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DJI FPV

dji.com

31–40 of 162 posts

Re: DJI FPV

#31

Holy sh*t that is amazing. I can't justify spending 1300EUR on it, unfortunately... :( I really like DJI and how innovative they have been in making awesome consumer products that just work and are super easy to use. I have owned a few.

Interesting, so none of this bothers you DJI had been supplying drone technology to Chinese security forces in Xinjiang https://www.pcmag.com/news/us-blacklists-drone-maker-dji-ove... Uighur camp detainees allege systematic rape https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071 Gang raped, shackled and broken students: Inside China’s ‘horrific’ Uighur detention camps https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chi…

That's horrible but not unique to DJI. Western companies have (knowingly, or not) taken advantage of the slavery as well [https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53481253].

But the same could be said of big western tech (Amazon, Microsoft, etc) companies providing tech to western armies.

Re: DJI FPV

#32

The motion controller reminds me of a project I made many years ago, where head tilting of an oculus rift would control the cameras on your drone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7654141 Also cool that they have been embracing virtual practicing it seems. The original DJI controllers were impossible to pair with simulators, so I had to hack it: https://github.com/Matsemann/mDjiController/ I sold (or basically ga…

Head trackers are cool, but DJI stuff is a step in the wrong direction there. Right now everything is open, you can write a small Arduino script to track your head with an accelerometer, send the channels through your radio to the drone, and add two servos there that move according to your head motions.

With DJI, all of this is closed. I'd be surprised if you can connect/have access to any of these things.

Re: DJI FPV

#33

Flying in VR is not good for motion sickness.

As others have said, this is definitely not VR, it's like looking at a big screen strapped to your face. People in our group that have lots of trouble with VR have no problem with FPV.

Re: DJI FPV

#34
This looks like too much fun. Basically the X-Wing fights in Star Wars video games but in real life.

Not looking forward to random people flying these around me at 60-90mph ... but I really want one!

Re: DJI FPV

#35

The motion controller reminds me of a project I made many years ago, where head tilting of an oculus rift would control the cameras on your drone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7654141 Also cool that they have been embracing virtual practicing it seems. The original DJI controllers were impossible to pair with simulators, so I had to hack it: https://github.com/Matsemann/mDjiController/ I sold (or basically ga…

Head trackers are cool, but DJI stuff is a step in the wrong direction there. Right now everything is open, you can write a small Arduino script to track your head with an accelerometer, send the channels through your radio to the drone, and add two servos there that move according to your head motions. With DJI, all of this is closed. I'd be surprised if you can connect/have access to any of these things.

DJI has a pretty comprehensive SDK, I’m pretty sure that they’ve published the tools you need to do this.

Re: DJI FPV

#36

50Mbit, 28ms latency wireless link at 12km distance, and on a battery budget, eh? I'd love to hear more, I love science fiction.

50 Mbit is the maximum bandwidth it can do. It decreases with range which will result in degraded image quality.

Re: DJI FPV

#38
post #18
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Low res analog video -> high res digital video Major benefit of analog video is a progressive degradation of quality as a signal gets weaker and almost instant reacquisition after a complete dropout. I'm curious to see how DJI competes with that on a digital video. > ~5 minutes fly time -> ~20 minutes fly time For FPV racing that's rather a downgrade. Ideally you'd like to land with almost empty battery right after…

> Major benefit of analog video is a progressive degradation of quality as a signal gets weaker and almost instant reacquisition after a complete dropout. I'm curious to see how DJI competes with that on a digital video. Waiting for a degradation tolerant codec. Old MPEGs were, as they had broadcast use in mind, but even 264 blow them out of the water on compression nowadays. Loss tolerant codec + modern channel codi…

SVC profiles target bandwidth degradation, but yeah nothing really recovers from random dropouts anywhere in the steam like analog...

Lots of I-frames, I guess...

