just shot RedBull in china, poor video from 2nd RC, unusable for camera person

[purezerg]

anyone here got any tips for 2nd RC video? it's been a while that I used the 2nd RC. the video out from it is unusable. looking at 1 fame per 1-3s that is actually not corrupted. most of the time it's just grey out.

I tried every single channel from 13-20 manually, turned off OSD and dual output to HDMI.

currently on NVidia k1 for both remotes, 1 with 4G sim and the other is wifi only.

and on 1.1.0 app, firmware 1.2.1.03.

video to 1st RC is fine, but the 2nd RC is unusable.

it is almost as if there isn't enough bandwidth or something.

when I tried with manual channels , I even set the bitrate to lowest, but its of no help.


anyone experiencing this issue where 2nd RC is useless?

 

[Frank508]

I haven't had a chance to play with it. But there is an "Image Transmission Quality" setting in the "HD" menu that seems to have to do with bandwidth and range.

I asked DJI support about the blanking of the slave video and he said it got a lower priority. It didn't really make sense to me because a transmitter has no idea how many receivers are monitoring... but that is what he said.

 

[purezerg]

So basically the inspire is a high-speed phantom3 because it has no advantages over it. Poor HDMI out and unusable 2nd controller?
Starting to regret getting the inspire.

Also because of the 8 channel limit, the local TV crew, their inspire was unable to broadcast live because my rc auto select the same channel as the other inspire. So yeah, I unwittedly knocked out the TV crew inspire. Only after the whole event ended and after the 3rd inspire on site crashed, fell from 100m+ after a branch clipped the prop. (He broke both arms the legs of the inspire is now in 6 pieces due to video loss).I found out that the other 2 inspires auto selected channel 20. Heh, well done.

I'm the only one on site that was dual operator. The TV crew were single operator and all our inspire had no GPS lock.

When I knew that I couldn't get a GPS lock, I told my producer to control the camera and I would fly in ATTI. I flew in ATTI for all 8x TB48 with 10-15km/h according to my anemometer.

Flying in ATTI for 2 hours of total flight time is quite stressful.


The other TV crew almost crashed countless times also.

 

[purezerg]

That said, after the event, I tested again. When noone else was flying and the radio channels were quite empty. (We were up in the mountains that was 1281m according to GPS. The 2nd remote was still too jittering to even use. My producer was yelling to me nonstop video break ! video break!

 

[Lucas]

Thanks for sharing your experiences @purezerg Interesting questions raised. We get our 2nd controller Wednesday and will start testing on the iOS platform. Transmission strenght from the bird might be an issue, wonder if signal boosters would enable better reception (apart from extended range) http://fpvlr.com/store/product/inspire-one-advanced-antenna-kit/

Remember from the regular Lightbridge system that DJI had challenges with HD decoding on the Android platform, and in some footnote had written that the downlinks should be well apart from each other, for signal quality. Does not make sense to me, but will test for it.

 

[purezerg]

it seems like a bandwidth issue like I said. If its tcpip type of protocol. It should be like UDP, broadcast type. But if its broadcast type, then both RC should be of equal good/bad quality. But clearly its not. So its TCP protocol topology. My old Samsung s3 phone on RC1 has the same problem of video breaking. As if somewhere doesn't have enough bandwidth. I was guessing that it was the phone and that's why I got 2x K1 NVIDIA shield.

 

[purezerg]

maybe its RC1 that doesnt have enough bandwidth since it has hdmi issues. I have yet to try swapping both remotes to test. And I was thinking if its a broadcast type. We would soon know as I would only be sending 1 remote to fpvlr. So when I fly long range and the RC2 completely drops out then we know its getting signal from AC, if it its still signal strong, then we now know video is coming from RC1 and thus confirms bandwidth issues.

