Any news on the handheld gimbal mount?

Houston Brown · May 3, 2015

Probably wont support 4K with sound while on this device.

The Editor · May 3, 2015

Houston Brown said:
Probably wont support 4K with sound while on this device.

More than likely, however, that's going to embarrass DJI and no doubt lose them sales.
Some users will want to film in poor 4k in the air and continue with the same quality poor 4k when they are on the ground for continuity........ Oh dear!

damoncooper · May 3, 2015

The Editor said:
More than likely, however, that's going to embarrass DJI and no doubt lose them sales.
Some users will want to film in poor 4k in the air and continue with the same quality poor 4k when they are on the ground for continuity........ Oh dear!

It's very likely you're right actually, and perhaps the only way to shove those audio bits into the stream and get them on memory card at a high enough rate is by doing it in the handheld gimbal itself with a faster processor than the processor in the camera.

They would need take the video stream from the camera and take the audio stream from the handheld gimbal input and do the encoding in the gimbal itself, to a memory card slot IN the handheld gimbal.

In fact, in-handheld-gimbal might be the ONLY place the encoder could work to combine the audio and video streams and output a >60MB/s stream unless they completely re-worked the camera FW to take the audio stream from the gimbal and use the tiny processor in the camera to encode.

But as you say, it's likely the camera hardware / processor just can't handle the extra workload of the audio stream at 4K without frame dropping etc, and they may be building the encoder and memory slot into the gimbal itself.

If so, I would guess

a) this was a significant miss in requirements for the Inspire camera processor/encoder spec and

b) the cost, complexity (and likely release date) of the handheld gimbal just went up and out.

The Editor · May 3, 2015

damoncooper said:
It's very likely you're right actually, and perhaps the only way to shove those audio bits into the stream and get them on memory card at a high enough rate is by doing it in the handheld gimbal itself with a faster processor than the processor in the camera.

They would need take the video stream from the camera and take the audio stream from the handheld gimbal input and do the encoding in the gimbal itself, to a memory card slot IN the handheld gimbal.

In fact, in-handheld-gimbal might be the ONLY place the encoder could work to combine the audio and video streams and output a >60MB/s stream unless they completely re-worked the camera FW to take the audio stream from the gimbal and use the tiny processor in the camera to encode.

But as you say, it's likely the camera hardware / processor just can't handle the extra workload of the audio stream at 4K without frame dropping etc, and they may be building the encoder and memory slot into the gimbal itself.

If so, I would guess

a) this was a significant miss in requirements for the Inspire camera processor/encoder spec and

b) the cost, complexity (and likely release date) of the handheld gimbal just went up and out.

That's where my money is.
They have discovered that they stressed the platform to the limit in pushing to 60mbps without sound.
Try and MUX sound into the stream means that diddy little camera would glow like a piece of lava.
Now, lets be honest, although the 4k is pretty crap from the Inspire camera (and it can't be anything but at that low bitrate), the fact that people want to capture in 4k means that they are not going to be satisfied with 128bit MP3 or mpeg1 audio!
At the very least, users are going to want 44.1khz stereo or better. Knowing DJI, they are probably trying to do something ridiculous and get uncompressed 5.1 into the MUX all captured on a microphone the size of a grain of sugar

.

Houston Brown · May 3, 2015

I would guess that if you are recording in 4K that you are probably the type of producer that will want a quality recording and if you have any experience at all in video, you know that you are not going to get good quality audio out of any built in mic on any small video recorder, or for that matter, ANY video recorder that I am aware of. So I am guessing they are expecting you to have a different source of recording audio. I am not by any means taking up for them, there should still be a way of recording audio as even poor quality can be used in the editing process for syncing audio and video.

All of this is of course speculation on our parts, guess we will just have to wait and see what this device will offer.
Here is a bit about the device from the guys at TESTED while they were at CES

The Editor · May 3, 2015

If we are honest, if you are a producer/DOP who wants to capture in decent 4k you definitely would not be using the Inspire camera!
Having watched that video again (and I saw it a while ago) there are a couple of things I would note.
1. The guys did a hand clap at the start of the video as they were walking off. This implies there is no audio capability on this set up and they needed to sync up to the audio feed from his radio mic into the eng camera there were using.
2. Even more worrying is at the end of the walkabout video it is mentioned that some digital stabilisation is taking place to take out/minimise the vertical and lateral movement that the gimbal cannot absorb (due to it only being a three axis gimbal instead of 5 axis).
This pretty much renders the thing useless IMHO since this is going to eat into the resolution of the already poor 4k. They are going to have to down sample/crop the image and use maybe 90% of the sensor to leave some overhead to float for stabilisation. Since the sensor is native 4096x2160 any reduction in that negates and isn't 4k !!!!

Houston Brown · May 3, 2015

The Editor said:
If we are honest, if you are a producer/DOP who wants to capture in decent 4k you definitely would not be using the Inspire camera!
Having watched that video again (and I saw it a while ago) there are a couple of things I would note.
1. The guys did a hand clap at the start of the video as they were walking off. This implies there is no audio capability on this set up and they needed to sync up to the audio feed from his radio mic into the eng camera there were using.
2. Even more worrying is at the end of the walkabout video it is mentioned that some digital stabilisation is taking place to take out/minimise the vertical and lateral movement that the gimbal cannot absorb (due to it only being a three axis gimbal instead of 5 axis).
This pretty much renders the thing useless IMHO since this is going to eat into the resolution of the already poor 4k. They are going to have to down sample/crop the image and use maybe 90% of the sensor to leave some overhead to float for stabilisation. Since the sensor is native 4096x2160 any reduction in that negates and isn't 4k !!!!