Re: DJI FPV

#39
post #38
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Major benefit of analog video is a progressive degradation of quality as a signal gets weaker and almost instant reacquisition after a complete dropout. I'm curious to see how DJI competes with that on a digital video. Waiting for a degradation tolerant codec. Old MPEGs were, as they had broadcast use in mind, but even 264 blow them out of the water on compression nowadays. Loss tolerant codec + modern channel codi…

SVC profiles target bandwidth degradation, but yeah nothing really recovers from random dropouts anywhere in the steam like analog... Lots of I-frames, I guess...

Lots of I-frames means you effectively revert to a little more sophisticated version of mjpeg

A cheap, and dirty hack I can think of is to dynamically adjust the bitrate for the bandwidth after FEC/channel coding. Margins will still have to be quite huge I believe.

Re: DJI FPV

#40

There has been a huge divide in the drone world between high performance first person view (FPV) drones capable of acrobatics and the "tripod in the sky" type drones that companies like DJI have popularized. The former has been very DIY and the latter have attracted companies to build integrated solutions. This new drone from DJI brings an truly staggering amount of innovation and integration to the FPV space: - Low…

> - Low res analog video -> high res digital video

For Hobbyists, the high res digital video is definitely a great development and makes for a better flying experience overall. Real racers still complain about the latency, but they are not the target of the digital FPV system and the new DJI FPV drone always.

But the high res is nothing unique to the DJI FPV drone. DJI started offering the Digital FPV system a few years ago for integration into diy drones.

> - Modest transmission range -> long range

There are plenty of long range transmission standards in the DIY space such as TBS Crossfire etc. For video transmission, it heavily depends on the transmission power which quickly becomes the listing factor. In Germany (and most EU states iirc) the transmission power for 5GHz signals limited to 25mW, which heavily reduces the range . 2.4GHz is not supported with the DJI AirUnit or Caddx Vista iirc.

For lots of countries long range isn't even that much of an important feature since its legally only allowed to fly line of sight anyways. However, for countries with less strict drone laws this seems like an awesome addition.

> ~5 minutes fly time -> ~20 minutes fly time

That is the most misleading part imho. The 20 minutes flight time are only realistic when flying in the fully sensor supported "Mavic like" mode. If you're actually going for the powerful freestyle FPV experience, the flight time is still around 3-5 minutes with the major difference that a replacement battery for the DJI FPV is about 150€ while a LiPo for a DIY racing quad costs around 30-40€ a piece. That the flight time is heavily decreased when flying in the actual FPV freestyle (acro) mode is not surprising (its only a 2000mAh battery in a heavy drone), but I find the claim highly misleading.

> - Integrated simulation to learn to fly

In the FPV space, simulators have been a thing for quite a while now. There are multiple simulators such as Freerider, Velocidrone or Liftoff, all with different focuses and a broad support for controllers. You can even use a Xbox controller for the beginning. So integrating a simulation to learn to fly is no unique to DJI and nothing new in the FPV space at all.

> - "Bail out" button that almost instantly nulls drone movement and puts it in a stationary hover

The bail out button, even though I see a lot of risks with it, seems like a great feature for beginners. I really hope that beta flight will add a similar feature to upcoming firmware versions.

The DJI FPV drone seems like a relatively fragile drone. The most annoying part is, that there is apparently no real way to fix anything yourself besides the props. The current FPV drones really can take a beating and you probably won't break that much. If you do, you can simply order a new arm for your frame or a new motor. You need some technical knowledge and skills such as soldering, but you do not depend on the manufacturer with an Apple like repair policy.

The DJI FPV seems like a great entry option for cinematographers who just want to get some FPV style footage (which might be possible, but seems limited since the props often show up in the frame) with as little technical confrontation as possible. For people who just fly for fun and want some high speed stunts, diy drones still seem like the better option.

For anyone wanting to enter the hobby, there are a lot of bind and fly drones out there where little technical knowledge is required. For the technical knowledge that is required, there are lots of really supportive communities.

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