(30-Mar-2023, 03:25 PM)Lukeman Wrote: Yeah I really wish I would have stuck with analog. I was very content with my Skyzone 03O oled goggles. I jumped on the shark byte band wagon and the image was so much nicer looking and now I've been going in cycles of buying and selling off digital gear for the last 2 years. So damn expensive and it's all money wasted lol. Now I have the hdzero goggles and I think I'm content as they can do everything so I don't have to settle. They're probably the most versatile goggles ever made for fpv.

Let’s talk dvr.. the FS goggles always seem to fall short

(29-Mar-2023, 12:40 PM)Rob Axel Wrote: Let’s also look at WHERE Orqa is located. THey are dealing with things a while lot worse than a chip shortage or Covid.

I know it's an old post, but I really want to know what you wanted to say with this?
What exactly were/are they dealing with that's so bad?

(24-May-2023, 10:27 PM)robi1kenobi Wrote: I know it's an old post, but I really want to know what you wanted to say with this?
What exactly were/are they dealing with that's so bad?

?

They are going all in for the Ukraine now. I believe he was talking about them being from Croatia.

The fact is Digital is not mature currently. It's still in it's infancy. Until we have maturity in code and products, people will have to keep buying newer kit. As to what is best. it seems you have to choose based on what your application. From everything I've seen HDZ is good for latency, but the signal break up is catastrophic when it happens and that blockiness is downright annoying. WS is ok for latency, the image quality seems better than HDZ, but they have an overheating problem on all their vtx. DJI is expensive, but most pro's still use them, I'm guessing it's sponsorship and possibly "better the devil you know" attitudes. We don't need any more niche digital systems.

Racers seem to favour HDZ, a lot of cruisers and some LR like WS and most freestylers use DJI.

Some guy I was talking to at a bando told me he bought 100 vista/camera vtx last year and two more sets of (I think) v2 DJI goggles. He had committed to that platform and he decided to future proof himself for the foreseeable future. That seems to be the attitude of people that fly DJI digital. They buy obscene amounts of spares and commit to the product. The other two are too new for that, but I already see posts from people on here that suggests they have picked a system and made a commitment to it.

Wow, what kind of crowd do you fly with? Did you post that some of your fellow pilots go through Gopros like tictacs? Smashing and discarding a handful of them in one session. And others stock up on 100 digital VTXs... probably enough funds to buy a decent used car.
For professional racers, I can imagine huge stocks of parts make sense, but DJI is not used for racing...

From what I have seen, photojournalists will go to extremes to get "THE" shot
or "THE" video. I guess it makes them a lot of money and adds to their reputation.
They spend tens of thousands of dollars on gear and do some "interesting" if not
dangerous things to that end.

As for digital. From what I hear, it is great. Everyone that has HD FPV loves it.
From what I see, it is a constantly changing environment that is quite expensive.

DJI being one of the oldest and most expensive; of course, they also make most 
of the "camera" drones and commercially used drones. Yet, they change from time 
to time and don't seem to know what backward compatibility is. What the heck,
they pretty much have a cornered market. You pay or you don't play. Simple. DJI
will always likely be the dominant provider of commercial and "camera" style drones.
Businesses will just keep paying the price as their operation will likely be bringing
in sufficient funds to cover it. Just like a truck fleet. Periodically, everything gets
replaced. Consequently, these companies will likely not be concerned with backward
compatibility. Consider that the "hobby" market is likely just a fraction of their business.

Now, we have WalkSnail and HDZero. Both up and coming, nothing compatible with
anything else so that makes at least three (3) different types or "protocols". Plus,
both are also continually changing. Yes, not yet mature and no clear winner.  Also, 
both are costly. Man, HD is just expensive. These systems are both young and have
a bit of "growing" to do. 

I am really hoping that HDZero wins this race because it is an open source system.
In theory, anyone with the funds can produce products that are HDZero compatible.
NOW, that is what is needed. Not more protocols, MORE manufacturers using the 
SAME protocol. Compatibility!!  The real downside to open source is that the code 
can be changed by virtually anyone. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does 
warrant a bit of consideration. As long as the hardware is consistent and all legacy 
products can benefit from newer code via "flashing" then it should be good. 
Maybe others will jump in and start producing products. 

If one of the two, WalkSnail or HDZero, survives and truly becomes a contender; 
then that system will likely be the video of choice for the hobbyist. If there are 
sufficient companies to drive prices down a bit, then that would be a good thing.

Another reason that I am hoping HDZero survives and costs come down is the
analog de-interlacing module for their goggles which cleans up analog quite a bit;
not quite digital quality, but plenty good enough for me. A set of googles with a
decent screen and an analog module with de-interlacer built in for about $ 200 
would really interest me.

I just don't see any product really competing with DJI in the large scale commercial 
market. Although anything is possible, being serious competition for DJI is a very 
tall order. On the positive side, any competition is better than none.

In the meantime, I am quite content with my analog FPV systems. 

