[Solved] Can’t Play DJI 4K Videos on Windows or Mac
“A DJI 4K video from my Mavic Air turned all green and distorted when I played it on my computer, and at times it can be played smoothly in Windows Media Player but has a choppy playback in VLC. Any ideas?”
Drones have been generating buzz in recent years, among which the most popular drone brand must be DJI. And part of the prevalence of DJI drones must have to do with their capabilities of recording 4K videos. The DJI products including DJI Phantom 4 Pro, DJI Mavic Air, etc. can shoot video files with 4K resolution (4096x2160, 3840x2160) in H.264 and H.265 codec. After recording a DJI 4K video, many drone pilots are likely to play and edit DJI drone videos on PC, but problems like the above case crop up.
Why Can’t I Play DJI 4K Video on my PC?
In terms of all these “Can’t play “ issues, there are probably three reasons posted below.
Possible Reason 1: Incompatible with the Media Player
The DJI products generally support recording MP4/MOV video files with 4K resolution (4096x2160, 3840x2160) in H.264 and H.265 codecs. Compared to the common H.264 codec, H.265 codec is still not supported by many players yet. So it’s no wonder that your DJI 4K video with H.265 codec cannot have a smooth playback in some incompatible media players.
Possible Reason 2: Corrupted DJI 4K Footage
Your DJI 4K footage might get corrupted for a series of known or unknown reasons just as below:
• Inadvertently turn off the drone’s camera while it was recording/ saving the video.
• Get Interrupted while transferring videos from the drone’s memory card.
• Abrupt power loss while watching or editing the recorded video on DJI.
• Shooting videos with a low drone camera battery.
• The drone crashed due to a loss of control by the drone pilot
• Others.
Possible Reason 3: 4K Video Playback Requirements
In fact, the 4K video playback has strict requirements on the computer’s processor and graphics chip. The minimum requirements for PC and Mac playing 4K video are shown below:
1. Integrated Graphics solutions that support 4K external displays :
• 4th generation Intel® Core™ processor family (Intel Haswell based CPUs) — (Intel® Iris™ Pro Graphics 5200 / Intel® Iris™ Graphics 5100, Intel® HD Graphics 5000 / 4600 / 4400 / 4200)
• AMD A10–7800 APU
2. Discrete Graphics cards that support 4K external displays:
• Nvidia GeForce series like GeForce® GTX™ 970, GeForce® GTX™ 980, GeForce® GTX™ TITAN Z, etc.
• AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 Series or better.
Solution 1. Repair the Corrupted Video File from your DJI Drone
Before going straight to the following solutions, you have to check if your DJI footage is corrupted and repair it if it is. The tool we utilize here to repair the corrupted video file from a drone is the free open-source VLC Media Player
Step 1: Make a copy of the original corrupt DJI video file and rename it to AVI.
Step 2: Open VLC > Select Tools > Click Preferences
Step 3: Go to Input & Codecs > Damaged or incomplete AVI file > Select Always fix in the dropdown > Click Save.
Solution 2. Try Other Medial Players for DJI 4K Videos
Windows Media Player
4K videos can play smoothly on all Intel chips using Windows Media Player on Windows 8.1 and later. However, only 4K video file that is among Windows Media Player supported formats can be played on it, just shown as below:
Video formats: AVI ,WMV, ASF, MPG, MPEG, MOV, MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3P2, 3GPP, 3GP2, M2TS
Audio formats: WMA, MP2, MP3, AIFF, WAV, M4A, AAC
Note: You can’t open an H.265/HEVC codec of 4K video with Windows Media Player.
VLC
VLC, as a free and open-source portable cross-platform media player software, also supports playing 4K videos. What’s more, VLC allows users to enable hardware acceleration while playing 4K footage.VLC can read many formats including:
Video formats: 3GP, ASF, AVI, DVR-MS, FLV, MKV, MIDI, QuickTime File Format, MP4, OGM, WAV, MPEG-2, Raw DV, MXF, VOB, RM, Blu-ray, DVD-Video, VCD, SVCD
Video codes: Cinepak, Dirac, DV, H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, H.265/MPEG HEVC, AV1, HuffYUV, Indeo 3, MJPEG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2, RealVideo 3&4, Sorenson, Theora, DNxHD, ProRes, and some WMV
5KPlayer
Unlike other players that may take playing 4K UHD videos as a supplementary function, 5KPlayer is a free but professional and top-trending 4K media player software that focuses on playing or downloading 4K resolution or other UHD videos. The 4K (HEVC/AVC) support is the largest priority and major selling point of this free but high-performance 4K video player. On top of that, it supports any resolutions.
Solution 3. Upgrade Your Hardware
Playing 4K videos requires immense processing power and will place much pressure on the GPU, which will result in lagging video playback. So one way to address that issue is to close other procedures and focus the PC totally on playing 4K Video. Besides, it can also add up for you to upgrade your hardware with better RAM, high-quality SSD, and more advanced GPU. Plus, by following the right workflow of DJI video editing, you can eradicate the time-wasting and energy-consuming process to deal with 4K HEVC media.
Solution 4. Convert DJI 4K Video with VideoProc Converter
Converting the DJI 4K video to a common player-friendly format, this solution might be the most convenient and efficient way to get a 4K video smoothly played. VideoProc Converter, as full GPU-accelerated video processing software, can help you convert almost all formats and transcode codecs broadly used across the professional film and video industry.
Step 1: Launch VideoProc Converter, and click Video.
Step 2: Click Video+ to load the DJI 4K video.
Step 3. Click Target Format to select a video format, and MP4 H.264 is recommended here.
Step 4: Export the video. Browse to choose an output folder. Click RUN to export. In this way, you can easily convert a DJI 4K video to an MP4 video in H.264 codec that almost all media players support.
Wrap Up
In a word, you can selectively choose an appropriate way from the above three solutions as needed, next time you get across a 4K playback issue. And nine out of ten, when the first 3 solutions don’t work, VideoProc Converter can lift you from the worry.