Can't get DJI footage to play in Premiere

[stetzonb48674667]

Hey there,

I've had this problem recently where I can't get footage shot on my Mavic or my Osmo to playback in Premiere. I've been shooting on my Mavic for over a year and never had this issue. I've done everything I can think of. I updated my drivers, updated premiere, cleared my cache. I've even deleted and reinstalled Premiere and my graphics drivers with no luck. I worked with support and they basically told me just to run it off the software rather than my graphics card, but if I do it that way, I can't get anything to render anyways.

If anyone has any suggestions they would be greatly appreciated.

[PeteWilson44]

Ok I found a fix from this very helpful video on YouTube. For me, selecting Full res playback didn't work. Neither did setting High Quality Playback. However, randering the footage did work. Have gotten so used to not rendering footage throughout the edit that it's become a non-thing now. If you don't want to render the entire project (For me would have taken 2 hours), just select In/Out points on the timeline and then go to Sequence >> Render In to Out

That took WAY longer that it shoudl have done...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-PGOVCWEjk

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hey @PeteWilson44,

Yes, rendering highly compressed footage is recommended for a smoother editing experience. I like to transcode or create proxies on ingest, which you can enable in Project Settings > Ingest Settings. That way, you won't have to render the timeline before playing it back smoothly. Let me know if you need more info on how to do that. Hope the advice helps.

Thanks,
Kevin

[PeteWilson44]

I use proxies. I always have. I have 2 sets of drone footage from separate parts of the day, both with identical settings. Fist set (6 clips) plays fine, the other (3 clips) doesn't play at all in program monitor. Both have proxies.

[Kevin-Monahan]

That's kinda odd. Are they ProRes proxies or H.264 ones? I always recommend ProRes proxies. 

Thanks,
Kevin

[PeteWilson44]

Ok now that's an interesting question. I have 2 different types. I have .mp4's which are low in capacity and I have QT Movies which are much bigger! I think you may have found the issue! 

Firstly, thank you!

Secondly, which setting should I use for mp4s?

[Kevin-Monahan]

Yes, pro editors never use the H.264 proxies unless absolutely necessary. Use ProRes. You can always delete them later to recover drive space. In fact, you should as part of the project archival process.

Thanks,
Kevin

[HanyRamzyPhotography]

Finally, I could find the solution.

Right-click the sequence>Choose Render and Replace>Click on Format and choose the first Option. 

Working like a charm

[lord 6 infamous]

2024 and premiere still hates any DJI footage. Transcode to pro res and move on.  It's a pain that costs time but its adobe baby!

[mayjain]

Hi @lord 6 infamous ,

Sorry for the problem. Can you please elaborate mroe on the issue with device/OS details ? Will be good if you can share some problematic media files. We will try to reproduce the issues you see locally and report back.

Thanks,
Mayjain

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi, @lord 6 infamous, 

A quick side tip: To save time, you can transcode in the background. Many people go to ProRes at ingest. This means you can begin editing with the original files, which are linked to the new files in the background as you edit. Check out Project Settings > Ingest Settings, Action > Transcode. You can also make proxies on ingest there instead if you like. The user guide has more information. I'd love to see the ability to do both at once.

Hopefully, we can fix this issue, so you don't have to do either! I do love my smart rendering, though. Sorry for the frustration.

Cheers,
Kevin

[lord 6 infamous]

Ahhh the Adobe fix... downsample all of your footage and then it will work.  I'm familiar with proxies and ingest settings, it's like gaslighting at this point.  The problem is that premiere doesn't like DJI footage for some reason. I typically transcode as you guys are advising and move on.   

I'm on a fast computer it aint the system and that's another annoying gaslight response I see on the forums all the time.  Premiere hates reading DJI footage.

[mayjain]

Hi @lord 6 infamous ,

Can you please share device/OS details and screenrecording of the issue you see ? Will be good if you can share some problematic media files. We will try to reproduce the issues you see locally and report back.

Thanks,
Mayjain

[R Neil Haugen]

What's your system details? "Fast" isn't a useful data point.

For instance, a "hot" Intel KF CPU is useless with the long-GOP media from a drone because it doesn't have the internal hardware bits nor iGPU of the K models.

For that media, it's all about the hardware in use.

[lord 6 infamous]

That's interesting. I was confused because the raw plays back fine on my system but I see premiere gets a bit laggy w long-GOP media. I've always wondered why the drone footage doesn't play nice. Thanks.

[R Neil Haugen]

Yea, that's kinda freaky to get used to. But think of the difference in system load between a video player and an NLE.

A player takes one file, one file only, and plays it back. It has no overhead to add to the work of playing the file.

An NLE ... is a complex and complicated software program. It grabs bits &  pieces of many clips, at exact start/stop points, with effects applied, and plays back the result of all that computational work.

So for playing back a long-GOP file in its totality, the computation is only about that file as you move through it sequentially.

In Premiere ... you've got several bits of files ... and long-GOP means the app can't just go to X frame. As that is probably not an iframe. So it has to find the preceeding iframe, to get that complete frame that all the next several frames are computed from.

Takes that iframe, moves to the next frame which is only a data set of 1) the pixels that have changed since the preceeding iframe, or 2) the pixels that will change before the next iframe, or ... 3) both.

So now it has to find the next iframe, take the datasets of pixel changes, and compute those frames. Storing them to RAM/cache files.

Now ... that it's done that, it can display frame 1023 to frame 1119 of that clip. Oh, right, add in some audio changes and color/tonal changes. 

And drones now often do partial iframes, so the distance between two "consecutive" iframes might be up to 100 frames or more apart.

[lord 6 infamous]

I was learning more about this and heard about the partial iframes.  What kind of system would be needed to scrub seemlessly through long GOP media? For me even on my "fast" computer seems like just transcoding to pro res is the best solution.

Is there also something funky that happens to the bit rate in long-GOP media? Seems low bit rate even though the footage is high res.  DJI footage often has an unpleasant .... i wouldnt call it grain but its a kind of grittiness.

[R Neil Haugen]

Long-GOP compression compares small blocks of data, the "RGB triplets" ... you know, 128/123/85 numbers? And when they find a group that are close, they sam-ify them. So ...

128/125/86, 126/127/89, 122/123/87 and one more, to make a block ... all maybe become 126/125/87.

The first time you do that, you don't lose too much detail, normally ... but do it again? Not good.

That's why it's a great capture or delivery codec, but when used in editing, besides the playback issues, it can be horrific if mulitple generations are required. I work for/with/teach pro colorists, mostly on "heavy iron" machines, and they pretty much immediately t-code any H.264/5 (except for some of the major cams from Sony) before importing it into Resolve to grade.

And that's on machines that handle four streams of 6k Arri RAW and a complex grade on each, without blinking.

@RjL190365 is "our resident expert" on such things. You need hardware that can do long-GOP like the chips in the cameras do.  So 10 core or better "K" CPUs from Intel tend to be the better ones,  I think. Some AMD chips are now (finally) doing long-GOP in hardware form, I don't know which.

And some GPUs can help with this, but I think the CPU is more important in Premiere.

And a lot of RAM and a fast cache drive.

[WontYouPleaseHelpMe]

Try using the free version of Davinci Resolve. I hate all the same problems. Premiere Pro just cannot handle it and the proxy workflow is a big waste of time.

[JOEL ALEJANDR38052423t9hb]

Its 2025 and they still havent fix this. FML i[ve done everything and still cant.