[HN Gopher] DJI Inspire 3: new 8k cinema drone
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DJI Inspire 3: new 8k cinema drone
Author : jackhalford
Score : 78 points
Date : 2023-04-14 20:38 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dji.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dji.com)
| Giorgi wrote:
| Is this the one which is supposed to leave whole camera crew
| without jobs?
| jlawer wrote:
| The obvious question is how effective at carrying small
| improvised explosives is it?
| gpm wrote:
| Pretty sure "fancy camera quadcopter" is the wrong quadcopter
| to be using in a warzone where things tend to get blown up.
| everly wrote:
| Perhaps, unless those fancy cameras improve targeting
| capabilities in a meaningful way
| stavros wrote:
| You can already get the FPV camera on the Inspire
| standalone (looks like the O3), but I doubt it will improve
| targeting capabilities much. The FPV link is 720p, unless
| they changed something, but I wouldn't be surprised if they
| use analog cameras which cost $10.
| olex wrote:
| Specs on the linked site say the FPV camera and live feed
| have been upgraded from 480p/30 on the Inspire 2 to
| 1080p/60 on the 3.
| stavros wrote:
| Oh, nice, I guess they use the DJI FPV system with
| Goggles 2, I forgot that was 1080p.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Maybe not targeting but the follow up BDA reports. Instead
| of having to send in a second drone to see the bomb damage,
| the same system can be used! Also, no need to wait for
| timing of a satellite pass over either.
| olex wrote:
| This is a class too big for that, you're better off with a
| Mavic or even a Mini for lower cost, better stealth and simpler
| one-man operation.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| > This is a class too big for that,
|
| Allow me to introduce the machine gun carrying drone used in
| Ukraine:
|
| https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1616369468069789696
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| My experience with DJI drones is that once you put anything
| on them, the tuning of their flight controllers leads to
| substantially worse flight times, stability, and overall
| safety.
|
| I know the Mini 3 can carry a naked GoPro without struggling
| too much, so a mavic might be able to carry a couple hundred
| grams with decent performance. But the flight characteristics
| go out the window pretty quickly, so I suspect you couldn't
| carry much explosives on these things.
|
| I have no idea how much is needed. Maybe a small amount is
| fine.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| Do these things still require your mobile phone number to use?
| KingLancelot wrote:
| [dead]
| nixass wrote:
| Cannot wait to see 8K drone footage from Ukraine
| wincy wrote:
| God I've seen the drone footage on Reddit sometimes, I don't
| like suddenly having my Reddit feed have videos of Russian men
| shooting themselves in the head to avoid dying via being blown
| up by a drone dropped grenade. Absolutely awful stuff. I'm not
| sure when Reddit became Ogrish.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Unfortunately it always has been.
| Foivos wrote:
| Why would they use this over the much cheaper mavic?
|
| On average the commercial drones in Ukraine survive 3 missions.
| I doubt anyone would spend the price of 5 mavic drones just to
| have more pixels at a trench.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Is this yet another DJI drone that's not compatible with DJI's
| own goggles?
|
| If so, it's a baffling blunder they've made multiple times. This
| one would even be more embarrassing, since they call the
| secondary camera a "POV" camera.
|
| Another issue: DJI continues to rip people off for a CinemaDNG
| "license." CinemaDNG is a free codec that is not encumbered by
| licensing fees. At $16,500, this scam adds insult to injury: "The
| format is unencrypted and free from intellectual property
| encumbrances or license requirements"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CinemaDNG
|
| The thing looks like a very cool professional tool. But these
| repeated offenses are getting old.
| cherioo wrote:
| From the same wiki page
|
| The adoption of CinemaDNG among camera manufacturers appears to
| be hindered by Red Digital Camera's patent US9245314, which
| covers in-camera recording of lossless compressed raw video.
| There had been an unsuccessful attempt to invalidate the
| patent.
| davemp wrote:
| The bar for novel/non-obvious seems really low if this patent
| has been successfully defended.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| There is almost no bar now. The USPTO is derelict, and an
| ignorant ruling allowed what was supposed to be illegal:
| software patents.
|
| Even worse is that Red simply ripped off JPEG2000 and got a
| patent on it.
|
| The patent "system" has become a tool for exactly what it
| was supposed to prevent: the theft of people's work.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| DJI gets around this by moving the recording circuitry
| outside of the camera. It's in the body of the drone, not in
| the camera.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| "Are you implying that is sufficient to circumvent RED's
| patent? IANAL but I would argue a camera-drone is still a
| camera."
