Editing Videos

[pdmike]

Ok, just a long shot...but you did remove the foam gimbal holder that they put on them for transport, right?

Rick - Looking at the video I made this afternoon (and posted, above), I am really beginning to think that you hit it on the head. I strongly suspect that my failure to remove that square, piece of semi-hard, packing foam was the cause of the jerky videos I was getting before the piece of foam fell out. I only have one "pre-foam-removal" video, and it is horribly jerky. Problem is, it's also way too big to post here. As soon as I get some editing software and can pare it down bit, I will post it and you can see what I'm talking about.

 

[Rick M]

If you were filming with that in place, it would explain what you were experiencing. That thing interferes with the gimbal's "yaw" movement and the gimbal motor has to overcome the resistance. Definitely don't fly with it on, because you can damage the gimbal motor.

 

[pdmike]

If you were filming with that in place, it would explain what you were experiencing. That thing interferes with the gimbal's "yaw" movement and the gimbal motor has to overcome the resistance. Definitely don't fly with it on, because you can damage the gimbal motor.

I flew it quite a few times (6-8) before it fell off. I hope I didn't do any damage - everything seems to be working all right now. When I first got the quad, I also turned it on two or three times with the gimbal protector in place. I wondered why all I saw was gray on the screen.

I don't remember DJI offering up any kind of warning about removing the gimbal protector or the piece of foam travel protection prior to starting the quad up. If they did, it sure wasn't in a very prominent place. Oh well, it is what it is and we go forward.

 

[pdmike]

Maybe you had some wind going on that made it shaky and the good video was on a calm day?

No. If anything, it was the other way around. There was a bit of wind with the good video and it was quite calm with the shaky video. I'm pretty sure all of this was because I had failed to remove the square piece of foam that is in the gimbal to protect it during transportation. That must be removed on opening the box. I didn't do that. I'm sure it restricted the gimbal movement, thus causing the bad video. Once I got it out of there - good video.

 

[pdmike]

... YOU BROKE YOUR BRAND NEW GIMBAL !!
... lmao ... (j/k) ... Hope you get it sorted out ...

Like Spork says, show us a slower rotation so we can get a better look at the skipping. This is apparently not an uncommon occurrence with these 2-axis gimbals.
There IS video stabilization software you can use to minimize it when editing though.

I'm pretty new to all this, but I am satisfied with the "good" video posted above. I will be putting up a slower rotation video, but I'm sure it will not be shaky.

 

[Spork]

Glad to hear things are working for you now, Mike. The good thing about things like this happening is that you and all of us reading have learned about another thing to watch out for.

I've had several (okay, maybe more than several) things like that over the years where I spent a ton of time trying to figure out what was going on with a gadget, only to have my son look at it for 5 seconds and say something like "You forgot to pull out the plastic battery tab". I'm very thankful for his help until he follows up with, "Dad, you are the dumbest, smart guy I know."

 

[RENOV8R]

Yep, we've all done it. I spent most of last Saturday afternoon messing around in Betaflight trying to figure out why I was getting perfect video image but no OSD on my Japalura. Finally dawned on me that I had the camera signal wire going straight to the vtx instead of through the fc. doh.

 

[pdmike]

Glad to hear things are working for you now, Mike. The good thing about things like this happening is that you and all of us reading have learned about another thing to watch out for.

I've had several (okay, maybe more than several) things like that over the years where I spent a ton of time trying to figure out what was going on with a gadget, only to have my son look at it for 5 seconds and say something like "You forgot to pull out the plastic battery tab". I'm very thankful for his help until he follows up with, "Dad, you are the dumbest, smart guy I know."

When I first got my P4, I got it out of the box, set it up and turned it on. I wondered why my remote control screen was dark gray. Wasn't I supposed to be seeing what was out in front of the camera as it sat there on the table in my living room? I spent quite some time on YouTube and Google, trying to figure out what adjustment was to be made to the settings in order to be able to have my camera "see" what was out in front of it. I posted here about it and someone asked, "Have you removed the gimbal protector?"

When my wife has a problem with her computer, I generally tell her, "Reboot it," and more often than not, that solves the problem.

 

[ringolong]

Everyone loses interest without editing your footage unless you are flying full speed and shifting angles a lot.

 

[pdmike]

Here is what I think caused the problem of the jerky video.

 

[KentA]

LOL Mike. I think you'd better tweak your preflight inspection.

 

[ringolong]

remove that and try again

 

[pdmike]

remove that and try again

I did. After I removed it, no problem.

 

[Jackson]

FWIW this may be of interest to some folks, especially those with no gimbal. Note it will crop your video a bit.

There is also the YouTube editor which also includes a decent stabilize function.