Vibrations in video - again on new replacement unit

[DroneFlyer]

My new Spark has some kind of vibrations or stutter visible in the video recordings. This happens several times during every flight.
The vibrations persists only for a fraction of a second every time when it happens.

I also noticed that when I hold the Spark craft and tilt it from side to side or back and forth the gimbal / camera doesn't seem to keep up because the video gets these vibrations / blurriness.
This does not happen on my other Dji drones.
Is it something wrong with my unit or is it because of the smaller gimbal that it can't keep the picture smooth when I'm moving the Spark back and forth?

How does your Spark's respond in this situation?
Any input would be much appreciated.

EDIT: As the title says DJI exchanged it to a brand new Spark in unopened box, and the new Spark has the exact same twitchings and fine vibrations. Can´t DJI do anything right, its only problems when dealing with their products.

 

[sparkjulian]

My new Spark has some kind of vibrations or stutter visible in the video recordings. This happens several times during every flight.
The vibrations persists only for a fraction of a second every time when it happens.

I also noticed that when I hold the Spark craft and tilt it from side to side or back and forth the gimbal / camera doesn't seem to keep up because the video gets these vibrations / blurriness.
This does not happen on my other Dji drones.
Is it something wrong with my unit or is it because of the smaller gimbal that it can't keep the picture smooth when I'm moving the Spark back and forth?

How does your Spark's respond in this situation?
Any input would be much appreciated.

I think I have the same issue, every now and then in every flight there is a video jitter of sorts that looks like a gimbal issue. I am a pro filmmaker and fly many drones, this is not a card issue but definitely a gimbal issue in the way it jitters. I have been on youtube looking for videos with this issue and there are quite a few, this does not mean it is normal! It should not be normal anyway at this price and stage of technology.

 

[sparkjulian]

 

[sparkjulian]

the clip above is only 2 seconds and half way through you can see the jitter...look at the tall building in the back of the frame and it is very clear when watched in HD on a large screen

 

[DroneFlyer]

the clip above is only 2 seconds and half way through you can see the jitter...look at the tall building in the back of the frame and it is very clear when watched in HD on a large screen

Yes thats the exact same problem i have, but yours is much less visible than on my Spark. On mine its really visible.

Oh so you think this is a common problem on the Spark?
I'm in the process of shipping it back to DJI as a DOA unit since this unit is bought about a week ago.
But if this is a common problem on the Spark the risk is i will get a new one with the exact same fault, or an even worse one. Its always a gamble to get replacement units from DJI regardless if they are new or used units.
I have had so much problem with DJI drones during these last three years. I dont know if they lack quality control or whats their problem, since their units so often are faulty in one way or another.
Im pretty sure this problem is the gimbal that is at fault or something else that cant be fixed by the operator?

 

[sparkjulian]

Yes thats the exact same problem i have, but yours is much less visible than on my Spark. On mine its really visible.

Oh so you think this is a common problem on the Spark?
I'm in the process of shipping it back to DJI as a DOA unit since this unit is bought about a week ago.
But if this is a common problem on the Spark the risk is i will get a new one with the exact same fault, or an even worse one. Its always a gamble to get replacement units from DJI regardless if they are new or used units.
I have had so much problem with DJI drones during these last three years. I dont know if they lack quality control or whats their problem, since their units so often are faulty in one way or another.
Im pretty sure this problem is the gimbal that is at fault or something else that cant be fixed by the operator?

...mine is new also and the jitter is more visible before youtube compression etc. I have a mavic and Inspire x5pro and have never had issues! I want to sell the spark but only if I am sure this issue is common as I dont want to sell it to someone if it is faulty. I am not happy with video quality regardless of the jitter. I may try and return it. It is not something we as users can fix. When I say I have seen it on youtube I mean I have found a few videos that have the same issue but no one talking about it, I have just seen it that is all.

 

[sparkjulian]

Quick question guys.

Can you put a 32gb memory card on a spark? sorry if this is out of topic.

I think so but as it is only 1080p video you will get 90 mins on a 16gb

 

[DroneFlyer]

...mine is new also and the jitter is more visible before youtube compression etc. I have a mavic and Inspire x5pro and have never had issues! I want to sell the spark but only if I am sure this issue is common as I dont want to sell it to someone if it is faulty. I am not happy with video quality regardless of the jitter. I may try and return it. It is not something we as users can fix. When I say I have seen it on youtube I mean I have found a few videos that have the same issue but no one talking about it, I have just seen it that is all.

Yes, it's not the best video quality, but the small size make it a nice drone when it works as it should.

The Mavic Pro is a very nice drone in every way with long battery time and the ocusync and a pretty small size, except the horrible gimbal, I have had 3 Mavic Pro's which I have returned due to the horizon tilting badly at sideways flight, and nothing could be done against that. Still after 1 year since the Mavic Pro was first released they have still not fixed that problem.
And it seems all Mavic Pro's suffers from this problem that ruins the videos?

 

[sparkjulian]

Yes, it's not the best video quality, but the small size make it a nice drone when it works as it should.