|
| Yes, the Inspire 2 does this, and it was widely reported
| that this is how they dodged the BS patent. The weight
| distribution may also be another bonus, or vice versa.
|
| I actually don't know why there's this perception that the
| patent only applies to camera-internal compressed raw,
| because Apple/Atomos have to pay Red royalties but Atomos
| recorders are obviously external. But you hear it over and
| over.
| cherioo wrote:
| Are you implying that is sufficient to circumvent RED's
| patent? IANAL but I would argue a camera-drone is still a
| camera.
|
| Besides that, what you describe sounds like a decision made
| to reduce weight of the camera module, possibly not related
| to patent.
| olex wrote:
| The Inspire has never been intended to fly with goggles. It has
| a dedicated "pilot view" FPV camera, but in normal usage it's
| typically operated by a crew of two, a pilot flying line-of-
| sight and/or via FPV camera and a dedicated main camera
| operator, both using similar/identical remote controllers with
| a display attached (this is typically either a large tablet or
| a dedicated "proper" camera monitor).
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Why would it have to be "intended" for that? If someone wants
| to do it, why prevent it? They say outright that the thing
| uses the same generation of wireless transmission ("O3") as
| their current goggles and stand-alone camera & transmitter.
|
| Not to mention that they make a big deal out of being able to
| send video to two destinations at once, ideal for a feed
| going to goggles.
|
| Is the drone "intended" to be carried around by hand while
| filming? It doesn't have handles for that, and yet they show
| a guy doing it in their promo video.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The RAW upgrade is still significantly cheaper than Arri's RAW
| codec. Not sure if the Arri price is still the same, but it
| used to be higher than the cost of this drone to unlock RAW on
| an Alexa. It was also just an image sequence rather than a
| wrapped container format.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Is this defending one rip-off by citing another?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Kind of, yeah, it is. In high end film/video gear, you know
| you're always getting over charged for anything. So this is
| one of those, just think, you could be paying more
| situations. Some of that pricing for hardware does tend to
| make a difference in quality in how rugged and durable
| something is to survive the rough and tumble environment of
| a production set. Can it survive the multiple remove from
| case, build, use, tear down, throw back in case, survive
| cases being tossed around like they are luggage loading
| onto an airline all in on day for each company move on the
| schedule and still be usable the next time you use it. This
| is software only type of pricing that is ridiculous
| FeistySkink wrote:
| What's the current DJI Android compatibility?
| palata wrote:
| Let's be honest: it kind of rocks
| dagorenouf wrote:
| Looks awesome but the fact they copied the same webdesign style
| of Apple puts me off. Why not come up with their own?
| thomasjb wrote:
| With a beautiful full frame sensor, lens mount and the carbon
| fibre bodied lenses all there, it would be a shame if they didn't
| start making a really light camera body with them, something on
| the Leica-Fujifilm spectrum (Although I guess they have that
| thanks to their Hasselblad acquisition). It would likely have
| great potential as a travel camera if they pushed the lightweight
| aspect
| chankstein38 wrote:
| This page is so distracting. The whole time I'm trying to read
| their pitch there's stuff moving around everywhere pulling my eye
| to that. I wasn't going to buy it anyway so I'm just going to go
| ahead and close it now.
| Covzire wrote:
| 8K@75fps is pretty nice.
|
| Tangent: I've been using software called SVP (SmoothVideo
| Project) which uses AI/ML with a GPU (3090 in my case) to
| generate additional intermediate frames for video files, turning
| a ~24fps 4K Bluray rip into a ~48 fps or even higher. For scenes
| with a lot of action it's a noticeable improvement, everything
| feels smoother.
|
| All that to say I hope that the industry starts moving to higher
| frame rates for film, I'd rather have native 4K 48hz content over
| 8k 24hz.
| Beambender wrote:
| [dead]
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| This is not only not relevant, it isn't AI either. Optical flow
| and motion interpolation have been around for over 25 years,
| but now people are mistakenly calling them "AI".
| wmf wrote:
| James Cameron and Peter Jackson were pushing high frame rate
| but critics absolutely hate it so I don't think it's going to
| happen.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| James Cameron's usage of it was gravely flawed because he
| arbitrarily kept switching back and forth between 24 and 48
| FPS from one shot to another in Avatar 2. There's absolutely
| no discernible pattern or motivation for the changes. WTF.
|
| I wish 48 FPS were adopted widely so we could all just get
| used to it, because it simply and undeniably renders motion
| better.
