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ARGH! My video crashed!! Did I fix it?

tvwxman

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I was out getting some nice sunset/twilight shots of my home town when I noticed on my phone's display some flickering in the video with some sort of color shifting. I could only hope it was something related to the signal being fed, or the connection between my phone and controller, etc. Not so. Indeed my video was corrupted and plagued with ugly flickering and color shifts. I ran a test in my kitchen and it was worse. Here is a 12 second sample clip. The first five seconds are from the flight. It may not be very obvious, but keep watching - you'll have no problem seeing it in the kitchen (no, I didn't attempt to white balance):


So from past experience building computers, one troubleshooting trick when things went sideways was to remove and reseat components hoping to improve the contact and connections. I figured after six months of ownership and all the vibration over that time, maybe there's a chance. With that in mind, I disassembled the camera so I could get to the ribbon cable. I unplugged it and then reseated it. I later thought maybe I should have blown it out with compressed air, but sometimes that can work against you by blowing debris deeper into crevices and contact points. Either way, the following tests did produce solid video again, but it was one test in the kitchen and one quick flight outdoors, so I'm not ready to say I have permanently solved the problem. I will follow up especially if it starts again. Anyone else have this happen to you? Any advice? Thanks!!

[By the way, I was shooting in h.265 10 bit log both before and after the problem]
 
Great tip thank you, I will try that next if this problem crops up again!
 
Interesting, one more thing to add to the book for a potential down the road issue, Thanks
 
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I had similar issue several times. Mostly it happened when there was not enough of light.
I thought that it may be caused by automatic white balance. In the nearest time I am planning to set manual white balance and check it out again.
If required, I can post the video too...
 
I had similar issue several times. Mostly it happened when there was not enough of light.
I thought that it may be caused by automatic white balance. In the nearest time I am planning to set manual white balance and check it out again.
If required, I can post the video too...
Ok thanks... it really went crazy in my kitchen as you saw. Granted, that's not very bright light, but that would be a serious problem if it can't handle that.
 
Ok thanks... it really went crazy in my kitchen as you saw. Granted, that's not very bright light, but that would be a serious problem if it can't handle that.
Hello again!
Sorry for late reply. I was playing with the white balance around and it looks like this issue is no longer available as long as you set manual auto balance.

Please try with yours and let me know if it works for you...
 
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Thanks very much, if it crops up again, I will try that!
 
@tvwxman What was your shutter speed when you were in the kitchen? That type of flickering can be caused by LED lights which I also observed in the frame. Your shutter speed during the first test in the kitchen could have caused the flickering but the outdoors test does look like a loose cable somewhere. If the flickering went away in the kitchen after reseating the camera it was either because the shutter speed changed or it was a loose cable.

Auto WB should not cause that type of flickering, when a camera is set to Auto WB it very gradually shifts the color temp and tint in response to what the camera sees as it tries to figure out what the white reference point is, the temp/tint adjustments are nearly imperceptible to the human eye;, it will never shift it rapidly enough to cause the type of flickering that was evident in your video unless something else was wrong.

The main reason you should use manual WB is to ensure that your color grade in post is consistent and the color temp and tint does not change throughout the clip. A variable WB during a single take is nearly impossible to fix later with the color grade. For 90% of the time with drone footage you can just leave the WB at daylight (5600K). If you are shooting low light you can either use daylight or 3600K depending on the lighting in the composition.

Proper/custom WB is far more important when shooting with regular cinema cameras due to mixed lighting scenarios, skin tones, etc. With drones usually your only light source is your key light (the sun) so daylight WB is pretty much all you need. If it is very cloudy you might try the Cloudy WB to warm up the scene, since cloudy ambient lighting is typically around 6500K. The nice thing about shooting 10bit is as long as you get the WB close, you can fix it the rest of the way in post.
 
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Yeah, I'm still all tungsten in most of my house and as noted, I discovered this issue outdoors in natural light. So far so good though. Since reseating it, no problems but then again, I've flown very little since then. Great tips on the WB subject, thanks much!
 
Mine has been doing the same thing.

Weird Colour Shifting

I noticed it the other day but did not have time to investigate as I assumed it was a cable issue.

I also noticed it was worse when the EV value was below -3.

I went out this morning to fly and stupidly forgot my phone. I flew anyway as I assumed that if it was the cable from the phone to the controller then using just the controller would eliminate that theory.

Still doing the weird colour shifting, so it is not the cable.
As I only had the controller and not the phone I could not check the white balance.
I will do this later today.

So is this a software or hardware issue?
I have only had this drone for a month.
 
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Mine has been doing the same thing.

Weird Colour Shifting

I noticed it the other day but did not have time to investigate as I assumed it was a able issue.

I also noticed it was worse when the EV value was below -3.

I went out this morning to fly a stupidly forgot my phone. I flew anyway as I assumed if it was the cable then using just the controller would eliminate that theory.

Still doing the weird colour shifting, so it is not the cable.
As I only had the controller ad not the phone I could not check the white balance.
I will do this later today.

So is this a software or hardware issue?
I have only had this drone for a month.
Sorry to hear you're experiencing this problem. Scroll up to my original post above and give some thought to my solution. In short, you'll need to remove the camera to access the ribbon cable. Unplug it, and perhaps consider either/or blowing out the connector with compressed air and applying a bit of contact cleaner. Then reseat the cable, reattach the camera and give it a shot.

I haven't had a problem since. So based on my experience it's a pure hardware issue, perhaps the connection getting a little loose from the vibration of the drone. Let me/us know how it goes!
 
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From Autel.

"According to our engineer, the issue will be resolved in the next firmware update. It will be released very soon. Should the issue still persist after installing the new firmware, please inform us and we'll provide a gimbal camera."

So part software and most likely hardware.

Will still try cleaning the contacts at some point though. Maybe after the firmware fix and before the gimbal switch.
 
Wow! I didn't see that coming! Thanks for the Post very interesting to say the least.
 
I had this same issue recently on a brand new drone Evo II Pro. I was in Iceland getting footage of the currently erupting volcano. I saw this issue and thought the same, it was with the incoming feed and not the footage itself. To my disappointment several of my videos have this annoying flickering going on. I messed with all settings put everything I could into manual mode and still would get this. Mostly when lava was splashing causing wide swings in the lighting. Does anyone know if this firmware has been released yet?


Link to the video.
 
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I had this same issue recently on a brand new drone Evo II Pro. I was in Iceland getting footage of the currently erupting volcano. I saw this issue and thought the same, it was with the incoming feed and not the footage itself. To my disappointment several of my videos have this annoying flickering going on. I messed with all settings put everything I could into manual mode and still would get this. Mostly when lava was splashing causing wide swings in the lighting. Does anyone know if this firmware has been released yet?


Link to the video.
I keep checking the Autel website but have not seen any newer than July firmware as of yesterday.

As of today the only firmware available is:-
  • video instructions on how to update firmware over the air.
    EVO II V1: V2.7.25
    Jul-01-2021
    BIN download logo

  • EVO II V1 and V2 firmware are not compatible.
    EVO II V2: V2.1.31
    Jul-11-2021
    ZIP download logo
 
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