X5 SD card download issue

RcVisions · Dec 2, 2016

Hi everyone,

I just completed my first job with the Inspire 1 X5, this was a handover of footage no editing required. I shot 3 flights, all around 6-8mins long, all 3 flights appeared on the tablet in the editor and I was able to view these. I gave the SD card to the client who then got back to me a day later saying there was only the final video on the card. I downloaded the footage to my mac and sent it to him however it was then not in 4K, was in poor resolution. Does anyone know why it has not saved to the SD card? Please help!

Thank you

InterMurph · Dec 2, 2016

RcVisions said:
I gave the SD card to the client

As I am sure you realize now, it was a mistake to give the SD card to the client. You should have copied the files to another card, or onto the clients portable disk or laptop.

Now your best bet is to get the card back and see if the first two clips were erased, or are somehow recoverable.

RcVisions · Dec 2, 2016

InterMurph said:
As I am sure you realize now, it was a mistake to give the SD card to the client. You should have copied the files to another card, or onto the clients portable disk or laptop.

Now your best bet is to get the card back and see if the first two clips were erased, or are somehow recoverable.

Thank you for that, is there any reason as to why it wouldn't have saved to the card, i'm right in saying each recorded video saves automatically right?

RcVisions · Dec 2, 2016

InterMurph said:
As I am sure you realize now, it was a mistake to give the SD card to the client. You should have copied the files to another card, or onto the clients portable disk or laptop.

Now your best bet is to get the card back and see if the first two clips were erased, or are somehow recoverable.

I should also add he is the videographer who shot the ground footage and is editing the video so I don't think he's erased it by mistake, it's somehow not saved to the card, 32 card completely empty so just over an hour of recording capability on it.

InterMurph · Dec 2, 2016

Yes, the Inspire always saves clips to the SD card; there is no way to disable that.

So the list of likely possible explanations is:

There is a bug in the Inspire that caused it not to save the first two clips, or to somehow erase them when it wrote subsequent clips
The client accidentally deleted the first two files

Because you don't have the original card, you can't know for sure which it is.

RcVisions · Dec 2, 2016

InterMurph said:
Yes, the Inspire always saves clips to the SD card; there is no way to disable that.

So the list of likely possible explanations is:

There is a bug in the Inspire that caused it not to save the first two clips, or to somehow erase them when it wrote subsequent clips

The client accidentally deleted the first two files

Because you don't have the original card, you can't know for sure which it is.

Ok thank you for that, major panic

InterMurph · Dec 2, 2016

So the person you handed the card to has some expertise; that makes 2) in my list less likely, but not impossible.

Regardless, the "never give the original to the customer" rule would have helped you in both cases. If the first two files were missing because of a bug in the Inspire, you would have discovered that when you tried to copy the files, and you would have been able to fly again and re-record the missing scenes. And if the client erased the files, he/she only erased a copy, and you have the original card. Which you of course backed up immediately upon returning home!

It's a pain to copy the footage the field; one client of mine brought the slowest laptop on earth to our shoot, and it took longer to copy the files than it did to shoot them. But that's a far smaller pain than what you are experiencing right now.

Eric · Dec 2, 2016

Haven't done it in a long while but if you land and power down before you stop recording, the file will be there but not playable. The fix is return the SD to the camera and power on.... and maybe record something else. It's been awhile but I remember that working. If there's no other files on the card then it's gone.
I've relinquished camera control to a client's cameraman and regretted it. I would have done much better on my own. Plus apparently he didn't know what camera speed meant (but gave a thumbs up anyways) and missed the best shot of the day. Not saying you forgot to hit record but it happens. I know I'm partly to blame but it's easy to do when flying in certain situations. Live and learn

RcVisions · Dec 2, 2016

Eric said:
Haven't done it in a long while but if you land and power down before you stop recording, the file will be there but not playable. The fix is return the SD to the camera and power on.... and maybe record something else. It's been awhile but I remember that working. If there's no other files on the card then it's gone.
I've relinquished camera control to a client's cameraman and regretted it. I would have done much better on my own. Plus apparently he didn't know what camera speed meant (but gave a thumbs up anyways) and missed the best shot of the day. Not saying you forgot to hit record but it happens. I know I'm partly to blame but it's easy to do when flying in certain situations. Live and learn

Hi thanks for the info, I have the recorded files, they were on the tablet in the editor, we watched them back together, so all 3 were there, however he is now claiming there is only 1 of the 3 files there, 2 missing. I downloaded the missing 2 to another SD card from the tablet then to my mac and sent them to him but they were then in 640x360... not the 4k they were recorded in. No setting were changed at all across all 3 flights :-(

InterMurph · Dec 2, 2016

The files you found on the tablet were recorded by the Go app, from the low-resolution and low-quality live feed sent wirelessly from the aircraft. They are evidence that you recorded three clips, but they are not "the recorded files".