(28-May-2023, 03:54 PM)iFly4rotors Wrote: As for digital. From what I hear, it is great. Everyone that has HD FPV loves it.
From what I see, it is a constantly changing environment that is quite expensive.

No digital system is perfect, but if you enjoy cruising with micros, I would say you definitely should try out the Walksnail system. I think it changes the micro FPV experience completely and brings it to a new level of enjoyment. It is literally flying with a realtime action camera quality FPV feed (like a Gopro) with minimal weight penalty, and if you like to record your footage, that even comes included on the VTX.
At $240 for both a VTX/VRX, the cost of entry is more affordable, and additional 1S VTX/cam is $90 each. The VTX cam only needs a single 4P connector to the FC (so much easier to setup than analog), and can be shared from micro to micro with just a few screws (ie install cam/VTX in canopy).
Maybe the high brightness screen I am using (or smaller screen FOV) comes into play, but I think the image is a lot more stunning than the DJI V2 goggles, and if I want to go out and enjoy a nice sunset I will reach for my WS micro first. The system is not without its faults, the VTXs are more fragile, generate lots of heat, and seems WS has not worked out penetration/smearing issues yet, but even as it is now, I think the system is wonderful for micros.

Hi Mstc,

Thanks for the information.

What I really want is for the price of HDZero goggles with the analog de-interlacing 
feature to come down to maybe $ 250 USD...yeah $ 200 USD is probably not going 
to happen. If I could a set of analog goggles with the de-interlacing feature, I would 
chance 2 bills on it. I don't need HD, just a little better analog. From what I have seen,
the de-interlaced analog video looks really good. 

You know, I had been questioning why someone didn't make better analog. Everyone
kept telling me that it was not possible. Compression this, transmission protocol that,
and some other technical rationale why it just wasn't possible. 

Now, Low and Behold, HDZero comes out with a module for their HD goggles that 
takes standard, regular, analog transmission protocol streams and just de-interlaces 
the video. BAM !! Much clearer analog from all of the existing cameras and VTXs. 
Now, we are talking, however, the goggles are still too rich for my blood. Maybe I 
would consider $ 300 USD for the goggles with the analog de-interlacing module. 
Still very expensive, but worth at least a consideration. H*LL, I probably wouldn't 
even bother with HDZero Camera and VTX if the de-interlacer is as good as I have 
seen and I can user it with all my current gear without any changes.  


iFly   

(28-May-2023, 01:59 PM)mstc Wrote: Wow, what kind of crowd do you fly with? Did you post that some of your fellow pilots go through Gopros like tictacs? Smashing and discarding a handful of them in one session. And others stock up on 100 digital VTXs... probably enough funds to buy a decent used car.
For professional racers, I can imagine huge stocks of parts make sense, but DJI is not used for racing...

People that will try to get the perfect shot even if it means smashing a quad into a roof 30-40 times.

The thing is, is it really that much?  If you make 80-90k/year and your only hobby is flying, is buying 100 vtx that much overkill?  When I was working in IT years back I would spend easily 6-7k per year on tech alone and I wasn't particularly dedicated to the cause.  A new current generation i7 wasn't cheap, two top end Nvidia cards for a 2 way SLI, m.2 SSD's, rackmount servers, current Cisco network gear, you name it I probably had it.  I'm not saying I bought most of those yearly but I did buy them probably every couple of years or when I needed to upgrade something for work related reasons (Cisco put a new firewall on the market, or a new game came out that needed better hardware).   I went to work, to the gym, and was a scuba diver.  I had/have no dependents.  So what I earned was mine to use for whatever I wanted.  most people I know fit the same category.  Single, no dependents, high end jobs, aka lots of disposable income.
 
One of my friends used to own and fly full size planes and the amount he spent per year on fuel and maintenance alone for his Cessna makes buying 100 vtx look like a drop in the ocean.  If that is your hobby and you are spending money on something you love doing, then it's just the cost of the hobby.

Anyway, I am a hoarder, so if I had the money I can't say i wouldn't buy at least 10 WS vtx if that was the system i flew.  i probably wouldn't smash them up though, I'm kind of a careful flyer.  But it's good to have stockpiles for when things aren't available or you want to build more quads.

Oh and FTR, the guy who smashed up the GoPros was trying to do a high arc powerloop into a dive through a hole in a roof that measured around 1m x 1m, with an immediate need to dodge several beams on the other side of it. For whatever reason he couldn't hit it, so for about 2 hours all we heard was throttle punch followed by bang as he impacted the roof, over and over again. Eventually he managed to nail it, but then crashed and after about 80 goes he finally nailed it without cratering. That one clip cost him a ton of GoPro's. They weren't just damaged they were pretty much obliterated, but the clip was going to be part of a showcase he was creating to try and get sponsorship so he deemed it necessary.

Who am I to judge. I once bought a £1500 rebreather on a whim, having never dived a rebreather, received training in how to use a rebreather, or even really knowing the ins and out of an SCR rig (closely followed up by actually diving the thing without training, but after watching several Youtube videos, not that you can really screw up with something that constantly injects gas into a semi closed loop and has an O2 monitor inline).