New to droning, opinions on videos?

tthai826 · Aug 31, 2017

hi everyone, I'm a amateur photographer (hobby) and my wife got me the Xstar premium for my birthday. I just started playing around with it and took it to a few Northern California sites (Donner Lake, Tahoe and the American River). I'm very happy with it and was able to compile 3 short videos.

1. I am using Pinnacle 21 ultimate for video editing (I do have a Adobe sub for Premiere but found it way complicated) anyone else using the same of different? Should I invest time in learning Premiere?

2. Found using ambient/electronica music the best for videos, any recommendations?

3. Does anyone use filters?

You can view my videos here

tntphotos

TT

Tufargon · Aug 31, 2017

Welcome to the forum and great choice in the XSP!
Well your videos look outstanding to me so you won't learn anything from me on that.
Your choice of music seems to fit very well.
I have filters but have yet to use them. I'm further north in Northern California and it's really hot up here now. Probably won't be able to fly for another week or more.

eerie54 · Aug 31, 2017

Tufargon said:
Welcome to the forum and great choice in the XSP!
Well your videos look outstanding to me so you won't learn anything from me on that.
Your choice of music seems to fit very well.
I have filters but have yet to use them. I'm further north in Northern California and it's really hot up here now. Probably won't be able to fly for another week or more.

South of you in the pit of California not less than 100 since June. Hope it cools before I even think of flying.

Tufargon · Aug 31, 2017

eerie54 said:
South of you in the pit of California not less than 100 since June. Hope it cools before I even think of flying.

Since the fires have started in the area the smoke is really bad and kept the temp down but you can't really see anything distance wise if you fly. It's hazy even just driving a car.
Thank you and I hope it gets settled soon and cools down for the south pit too. I should be moving to Idaho on the first of October so that should be a huge change. I'll be in a huge valley in the mountains/hills. I have a video of the place but I hate to share it because I'm a horrible video editor. I really admire the skills I see in the forums with that and I'm working at my skills. I don't have a lot of time to fly or edit because I take care of an elderly person.
Actually all I did really was add music to the video.

Normex · Aug 31, 2017

tthai826 said:
hi everyone, I'm a amateur photographer (hobby) and my wife got me the Xstar premium for my birthday. I just started playing around with it and took it to a few Northern California sites (Donner Lake, Tahoe and the American River). I'm very happy with it and was able to compile 3 short videos.

1. I am using Pinnacle 21 ultimate for video editing (I do have a Adobe sub for Premiere but found it way complicated) anyone else using the same of different? Should I invest time in learning Premiere?

2. Found using ambient/electronica music the best for videos, any recommendations?

3. Does anyone use filters?
TT

Welcome to the forum, 1- I use Shotcut as it is opensource
2- no problem with that music
3- I have the filters but yet to use them extensively
Your vids are very nice and you fly great as well, nice transitions.

Keep going on

Norm

tthai826 · Sep 1, 2017

thanks everyone for the feedback. Flying the XSP is a lot of fun, and was really nice to do all those videos and finally get them up. I'm still a beginner on the flying though but what I realized when editing all the videos is that I don't really plan out my flights for the video but randomly fly around for fun. I'm going to next time plan out my shots with the video in mind.

bjtap · Sep 1, 2017

tthai826
I have a strange question for you. I see that you use Pinnacles Studio 21 for editing. I own that program and found that the 4k video I import from the XSP just works dreadfully slow and more often than not just freezes the program. Do you edit with 4K video? Any advice that you might be able to share? (BTW: I have other video editors, including Studio 20.x, that handle the 4K quite well... so I believe it is just Studio 21.

tthai826 · Sep 2, 2017

Bjtap - I haven't had any issues importing 4k videos and exporting as well. There's almost zero time to import and exporting a 3 minute video takes about 3-5 mins in 4k.

All I edit is 4k video, what specific advice are you looking for?

TT

bjtap · Sep 2, 2017

TT,
I guess I need info on project settings? I have chosen detect format from first clip and the exact format of the video (4K). Sometimes the file just does not play, or renders very slowly, or freezes Studio 21. Like I said, I have no such problems with other editors including Studio 20.x so I guess I must have something wrong in 21. If you can share your project settings or any other settings I would appreciate it. What resolution do you record at?
BTW: If I set the project to detect from first clip, shouldn't there (at least in theory) be no rendering of that clip? Thanks

Tufargon · Sep 2, 2017

It sounds like your hardware is not up to par with the editor program needs with that specific program.
The program should list minimum system requirements on their website.

bjtap · Sep 2, 2017

Tufargon; Thanks for chiming in.
I already checked that out and my computer meets or beat the requirements. I have
Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHz
Ram: 8.00GB Triple-Channel DDR3 @ 531MHz (7-7-7-20)
VIdeo Card: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 620 (MSI)
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
I was hoping I had some wrong settings. I guess I will continue to use the other programs and work with Corel support who tried to tell me
Studio was not designed to work with a drone but only with a camera. (Figure that one out). But at least I know that if tthai826 can work with the XSP video then eventually I should be able to.

Tufargon · Sep 2, 2017

Sure thing. Also you could try updating your drivers. Some programs sometimes just don't like certain hardware configurations.

bjtap · Sep 2, 2017

Tufargon,
Again thanks. I already have done that and Corel support took over my computer and checked that out. Perhaps it just Windows 10 having been 'on' my computer too long. Maybe Studio 21 just needs a fresh installation of Windows.

Tufargon · Sep 2, 2017

bjtap said:
Tufargon,
Again thanks. I already have done that and Corel support took over my computer and checked that out. Perhaps it just Windows 10 having been 'on' my computer too long. Maybe Studio 21 just needs a fresh installation of Windows.

I wouldn't see that making a difference honestly. If it worked good before on the same system and it's not now then maybe.
Just trying to help. I've been repairing computers, building them and have been an IT since 1995. There can be multitudes of reasons why it doesn't work well or crashes on your pc.
Older drivers sometimes work better. Tech support only looks at specs. They don't look at hardware (company names, they just see oh hey he's got a 4gb video card) or drivers and their configurations into the issue because they only support their program.

tthai826 · Sep 4, 2017

I used the default project settings for 4k, so there wasn't anything special I did. However, I can tell you my rig specs and maybe that'll be able to help?

i7-7700k
32 gb ddr4
Nvidia 1060
samsung 1gb SSD
samsung 3gb hybrid ssd (video/photo storage)

I have no issues with lag on import/export or while editing.

TT