Again, your best bet is to get the SD card back from the client, and investigate what is actually on there. The SD card is formatted with FAT32, and there are many software packages that can recover deleted files from FAT32 disks.

Which brings up another point: FAT32 is a universal standard, but there are many buggy implementations out in the world. You should always format an SD card in the camera that will write the files to it. You should never format it in a different camera, or on your computer. Because you never know what bugs lurk.

RcVisions · Dec 2, 2016

InterMurph said:
The files you found on the tablet were recorded by the Go app, from the low-resolution and low-quality live feed sent wirelessly from the aircraft. They are evidence that you recorded three clips, but they are not "the recorded files".

Again, your best bet is to get the SD card back from the client, and investigate what is actually on there. The SD card is formatted with FAT32, and there are many software packages that can recover deleted files from FAT32 disks.

Which brings up another point: FAT32 is a universal standard, but there are many buggy implementations out in the world. You should always format an SD card in the camera that will write the files to it. You should never format it in a different camera, or on your computer. Because you never know what bugs lurk.

Ok thank you for your input that's helpful really appreciate it

RcVisions · Dec 2, 2016

I Have the card back and there's just the one video on there so no idea how this has happened, after collating everyones views both here and other pilots I know it seems the process is images to SD then SD to tablet so if it's on the tablet it must have been on the SD at some stage. Bizarre

The Editor · Dec 2, 2016

RcVisions said:
I Have the card back and there's just the one video on there so no idea how this has happened, after collating everyones views both here and other pilots I know it seems the process is images to SD then SD to tablet so if it's on the tablet it must have been on the SD at some stage. Bizarre

The other possibility is...... counterfeit MicroSD card.
There are a LOT of them out there
Are you absolutely sure it is a working good media?
Fake cards will report their size as printed on the pack/card and even appear to be correct when you mount them but they are much smaller than their stated capacity and will overwrite earlier files recorded on them to make it appear they are still recording and the size they pretend to be.

RcVisions · Dec 2, 2016

The Editor said:
The other possibility is...... counterfeit MicroSD card.
There are a LOT of them out there
Are you absolutely sure it is a working good media?
Fake cards will report their size as printed on the pack/card and even appear to be correct when you mount them but they are much smaller than their stated capacity and will overwrite earlier files recorded on them to make it appear they are still recording and the size they pretend to be.

Ah good shout that's a thought, but this is the same card i used when i was flying the previous platform, used it loads with the go pro and bought it from a big name retailer so I'm pretty sure its not that, good call though.

Meta4 · Dec 3, 2016

RcVisions said:
I Have the card back and there's just the one video on there so no idea how this has happened, after collating everyones views both here and other pilots I know it seems the process is images to SD then SD to tablet so if it's on the tablet it must have been on the SD at some stage. Bizarre

If it's on the tablet that doesn't mean that you had completed files on the SD card.
There are two separate video streams.
One is direct from the camera to the SD card and the other is camera to the app via Lightbridge.
The second stream is the low res you view on your tablet and is subjected to whatever interference is in the air.
Did you stop recording for each of your flights or just power down the Inspire with it still recording?
If you just power down before you stop recording, the video file does not get closed properly and your next video may record over the first.

If you are doing commercial work, it's a good idea to use a separate card for each flight so you aren't putting valuable images at risk with subsequent flights.

InterMurph · Dec 4, 2016

Did you inspect the card with some file utility software? There is always a chance that the missing files are there, waiting to be unerased.

RcVisions · Dec 5, 2016

I haven't yet but i am taking it to a shop this morning to see if someone can have a look at it for me, I'll keep you posted on the verdict

RcVisions · Dec 5, 2016

Hi everyone, so I have just tested the Inspire with the same setup, took 4 separate videos this time, exactly same procedure, record, stop recording, power Inspire down. It recorded 1 4K video to SD and tablet, so it lost 2 videos all together, i.e. not even recorded to tablet. And it only recorded 2 videos in total, 1 4K and 1 low res.