 

[MindOverEye]

Guys - This is a know issue with the second controller, had it happen on a ton of shoots across all of our I1's. Our workaround (and it sucks) is to loop the HDMI out of the pilots controller into the monitor the gimbal operator is using. You need a light and long HDMI. Then the pilot has the app but no camera feed (which sucks) and the 2nd operator has at least a solid signal to track to. I am hoping that Tony's boosters from fpvlr fix that issue. Sending one set of controllers to test that theory. Incidentally unlike our heavy lifters, where we use 5.8ghz to track camera, the I1 also has 220 millisec delay which is approx 8-10 frames of delay not ideal, but workable. I am surprised we don't see a lot of other posts regarding this. All of our I1's are dual controller, because it is such a huge advantage. They all do it. It's weird because the video link supposedly does not travel thru the pilots controller (like the control signal does), but the pilots signal is always better - In a lot of instances - WAY better.

 

[Frank508]

Reference your mention of no GPS. I remember a setting in the app for flying in China, was that set to on?

 

[purezerg]

That setting is for map offset. China maps are offset . sat imaging and vector maps won't match unless you enable map offset. That amap option is to use low res sat imaging option that is pulled from a China server. Kinda like viewing a 640x480 map on a 1920x1080 screen. Google maps are blocked in China.

 

[purezerg]

I know all 3 inspires didn't have GPS lock is because all were blinking yellow.

 

[purezerg]

I wonder isn't there something like false advertising or something? Like a petition or something to get dji to start working on it asap?

 

[purezerg]

I am super tempted to get my friend to reverse engineer it and fix it. And maybe sell its source codes or something. Lol. Got a Chinese friend that loves reverse engineering stuff like CPU. I unfortunately can't reveal who he works for but heard lots of interesting stories from him.

 

[purezerg]

hmm ok. I got interesting updates. I went back to 1.0.7 and chose other channels beyond 20. both RC with NVidia shield actually played well together!

http://www.andywee.com/pictures/DJI-Pilot-1.0.7.apk

 

[Phatzo]

what I found out was that when flying alone (all on the floor and motors not turned on of course) I tried to shield down each antenna with my hand and the left one was getting weaker for the I1 control and the right antenna went lower on the video signal assuming that left is for AC and right is for video... I am using Android with a galaxy s4 active and for my operator (no enough funding yet) I only have a Konvision broadcast monitor and no phone or tablet for the operator being able to tweak mid flight. I am still on the search for the best device for this. my phone is doing ok apart from the missing sunshade I have to make so I can see data.
I will see and try to make some more testing with my operator and report back with results.

a little off topic but I think a good question is if the I1 uses or is able to use glonass system... the system alone is not as good as GPS but using them together is really a blast. I found an article about that on a DJI store website or some related DJI thing where one could order DJI stuff. will post if I find the link.

got it: https://www.djistores.com/glonass.html

cheers

 

[purezerg]

I think despite what DJI and most people said. heres something to consider. if the video feed is coming from AC, then why when you turn of RC1, the video on RC2 becomes no signal. pause and think about it.

I am almost dead certain if I get a faraday cage around RC1, RC2 video feed will be cut.

 

[Sunscreen]

Our workaround (and it sucks) is to loop the HDMI out of the pilots controller into the monitor the gimbal operator is using. You need a light and long HDMI. Then the pilot has the app but no camera feed (which sucks) and the 2nd operator has at least a solid signal to track to.

This is the exact workaround I use. The only work around I'm aware of unfortunately. I'm still on 1.0.7. It seems to be the best FW available.

I am hoping that Tony's boosters from fpvlr fix that issue. Sending one set of controllers to test that theory.

Please keep us updated if the mod fixes the crippled video feed for the second operator. I've been considering the same mod from Tony also.

 

[MindOverEye]

This is the exact workaround I use. The only work around I'm aware of unfortunately. I'm still on 1.0.7. It seems to be the best FW available.



Please keep us updated if the mod fixes the crippled video feed for the second operator. I've been considering the same mod from Tony also.

Copy that, will report back, sending out my controllers today.

 

[purezerg]

I'll test later and wrap aluminum foil around RC1 right side antenna to see if it affects RC2 video feed. if it does. then there it's more complicated than it is. reason being is that the right antenna is not only used to receive video feed from AC, but also to send video feed to RC2 which would also likely be the cause of the crappy video.

 

[MindOverEye]

Actually DJI says that the video feed comes directly to the 2nd RC from the I1 (at least in the manual's diagram, see attachment). This does not explain why the pilots video feed is always superior, unfortunately.