Crap quality P4pro+ HD quality

[Hullman74]

Ive just bought a new P4 Pro+ after previously having the Inspire 1 Pro with X5 for 18 months. Im a TV cameraman and after reading a lot of reviews decided that the P4 pro + has many advantages over the Inspire 1 pro such as higher mbps and a 20 mp camera,longer flightime, more portable, easier and quicker to set up etc.
Ive filmed twice with it including inside a factory and was very impressed with the results indoors. However ive noticed that when filming in 1080 HD, the image quality is very poor compared to the Inspire footage ive been used to. I must say that the 4k footage is superb but produces massive files and is a pain to work with and therefore id prefer to keep shooting in 1080.
Anyone else had issues with the 1080 settings? It looks very washed out and not detailed enough- wuite blocky, just basically poor and not what I expected. Still photos look ok though.

 

[John Locke]

You likely have the settings wrong. 1080 will work fine with the right color settings. Just look in the camera settings, try NONE for color setting, or TRUE. That should get you in the right realm of color clarity and saturation. MOV or MP4 is fine for codec, whatever you prefer. I shoot 60FPS most the time to support slo-mo editing if I need it.

Here's one of my typical 1080 captures after post edit.

 

[Hullman74]

You likely have the settings wrong. 1080 will work fine with the right color settings. Just look in the camera settings, try NONE for color setting, or TRUE. That should get you in the right realm of color clarity and saturation. MOV or MP4 is fine for codec, whatever you prefer. I shoot 60FPS most the time to support slo-mo editing if I need it.

Here's one of my typical 1080 captures after post edit.

Hi John
Thanks for the advice but after having an onspire 1 for 18 months im pretty familiar with the camera settings and dont have any colour settings in place - just none. Im filming 1080 50fps and viewing on the same apple computer as the footage from the inspire and they are awful. Theres no detail and the footage just looks poor. Im really disappointed with it as from the reviews i read before buying it that the mbps bit rate would mean the footage is as good as or even better than the x5 but its not from what ive seen so far of the footage

 

[Henry Matias]

You likely have the settings wrong. 1080 will work fine with the right color settings. Just look in the camera settings, try NONE for color setting, or TRUE. That should get you in the right realm of color clarity and saturation. MOV or MP4 is fine for codec, whatever you prefer. I shoot 60FPS most the time to support slo-mo editing if I need it.

Here's one of my typical 1080 captures after post edit.

How do you get up to such heights over 14,000 when our p4p have 1600 feet top height ceiling on it?

 

[Henry Matias]

How do you get up to such heights over 14,000 when our p4p have 1600 feet top height ceiling on it?

Also I have a new p4p+ and the playback video on the screen of the just done flight is horrible. The footage over water playback shows inconsistent in and out of focus. It literally pulsates.

 

[John Locke]

Theres no detail and the footage just looks poor. Im really disappointed with it as from the reviews i read before buying it that the mbps bit rate would mean the footage is as good as or even better than the x5 but its not from what ive seen so far of the footage

Can you post a sample if what you're SD card video looks like?

 

[John Locke]

How do you get up to such heights over 14,000 when our p4p have 1600 feet top height ceiling on it?

Search YT for "phantom parameters".

 

[AirMan05446]

The 1,600 feet lock is ABOVE GROUND LEVEL. Unless I'm mistaken, he didn't launch and go up 16,000 feet. He launched FROM around 16,000 feet.

 

[John Locke]

The 1,600 feet lock is ABOVE GROUND LEVEL. Unless I'm mistaken, he didn't launch and go up 16,000 feet. He launched FROM around 16,000 feet.

For Mt. Lincoln I launched at 11,400MSL and climbed to 14,300MSL. This takes a tweak of the firmware parameters, as mentioned in post 7.

 

[Henry Matias]

Can you post a sample if what you're SD card video looks like?

I saw the sd footage over my iPad and the over water video seemed ok.... I’m talking about watching the footage on the screen that comes with the RC .... pro +

 

[Henry Matias]

For Mt. Lincoln I launched at 11,400MSL and climbed to 14,300MSL. This takes a tweak of the firmware parameters, as mentioned in post 7.

