Disappointed with Video Quality

[geronimosan]

As a professional photographer and filmmaker, I ordered the Inspire based upon what I had seen in a few initial videos that had looked great.

But now that the Inspire is in more hands and more footage is surfacing, I'm pretty disenchanted with what I'm seeing. Sure, it lacks the horrible fisheye that the GP4 has, but the amount of pixelation and compression artifacts makes a lot of the footage unusable for professional purposes.

I was hoping that maybe I was just seeing video from people who weren't great at editing and rendering out with a high enough bitrate, but I just saw a bunch of "raw 4k footage straight from the card" that had this going on - a ton of artifacting splotches from too low of bitrate.

I don't get it - what's the point of marketing 4k video when that 4k video is full of artifacting? And just seems unreasonable to me for a $3,500 device. Has anyone found a workaround for this, or any word from DJI that they are planning on improving this?

 

[Ian Fraser]

Cant please everyone.

 

[Kilrah]

And just seems unreasonable to me for a $3,500 device. Has anyone found a workaround for this, or any word from DJI that they are planning on improving this?

The camera costs $550, including pretty much one of the best 3-axis brushless gimbals there is. Cheaper than a gopro and more appropriate for the job thanks to the lens.

Don't know what you're moaning about. Use a video denoiser if you find footage too noisy. Or find another combination that simple, at a similar price, that does better, but good luck.
Or splash $10k for something that makes you happy.

 

[damoncooper]

As a professional photographer and filmmaker, I ordered the Inspire based upon what I had seen in a few initial videos that had looked great.

But now that the Inspire is in more hands and more footage is surfacing, I'm pretty disenchanted with what I'm seeing. Sure, it lacks the horrible fisheye that the GP4 has, but the amount of pixelation and compression artifacts makes a lot of the footage unusable for professional purposes.

I was hoping that maybe I was just seeing video from people who weren't great at editing and rendering out with a high enough bitrate, but I just saw a bunch of "raw 4k footage straight from the card" that had this going on - a ton of artifacting splotches from too low of bitrate.

I don't get it - what's the point of marketing 4k video when that 4k video is full of artifacting? And just seems unreasonable to me for a $3,500 device. Has anyone found a workaround for this, or any word from DJI that they are planning on improving this?

Here is a summary of my own investigation prior to purchase on the Inspire's video quality. Reposted from another thread but worth reviewing. I was also very disappointed in the posted online video quality I saw and set out to get my hands on the original footage uploaded to the streaming sites by Inspire owners to evaluate the footage directly on a very large 4K TV played directly from disk.

Ok verdict after downloading and watching over 16GB of original Inspire 4K footage on a Sony 4K XBR65850 65-inch TV via Sony FMP-X10 4k media player:

1) Streaming artifacts are gone obviously (watching direct file)

2) Stutter on high motion shots is predictable and happens every 3-10 seconds. Frequency of full-frame stutter seems proportionate to the amount of motion in the shot. Watchable but slightly uncomfortable for the viewer. Probably not noticeable on mobile devices or computer screens.

3) Low-light performance leaves a lot to be desired. In particular, not an insignificant amount of noise in the form of "static" is added to lower-light or shadow areas of shots. Probably imperceptible to the average viewer on computer screens, probably not noticeable at all on mobile devices, but enough to distract on a 4k TV.

4) I was of the impression the lens was flat (vs the GoPro fisheye lens), but it's not. Panning still produces some perceptible image distortion. Large formats will exaggerate the effect unfortunately and gives the viewer some disorientation as objects distort slightly as they move on screen. I suspect / hope software makers (Adobe and others) will produce Inspire1-specific lens distortion presets to allow for fixing the distortion in post-production so this probably isn't a major issue.

5) No jello or micro vibrations were perceptible in any of the Inspire 4k videos I tested, which is excellent.

Overall impression: The Inspire 1 camera is much improved over GoPro 3 + Phantom combo, but lags far behind the Panasonic LUMIX GH4 which exhibits only barely imperceptible noise on low light and none of the other issues above.

Summary for me: I'll probably be buying one and if DJI offers a camera upgrade I'll be very interested in that. The GH4 is the desired gold standard to try to match IMO. If DJI can come close to its performance in a camera upgrade they'll have a truly amazing platform in the Inspire.

I do agree on the need for less compression, an MFT sensor and a higher speed processor in a future Inspire camera.

Note: I did buy an Inspire 1.

 

[FASTFJR]

As a professional photographer and filmmaker, I ordered the Inspire based upon what I had seen in a few initial videos that had looked great.

But now that the Inspire is in more hands and more footage is surfacing, I'm pretty disenchanted with what I'm seeing. Sure, it lacks the horrible fisheye that the GP4 has, but the amount of pixelation and compression artifacts makes a lot of the footage unusable for professional purposes.

I was hoping that maybe I was just seeing video from people who weren't great at editing and rendering out with a high enough bitrate, but I just saw a bunch of "raw 4k footage straight from the card" that had this going on - a ton of artifacting splotches from too low of bitrate.

