of performance issues just because they can play a file but then find they can't edit it without their system freezing up or causing some sort of playback or export problem.

So, so true!!