How is the firmware tweaked since the parameters are given on the screen post #7 mentions search YT for phantom parameters ???

 

[John Locke]

How is the firmware tweaked since the parameters are given on the screen post #7 mentions search YT for phantom parameters ???

You can find instructions on YT for tweaking parameter settings. After you figure that out you'll see all the options, however you have to have craft firmware 1.3.509 or earlier.

 

[John Locke]

I saw the sd footage over my iPad and the over water video seemed ok.... I’m talking about watching the footage on the screen that comes with the RC .... pro +

Try flying on 5.8Ghz. You may be getting interference from your phone Wi-Fi or the device Wi-Fi searching for an access point on 2.4ghz band.

 

[John Locke]

I saw the sd footage over my iPad and the over water video seemed ok.... I’m talking about watching the footage on the screen that comes with the RC .... pro +

OK, now I understand. When you say "playback video" that implies the SD card IMM. Try flying on 5.8Ghz band, on AUTO.

Sometimes your phone or the ipad wifi will be searching for an access point when your Phone/iPad wifi isn't disabled. When it hits the 2.4Ghz channel (or near) that your flying on, it will disrupt your lightbridge video feed. This could be why it's pulsing. Flying on 5.8ghz should eliminate that since 95% of wifi in phone and ipads use 2.4Ghz. Optionally, turn off all wifi on your phone and iPad if you want to fly 2.4Ghz. Frankly I prefer 5.8 to fly on because it simply works better on the P4P. I can get 4+mil with a windsurfer on 5.8Ghz band.

 

[Henry Matias]

OK, now I understand. When you say "playback video" that implies the SD card IMM. Try flying on 5.8Ghz band, on AUTO.

Sometimes your phone or the ipad wifi will be searching for an access point when your Phone/iPad wifi isn't disabled. When it hits the 2.4Ghz channel (or near) that your flying on, it will disrupt your lightbridge video feed. This could be why it's pulsing. Flying on 5.8ghz should eliminate that since 95% of wifi in phone and ipads use 2.4Ghz. Optionally, turn off all wifi on your phone and iPad if you want to fly 2.4Ghz. Frankly I prefer 5.8 to fly on because it simply works better on the P4P. I can get 4+mil with a windsurfer on 5.8Ghz band.

 

[Henry Matias]

I’m not using any phone or iPads/Tablets. I’m saying while playing back the footage of my already finished flight, on the screen/moniter that comes permanently attached to the RC/ Drone turned off, I notice that the quality of the footage over the water has trouble giving a good focussed footage. It pulses in and out of focus but only scenes over the water do you really see that. When I actually remove the SD card and put it in a sd reader and stick it into the IPad the coverage over water seems ok. It’s only while watching the cashed footage sent to a file in the RC P4P + internal

 

[John Locke]

I’m not using any phone or iPads/Tablets. I’m saying while playing back the footage of my already finished flight, on the screen/moniter that comes permanently attached to the RC/ Drone turned off, I notice that the quality of the footage over the water has trouble giving a good focussed footage. It pulses in and out of focus but only scenes over the water do you really see that. When I actually remove the SD card and put it in a sd reader and stick it into the IPad the coverage over water seems ok. It’s only while watching the cashed footage sent to a file in the RC P4P + internal

That video is a recording of your lightbridge video feed which won't be as good. You're likely having signal integrity issues between the craft and RC. Here are 5 things to try to possibly improve results;

1. Fly 5.8Ghz auto. The higher frequency can stream more data which may help. This also removed you from 2.4Ghz which inherently has more interference.
2. Fly closer to home point. As you get more that 1000' away the data rate may degrade in certain areas, affecting the lightbridge video image quality.
3. Make sure you have LOS connection, no trees in the way.
4. Use a Windsurfer on your antennas pointed at the craft.
5. Turn off Wi-Fi for any nearby device, such as the phone in your pocket which will hunt every Wi-Fi channel for an access point.