I don't get it - what's the point of marketing 4k video when that 4k video is full of artifacting? And just seems unreasonable to me for a $3,500 device. Has anyone found a workaround for this, or any word from DJI that they are planning on improving this?

Your right and the work around is to purchase an 800 or 1000 and use a real DSLR camera. Don't be fooled into thinking the Inspire is a "Professional" video platform. To me its a excellent "Hobby" system

 

[Airwolf13]

Nice response. SO, I guess you are pleased with the quality video you are getting? Geronimosian is !00% correct. I have seen many videos posted here and with my friends video and it is sorely lacking and has many of the same issues that he talks about. DJI needs to step this up and fix it

 

[Ian Fraser]

This is like a Wedding Photographer buying low end Digital SLR with a Kit Lens and complaining about the quality. Buy the right gear for the intended use.

 

[The Jerk]

The camera is garbage. Its marketed as a 4K camera. All of the footage I have seen including my own is full of artifacts, and the low light performance sucks. The lens is crap. You can not do much in post VS the gopro 4 Black which actually looks like 4K. I am totally guessing that it is the lens. This is a guess.

 

[The Jerk]

This is like a Wedding Photographer buying low end Digital SLR with a Kit Lens and complaining about the quality. Buy the right gear for the intended use.

It has been advertised as a professional platform. 4K is not a made up qualifier. When you buy a 4K camera it should perform decently in the arena of 4K cameras. End of story.

 

[The Editor]

As a professional photographer and filmmaker, I ordered the Inspire based upon what I had seen in a few initial videos that had looked great.

But now that the Inspire is in more hands and more footage is surfacing, I'm pretty disenchanted with what I'm seeing. Sure, it lacks the horrible fisheye that the GP4 has, but the amount of pixelation and compression artifacts makes a lot of the footage unusable for professional purposes.

I was hoping that maybe I was just seeing video from people who weren't great at editing and rendering out with a high enough bitrate, but I would

It has been advertised as a professional platform. 4K is not a made up qualifier. When you buy a 4K camera it should perform decently in the arena of 4K cameras. End of story.

It can't with a VBR maxed out at 60 Mbps!
GoPro 3's were advertised as having 4k capability.... but it was at 15fps

 

[The Jerk]

GoPro was transparent with its specs and the advertisements were accurate representations of what was possible. The 4 Black delivers so far beyond any small camera from frame rates to resolution.

 

[The Editor]

But to be fair to DJI (and I'm the first to criticise their atrocious laughable roll out of products as well as their dire customer service) they always advertised the camera as having a maximum bitrate of 60Mbps.
Anyone with any knowledge of 4k encoding/compression knows that just isn't going to perform at UHD resolutions.
The problem is..... Everybody has jumped on the 4k without really knowing what they want it for, how they are going to make final delivery or what their workflow is going to be........4k is better right?????....Well no actually.

 

[FASTFJR]

Everyone just loves 4K..........take a good look at how large 4K files can be. Most people don't even need it. 4K is the new catch word of the day. You need a pretty powerful computer to put clips together and do editing in 4K

 

[damoncooper]

Everyone just loves 4K..........take a good look at how large 4K files can be. Most people don't even need it. 4K is the new catch word of the day. You need a pretty powerful computer to put clips together and do editing in 4K

4K rocks. My couch is 7 feet away from my wall-sized 4k Sony TV and I am in. Making my own 4k aerial videos is one way to solve the content problem.

 

[The Jerk]

But to be fair to DJI (and I'm the first to criticise their atrocious laughable roll out of products as well as their dire customer service) they always advertised the camera as having a maximum bitrate of 60Mbps.
Anyone with any knowledge of 4k encoding/compression knows that just isn't going to perform at UHD resolutions.
The problem is..... Everybody has jumped on the 4k without really knowing what they want it for, how they are going to make final delivery or what their workflow is going to be........4k is better right?????....Well no actually.

True true, but still tricky for folks who are less queued into the technical side of cameras... I guess you could argue the same for the GoPro 3+ and the 15 FPS. Personally I think FPS is easier to understand than compression.

 

[Ian Fraser]

It has been advertised as a professional platform. 4K is not a made up qualifier. When you buy a 4K camera it should perform decently in the arena of 4K cameras. End of story.

I have just been shooting 1080 I tried 4K on GoPro and my PC just didn't want to play.

I put the raw 1080 video on a USB drive and played it on 65 inch UHD TV I could not fault what I was seeing from 120m up the ripples on a lake were perfect. Until I upgrade my PC I will stick to 1080 which seems fine for what I want.

 

[Kilrah]

The problem is..... Everybody has jumped on the 4k without really knowing what they want it for, how they are going to make final delivery or what their workflow is going to be........4k is better right?????....Well no actually.