The Mavic Pro is a very nice drone in every way with long battery time and the ocusync and a pretty small size, except the horrible gimbal, I have had 3 Mavic Pro's which I have returned due to the horizon tilting badly at sideways flight, and nothing could be done against that. Still after 1 year since the Mavic Pro was first released they have still not fixed that problem.
And it seems all Mavic Pro's suffers from this problem that ruins the videos?

my mavic gimbal works fine and if it ever tilts I can fix it in the edit

 

[DroneFlyer]

my mavic gimbal works fine and if it ever tilts I can fix it in the edit

Oh, then I think you are one of the lucky ones. It seems allmost all DJI gimbals has more or less problem with horizon tilting at sideways flight which stabilizes when the craft comes to a stand still , but the Mavic Pro seems to generally have much more tilting than other DJI crafts.
I have owned 3 Mavic Pro's and all of them have had this kind of horizon tilting, I also hear many people complain about it, and some people say that all Mavic's have it?

Some people don't noticed it until they look for it, when it's mild cases.

If I've got my hands on a Mavic without this problem I would be very very happy.

 

[Povl H. Pedersen]

Not sure what the jitter is, it could be from EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization) if that is part of the stabilization process. Do you have a frame grab where you can analyze it closer ?
But we also have image resizing taking place Video is not a 1:1 crop, but likely closer to a scaling to less than half size (3968x2976 original). Have not looked at cropping to see how much it is actually scaled.
For action cams, I try to pick nice scaling factors.

1920x1080 is likely a 2x2 sample to each movie sample. Using 3840x2160. That leaves 816 pixels vertical for EIS / 128 horizontal compensating for the missing yaw gimbal axis. Aka 2 degrees sideways.

EIS is not dependent on the IMX377, but on the image processing chip.

 

[ProfPaul]

I've had the same problem. I sent the Spark back to DJI for warranty repair.

Paul McAfee

 

[Povl H. Pedersen]

did it help ?

 

[kairey]

I have exactly the same thing going on in all my Spark videos. Mine always seem to be a left/right nod which I believe is the direction a 2 axis gimbal will not stabilise. My Mavic has none of this.

For me the video quality is good enough but not this nod!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8OpiYAMw4M

Kevin

 

[DroneFlyer]

I've had the same problem. I sent the Spark back to DJI for warranty repair.

Paul McAfee

Im also interested to know if it helped? Was the exchange unit better?
And was it a repair on your sent in unit, or an exchange against a used unit or a new unit?

 

[DroneFlyer]

Not sure what the jitter is, it could be from EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization) if that is part of the stabilization process. Do you have a frame grab where you can analyze it closer ?
But we also have image resizing taking place Video is not a 1:1 crop, but likely closer to a scaling to less than half size (3968x2976 original). Have not looked at cropping to see how much it is actually scaled.
For action cams, I try to pick nice scaling factors.

1920x1080 is likely a 2x2 sample to each movie sample. Using 3840x2160. That leaves 816 pixels vertical for EIS / 128 horizontal compensating for the missing yaw gimbal axis. Aka 2 degrees sideways.

EIS is not dependent on the IMX377, but on the image processing chip.

Well my first thought is that it is because of a faulty gimbal, which many of these unstable video problems are, but havent thought about that it may have something to do with the electronic image stabilisation. It doesnt sound to far fetched that it could be fault in the EIS? But i guess in either cases its the same thing that needs to be swapped, i.e the whole camera/gimbal unit?

Actually this exact kind of vibrations i havent seen on other DJI drones which does not have electronic image stabilisation, only on the Spark, so maybe that is because the Spark uses EIS and there is a problem with that?
And also in my case it happens in all directions of movement.

 

[r-ap]

I`ve got exact the same vibrations in my videos. I`m using Spark for half a year now and saw the jitter last week for the first time. Have done 120 km flights for now (no crash) and no jitter
occured before. For this reason I think in insn`t a proplem of EIS, probably a malfunction of the gimbal. Will go to my local dealer tomorrow to send it in.

 

[r-ap]

Tried some possible solutions: installed same firmware (.701)again, reset spark to delivery status, changed SD card into a new one - vibrations are still there.
I`ve noticed that there are vibrations too when spark is in my hand (without motors on) and I yaw the aircraft left and right.

Here is a short example of an inflight video:

Dropbox - 2017-12-10_1.MP4

Have to send Spark to DJI for further inspection.

 

[Vilco]

Actually this exact kind of vibrations i havent seen on other DJI drones which does not have electronic image stabilisation, only on the Spark, so maybe that is because the Spark uses EIS and there is a problem with that?
And also in my case it happens in all directions of movement.

To be honest, the Mavic also has an EIS chip, an Ambarella to be precise, and the Spark just uses a different one. That said I don't think the jittering comes from the EIS: if that was the case, the jittering would have been present since the first flight. Gimbal is the first suspect here, or less probably the aircraft itself

 

[DroneFlyer]

So it happens again!!

Ive got a brand new unit from DJI and guess what....it has the exact same problem.

I cant begin to tell you how tired i am of DJI, i cant stand to hear their name. Last December ive got a Mavic Pro exchanged for a new one and the new one had the exact same problem. Now again same thing with the Spark. In the last year i have bought 5 DJI drones and all 5 have had problems.
Can't DJI do anything right, dont they have any quality control?
Ive got a feeling that just like the tilting horizon at sideways flight problem on the Mavic Pro most Spark's got this problem with twitchings, or at least a very very big percentage of the Spark units.

Now i just want to get my money back, but i guess DJI will not make their customers happy and reverse the purchase?
I bought this drone to fly it, not to send it back and forth to DJI and keep receiving faulty drones time and time again.

P.S, can the heading be edited in this post?