I did a poll back in July 2020 showing that about 15% of users were using digital which at the time was really just DJI. 



Is it just me or does that poll seem like much longer ago than just over a year??  It just seems that since then, DJI adoption has gone through the roof and now HDZero is making a lot of headway.  So I'm curious to do a follow up poll to see if that is really the case.

Likely most of us still use both analog and digital to some degree.  If that's the case, vote for which you tend to use more.

You need to edit the poll and make it multi option selectable for people who are using more than one system.

I struggled with that for a bit but since I suspect most people do use more than one system, I didn't want to have such muddled results.

OK. In that case I won't vote in this particular poll but I currently use analogue and DJI, and hopefully I'll soon have a working HDZero quad in my arsenal. So I would have voted for at least two, maybe three if it includes kit you might own but haven't necessarily flown yet.

multi seems better to me either :-) maybe vote for the gear mostly in use would display the pilots use best than

Perhaps word the survey as what system is "your most go to" or "your daily driver" or "you have it on most of your models".

i would like to know how many the digital pilots did use analog previously

There are also people who recently got into the hobby and bought a Digital goggle as a first goggle and later realized they are unable to put a digital vtx on every quad and ended up flying with an analog module mod simply due to cost or size constraints.

I haven't flown in over 2 months and probably won't do so again until after winter, but this year I've flown about 50/50 analogue and all of my quads except one are currently analogue, so I decided to vote analogue. That said, I have two more DJI builds in the pipeline and an HDZero build planned, so the general direction I am heading in is digital for anything other than micro quads.

My New Year resolution is going digital. I am drawing a line in the sand at this point.

I will still keep/fly my old analog gear and quads but I am making no new analog related purchases.

If I damage an analog vtx, I will replace it with digital moving forward.

Most probably HDZero if their new module is any good or Orqa if they do release something.

The only thing left on analog for me is my micro long range. Everything else is now HDZero. But even that is being prepped to get kitted with the 1W which doesn't seem to be releasing anytime soon though. Oh I also have an analog sneaker whoop that's kitted with a 4K split cam for some stealth vacation footage.

im still waiting for good rapidfire and fpv.one or hdo. fatsharks sharkbyte does slow the price drop there xD i tried sharkbyte from a buddy, would need to be a 100$ offer, including two smaller "nano size" vtxs.
my plan is stay on analog for the moment, all that high quality analog gear needs to be used ;-)
it might be good for the community if unused gear get to beginners, hook them up to the hobby... if you step to digital; look for the boy or girl next door, spend them the pleasure of fpv :-)

i hope for an opensource option, dreaming about a customer needs based software for digital transmission, going into the lead like betaflight xD

(06-Dec-2021, 09:07 AM)hugnosed_bat Wrote: i would like to know how many the digital pilots did use analog previously

I sort of did at the beginning of the year after all my research I decided to go with DJI. But that was when the v2 goggles were on long backorders so I ended up scooping up a BNF Nazgul and some Skyzone04x just to break out of the sim. I knew the pros and cons and I worked in analog for years including video transmitters so I wasn't unfamiliar nor unfavorable to composite video and SD transmission. I knew I'd need it for the tiny whoops or long range if/when I went there so having the analog goggles wouldn't be wasted. I've just now finally pulled the trigger on an Acrobee65 so they're back out in action again. 

There's just something about HD, not that the resolution is that much better of an image but sometimes just the scenery of putting the goggles on and the amazing view and the quad hasn't even taken off yet.

(07-Dec-2021, 12:11 AM)hugnosed_bat Wrote: im still waiting for good rapidfire and fpv.one or hdo. fatsharks sharkbyte does slow the price drop there xD i tried sharkbyte from a buddy, would need to be a 100$ offer, including two smaller "nano size" vtxs.
my plan is stay on analog for the moment, all that high quality analog gear needs to be used ;-)
it might be good for the community if unused gear get to beginners, hook them up to the hobby... if you step to digital; look for the boy or girl next door, spend them the pleasure of fpv :-)

i hope for an opensource option, dreaming about a customer needs based software for digital transmission, going into the lead like betaflight xD

I am not sure if the price of HDZero chip is listed anywhere in the public domain but I will assume its substantially high which is probably why there is not margin for other VTX makers at this point in time. I may be wrong with this assumption.

$100 for a HDZero VRX module bundled with a vtx and camera is something we might not see anytime soon. I doubt HDZero is barely making any money at this point in time from the system. 

That actual logic behind the $100 offer for SharkByte is still not very clear to me. Did Fastshark just clear off their shelfs after their casual breakup with HDZero? or did HDZero actually have a new VRX coming and wanted to clear stock and push the system out to increase user base? Or a combination of everything.

Well in terms of OpenSource Digital transmission, I know there is a hungry team of devs out there waiting to get their hands the right hardware once they find it. Although HDZero claims they will sell the chip to anyone, I am not sure will release the source code or just API's. If API's then there will still be limitations as to what can be done or improved.

If only Orqa had actually something to show us at this stage with their HD system.

OpenHD is probably good for slow LR stuff but for mini quad pilots its not appealing in its current form at 100+ms latency.

The problem with the digital hardware is that it uses custom silicon that costs a lot of money in R&D and a lot of money to manufacture, especially in the small batches that Divimath actually sell to various niche sectors such as FPV hobby consumers.

I can't see HD gear in the FPV world ever being cheap, and certainly not for the next couple of years with the global chip shortage situation and high global shipping costs, and I will expect anything that ORQA release to be more expensive than the HDZero gear currently is. We will just have to get used to paying high prices if we want the luxury of a live HD video feed to our goggles. This is one reason that the much more affordable analogue FPV gear isn't going to disappear any time soon. Although it is only a very small sample, you can already see by this poll that analogue still has way more users than digital.

FatShark / Divimath must have been making a loss or only just breaking even with the $99 USD promotional price of the Shark Byte VRX. You can't even get a IRC RapidFIRE or TBS Fusion analogue module for that price. Carl openly stated at the time of the promotional offer that they weren't just trying to offload stock of the VRX's and they weren't about to be superseded with a new version.

I guess things change but I do believe that FatShark / Divimath weren't just trying to dupe people into buying hardware that they knew was about to become end-of-life. It was probably FatShark's apparent abrupt termination of whatever partnership deal they had with Divimath that caused production of Shark Byte branded HD gear to be ceased and for Carl to put out a statement that Divimath would be taking over production of a new line-up of VRX's. Divimath didn't really have much choice if they want the HDZero brand to survive because VTX's are useless if you can't buy any VRX's. Because FatShark own the IP around the Shark Byte VRX module case and moulding it means that Divimath will have had to come up with their own design for that, but the likelihood is that the internal mainboard will either be identical to that of the Shark Byte RX5.1, or it will just be a reworked version of the same mainboard with a different footprint to fit whatever module case design that Divimath come out with. Obviously the other two VRX's they have said will be coming (the dual analog/digital VRX and the OLED equipped VRX for ground stations) will be completely new hardware designs.

One thing which is clear is that is if ORQA continue delaying the release of any information surrounding whatever new HD system they are developing then they are going to end up losing a lot of their market share to HDZero now that HDZero has started to take off in a big way. You can already see on social media that people are becoming increasingly fed up and frustrated with the way that ORQA "tease" the release of new products but never actually give out any real or useful information, and some of those same people have already said that they have decided to invest in HDZero instead of waiting for ORQA's offering. If ORQA aren't careful then whatever they release could end up being a complete flop like their new Orqa.Ctrl controller appears to have been.