Well for most it's not worth it indeed, but if you have the proper display devices yes it is.
I have a 65" 4K TV as my computer monitor, I've been shooting with the I1 both in 1080 and 4K, and there is absolutely no discussion that 4K is miles above.
1080p scaled up is obviously soft and mushy. 4K may have a tad more noise (not even that much actually), but has tons of extra detail that it does way more than counterbalance it. I don't shoot 1080p anymore unless I want 60fps for some reason... but even then, the common reason for wanting it on aerials in the past was that it would make vibrations/shakes less disturbing, which is not a problem with the I1 as the stabilization is so good you do get the filmic look of standard frame rates as is.

Making my own 4k aerial videos is one way to solve the content problem.

YES! I've had my setup for 4 months and finding content to watch was an arduous task. That's until the I1 came out, now I have not only my own footage but there are a good 3-4 4K videos posted by I1 flyers per day, and it's often even good content!

 

[Cyclops]

As a professional photographer and filmmaker, I ordered the Inspire based upon what I had seen in a few initial videos that had looked great.

But now that the Inspire is in more hands and more footage is surfacing, I'm pretty disenchanted with what I'm seeing. Sure, it lacks the horrible fisheye that the GP4 has, but the amount of pixelation and compression artifacts makes a lot of the footage unusable for professional purposes.

I was hoping that maybe I was just seeing video from people who weren't great at editing and rendering out with a high enough bitrate, but I just saw a bunch of "raw 4k footage straight from the card" that had this going on - a ton of artifacting splotches from too low of bitrate.

I don't get it - what's the point of marketing 4k video when that 4k video is full of artifacting? And just seems unreasonable to me for a $3,500 device. Has anyone found a workaround for this, or any word from DJI that they are planning on improving this?

I understand why you are saying and am not about to simply defend the quality of the Inspire 1 camera system, hopefully there will be a firmware update that will improve the bitrate which is at the heart of the problem.

Also many of the shots that have been posted are large wide landscape shots and the detail in the far distance inevitably turns to mush, especially once it has been re-encoded for youtube or vimeo. This happened with any go-pro clips as well. The only way round this problem is to step up to a much higher spec camera such as the GH4 or 5D Mk3, and that needs to be attached to a much larger craft with all the ancillary cost and operational ramifications.

One of the uploaders I've been particularly impressed with is a guy called Martin Schumacher who has posted some very high quality 4k footage onto his channel on YouTube. Here is a link to a recent example and there are many more to be found by following his link.

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However the DJI Inspire 1 package does need to be assessed in terms of the whole package, enhanced flight stability, excellent Lightbridge monitoring, excellent tablet apps and a sophisticated design.

Its a huge step up from the Phantom 2 / gopro 4 combination and needs to be seen within the context of where it sits in the hierarchy of DJI products, that is, well above entry level and and far below the top end systems with their increased payload to carry top end cameras.

 

[sdjackaerial]

I understand why you are saying and am not about to simply defend the quality of the Inspire 1 camera system, hopefully there will be a firmware update that will improve the bitrate which is at the heart of the problem.

Also many of the shots that have been posted are large wide landscape shots and the detail in the far distance inevitably turns to mush, especially once it has been re-encoded for youtube or vimeo. This happened with any go-pro clips as well. The only way round this problem is to step up to a much higher spec camera such as the GH4 or 5D Mk3, and that needs to be attached to a much larger craft with all the ancillary cost and operational ramifications.

One of the uploaders I've been particularly impressed with is a guy called Martin Schumacher who has posted some very high quality 4k footage onto his channel on YouTube. Here is a link to a recent example and there are many more to be found by following his link.

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However the DJI Inspire 1 package does need to be assessed in terms of the whole package, enhanced flight stability, excellent Lightbridge monitoring, excellent tablet apps and a sophisticated design.

Its a huge step up from the Phantom 2 / gopro 4 combination and needs to be seen within the context of where it sits in the hierarchy of DJI products, that is, well above entry level and and far below the top end systems with their increased payload to carry top end cameras.

Ya, I agree--Martin's stuff is gorgeous every time.
And to weigh in on the 4k discussion--as a professional filmmaker and editor--having a huge 4k frame to edit with at 1080 opens up a whole new world for composing my shot. Sometimes I use the whole 4k frame, but not usually. I can pan and zoom with it at 1080, or just focus on a certain part of the frame. Awesome.
*For me*, I could care less about 4k displays, or delivering 4k content to my clients (who don't need or want it)...I'm using it for different reasons.

 

[InspiredOne]

Ya, I agree--Martin's stuff is gorgeous every time.
And to weigh in on the 4k discussion--as a professional filmmaker and editor--having a huge 4k frame to edit with at 1080 opens up a whole new world for composing my shot. Sometimes I use the whole 4k frame, but not usually. I can pan and zoom with it at 1080, or just focus on a certain part of the frame. Awesome.
*For me*, I could care less about 4k displays, or delivering 4k content to my clients (who don't need or want it)...I'm using it for different reasons.

You hit the nail on the head. As retired professional, I'm not going to get into this debate, other than to say it's tool. Not all tools are suited for all jobs. Anyone who isn't happy can move on--to each his own. Life's too short (and getting shorter!).

Enjoy flying guys and gals!