All true and a good observation. But like you say, if you are serious about 4K, This is not the camera to be using. The 4K part in this case is being used for marketing purposes more than anything else, IMHO. This is clearly a beginners tool for video and offers a tool to make your investment in the Inspire more versatile. Any modular system done right could offer some real advantages, we will just have to see how DJI executes it. The competition is starting to nip at their tails. It will be an interesting year for the industry.

Morgon · May 4, 2015

Houston Brown said:
I wonder since the camera does not have a mic where the audio is going to come from? I am going to assume the device has a mic on it. Be interesting to see.

I don't have a specific link handy, but all of the third-party announcements made the same claim that it did have a port for external sound equipment (as well as from the iPhone itself) - it's very possible that's a goal, and not something that was available in the first pre-production units.

Houston Brown · May 4, 2015

All we can do it wait and see from this point. Which given DJI's definition of coming soon, could be any time before our own extinction. (vent)

reelaudio · May 6, 2015

According to this,

http://www.quadcopterguide.com/dji-announces-inspire-1-camera-handheld-gimbal-mount/

There is a mic on the "stick" as they are calling it.
I spoke with a group out of Atlanta who said the delay was because they were not happy about how it was working and are fine tuning it for production. They said they weren't given a price but that they should be out soon.

The Editor · May 6, 2015

reelaudio said:
According to this,

http://www.quadcopterguide.com/dji-announces-inspire-1-camera-handheld-gimbal-mount/

There is a mic on the "stick" as they are calling it.
I spoke with a group out of Atlanta who said the delay was because they were not happy about how it was working and are fine tuning it for production. They said they weren't given a price but that they should be out soon.

OK, thanks for that info.

That can only mean one of two things:
(Lousy) 4k recording will not be available on the handheld gimbal (unlikely as DJI will want to retain the marketing gimmick)
They will need to pinch bandwidth from somewhere to squeeze in audio which means even worse 4k !!

damoncooper · May 8, 2015

The Editor said:
OK, thanks for that info.

That can only mean one of two things:
(Lousy) 4k recording will not be available on the handheld gimbal (unlikely as DJI will want to retain the marketing gimmick)
They will need to pinch bandwidth from somewhere to squeeze in audio which means even worse 4k !!

Or 3:

They have moved encoding to the gimbal itself with a beefier processor. Likely coupled with a memory card slot in the gimbal itself as well.

Kilrah · May 8, 2015

The Editor said:
They will need to pinch bandwidth from somewhere to squeeze in audio which means even worse 4k !!

That's absolutely not how it works. Especially as the <500kbps an audio stream needs is completely negligible when added to a 60Mbps video one.

The Editor · May 8, 2015

Kilrah said:
That's absolutely not how it works. Especially as the <500kbps an audio stream needs is completely negligible when added to a 60Mbps video one.

But it still has to come from somewhere! If the system is maxed out anyway and is peaking vbr at 60mbps adding ANY additional loading will throttle what is available for video. The 4k is already dire so ANY reduction in bit rate to mux the audio can only be detremental.
This is assuming they have maxed everything out of course.

Kilrah · May 8, 2015

The audio stream is encoded separately from video by a different processing block then both are muxed. It wouldn't eat into the video encoding resources. You'll have a 60Mbps video stream, 384kbps or so audio stream, making a 60.3Mbps total bitrate in the file.

Jay Baldwin · May 8, 2015

I have a "spare" camera I bought on ebay. I specifically hope to use the hand grip unit for filling in additional (up close) shots for projects on boats, cars, etc. Since I use Premier, recording sound on another device is my preference anyway, so I do hope that is not what is holding back the release.

Jimmyholster · May 10, 2015

The Editor said:
DJI maybe haven't come up with a solution for finding bandwidth from nowhere?

I'm no electronics wizard by any stretch, but couldn't they overcome the potential bandwidth problem by adding some extra hardware in the handle itself? Like I said, I'm a spazzy with this stuff, so it might not be possible.

The Editor · May 11, 2015

Jimmyholster said:
I'm no electronics wizard by any stretch, but couldn't they overcome the potential bandwidth problem by adding some extra hardware in the handle itself? Like I said, I'm a spazzy with this stuff, so it might not be possible.

To be honest we just don't know. The longer it takes the more likely it maybe that they have had to completely rethink something.
None of the pre production gimbals we have seen appear to have sound so we are speculating that's the problem. It may of course be something totally different.
As per usual with DJI, its a waiting game.

sirnikolas · May 11, 2015

Inspire's cam captures the video and the phone records the sound AND the app puts it all togther.
Amen!

damoncooper · May 11, 2015

sirnikolas said:
Inspire's cam captures the video and the phone records the sound AND the app puts it all togther.
Amen!

Using the pilot app device horsepower would be possible I suppose. Latency would be a concern, but who knows.

I hope they provide an audio in on the gimbal so an external mic can be used. Even better, build a basic mic into the handheld plus an aux mic in port and provide an option in the app to choose where to pull audio from or "none".