Had my first couple of flights with Lightbridge last night overall reasonably impressed, hardware itself is fantastic and install was easy but I am reserving overall judgement for the time being.
So firstly both flights rock solid control didn't notice any difference from a Futaba FAASST RX. The HD Video was crystal clear and did not have any drop outs or lock ups what so ever and the video looked very crisp however a lot of the time I was getting low frame rates on the screen resulting at times in a little jerky video.
So in the manual it lists all the compatible input resolutions and frame rates up to 1080p60 in my case I had my GoPro running 1080p30 which is my usual standard. Also in the manual it lists the link quality settings HD distance/quality and Full HD distance/quality. In my case I was using HD Quality Priority which states it is 720p30 and is recommended, I am assuming the air end transcodes the input video resolution to the video link resolution on the fly in other words camera to Lightbridge is 1080p30 then is transcoded before Lightbridge to ground at 720p30.
I thought about switching to Full HD Quality Priority so that the in video 1080p30 was already natively at the link resolution thinking that may improve frame rate by reducing transcoding however the link Full HD Quality Priority is actually 1080i30 not p30 so I assume still needs transcoded. Next flight I may try running the camera at 720p30 and the Link in HD quality Priority 720p30 this seems to be the only balance where the input and link is the same.
So a couple of annoying things here, the manual is rubbish it needs to explain what the device is doing better so that users understand how to get the best from it, the maxium link resolution 1080i30 doesn't offer up much more quality over 720p30 in my mind this is not Full HD.
To be honest for me 720p30 is fine for the video downlink (for me anyway) but it needs to be at a solid frame rate, if I have to start changing my camera resolution settings to get a usable downlink then the device is a fail, but I has to test further first to confirm this. (although does the GoPro HDMI out put at the recording settings or always 1080p60 regardless?)
Only other thought was the Galaxy Note 3 was displaying at a low frame rate, but it has a fairly hefty quad core processor so should eat up 720p video easily, I guess I can test this by outputting to a standard HDMI monitor instead.
Couple of other quick points of annoyance but are not really a fault with lightbridge, The GoPro in interval picture mode did not seem to out put video on the HDMI port so useless for framing shots (need to investigate further may have been something I messed up). Going to hook my Nikon D800 up to it tonight to see if I get different results to the GoPro.
Is there anyway to switch the Futaba 14SG off with the trainer cord plugged in?
So firstly both flights rock solid control didn't notice any difference from a Futaba FAASST RX. The HD Video was crystal clear and did not have any drop outs or lock ups what so ever and the video looked very crisp however a lot of the time I was getting low frame rates on the screen resulting at times in a little jerky video.
So in the manual it lists all the compatible input resolutions and frame rates up to 1080p60 in my case I had my GoPro running 1080p30 which is my usual standard. Also in the manual it lists the link quality settings HD distance/quality and Full HD distance/quality. In my case I was using HD Quality Priority which states it is 720p30 and is recommended, I am assuming the air end transcodes the input video resolution to the video link resolution on the fly in other words camera to Lightbridge is 1080p30 then is transcoded before Lightbridge to ground at 720p30.
I thought about switching to Full HD Quality Priority so that the in video 1080p30 was already natively at the link resolution thinking that may improve frame rate by reducing transcoding however the link Full HD Quality Priority is actually 1080i30 not p30 so I assume still needs transcoded. Next flight I may try running the camera at 720p30 and the Link in HD quality Priority 720p30 this seems to be the only balance where the input and link is the same.
So a couple of annoying things here, the manual is rubbish it needs to explain what the device is doing better so that users understand how to get the best from it, the maxium link resolution 1080i30 doesn't offer up much more quality over 720p30 in my mind this is not Full HD.
To be honest for me 720p30 is fine for the video downlink (for me anyway) but it needs to be at a solid frame rate, if I have to start changing my camera resolution settings to get a usable downlink then the device is a fail, but I has to test further first to confirm this. (although does the GoPro HDMI out put at the recording settings or always 1080p60 regardless?)
Only other thought was the Galaxy Note 3 was displaying at a low frame rate, but it has a fairly hefty quad core processor so should eat up 720p video easily, I guess I can test this by outputting to a standard HDMI monitor instead.
Couple of other quick points of annoyance but are not really a fault with lightbridge, The GoPro in interval picture mode did not seem to out put video on the HDMI port so useless for framing shots (need to investigate further may have been something I messed up). Going to hook my Nikon D800 up to it tonight to see if I get different results to the GoPro.
Is there anyway to switch the Futaba 14SG off with the trainer cord plugged in?