| christoph wrote:
| Same to some extent with IMAX Blu-rays. It drives me mad
| when certain "blockbuster" IMAX disks shift aspect and film
| stock so quickly, just because... let's use "IMAX" for some
| shots... It totally breaks the feel and flow of a movie for
| me when black bars and film grain suddenly start shifting
| about and changing. Either film and release it all in IMAX
| or don't bother IMO.
| christoph wrote:
| I think because while visually and technically better in the
| right hands (with multi hundred million $ budgets), it will
| almost always end up looking like a cheap soap opera in
| lesser hands - every imperfection in makeup, set and lighting
| becomes immediately obvious to even an uncritical eye. It's
| kind of similar to an uncanny valley situation in VR, side
| note: I think ultimately AI on its current trajectory will
| finally push forwards and make VR accepted and feasible for
| entertainment in a multitude of ways...
|
| For 4K or 8k HFR HDR live filming, you have to raise all your
| general production values by a really crazy amount for it not
| to look cheap and naff. Forget additional storage and
| transmission costs of the extra data, the actual day to day
| increases in production costs (and timelines) rapidly scales
| far beyond those, making such trivial things like storage a
| mere rounding error. Case in point - the most watched UK soap
| opera "Eastenders" saw the BBC go way over budget and spend
| PS90m+ over many years just rebuilding all of their iconic
| sets so they could finally film it in basic HD. HFR 4K HDR
| would require an even bigger and more serious upgrade across
| the entire production, and a long term commitment to those
| bigger budgets, which the BBC have clearly decided is totally
| not feasible and also not worthwhile for a 3-4 times a week
| half hour soap opera. It won't happen for most things because
| HD and certainly 4K is more than good enough for most normal
| people to enjoy video media on a screen up to around 100"'s
| at a sensible seating distance... So most entertainment can
| be done at a much lower cost and with way lower risk. The
| benefits just don't and probably never will outweigh those
| factors.
| [deleted]
| pier25 wrote:
| > _8K@75fps is pretty nice_
|
| Apparently only when using their RAW format which costs $979
| for a license.
|
| https://store.dji.com/product/dji-inspire-3-raw-license
| dylan604 wrote:
| SmartTVs have had an interpreted frame rate mode for a long
| long time now. Die hards HATE HATE HATE it.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| They hate it because it looks like shit. I'm not against
| higher frame rates; I saw the Hobbit in 3-D 48 FPS and it was
| the coolest movie-going experience I've had.
|
| But FAKE frames? Trash.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Certain company is trying to normalize interpolated frames
| in games which makes even less sense as it introduces
| latency but latency is like the main reason to want high
| frame rate in the first place. Almost exactly the same as
| SLI/crossfire. More frames overall but they come so late...
| 0x457 wrote:
| Are you sure you're not confusing inserted generated frames
| to "we do some annoying things that, we think, make our 60Hz
| TV look like a 240Hz TV"?
|
| Those things are incomparable.
| dylan604 wrote:
| either way, you are showing something to the viewer that is
| not part of the original image. whether that is the result
| of some AI's hallucination into what it thinks is there or
| some frame duplication/blending, it all means you've made
| up stuff that didn't exist to trick the mind into thinking
| it does.
| oofbey wrote:
| Diehards also think vinyl sounds better than CD, or at least
| many used to. (You know, because CD's are digital, which
| limits their dynamic range and frequency, whereas analog can
| be "perfect" in theory if you don't think too hard about it.)
| Some people are just allergic to anything that "improves
| quality". The reason these technologies exist is because
| _most people_ think it does improve quality. Haters gonna
| hate.
| blangk wrote:
| Writing off subjective assessments of modes of art as
| 'haters' seems like something a true hater might do. If you
| admit there is a qualitative difference then it seems
| obvious there would be mixed opinions about the different
| modes. Latest isn't always greatest.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Plenty of wrong here.
|
| "CD's are digital, which limits their dynamic range"
|
| No. In fact, some CD players used to come with discs
| intended to demonstrate the huge dynamic range of discs. My
| Sony portable came with Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms, one
| of the earlier full-digital releases; it was noted for its
| dynamic range.
|
| Also, fake frames inserted into material shot at a lower
| frame rate can't "improve" quality. It's a gimmick.
| SHOOTING at a higher frame rate? Sure, that improves motion
| quality.
|
| On a side note: Almost all the popular music you hear today
| on streaming services and on "remastered" albums has been
| destroyed with dynamic compression to make it "louder."
| Many engineers cite the early '90s as the peak of mastering
| quality. So don't act as though people objecting to "new"
| things are automatically wrong.
| oofbey wrote:
| What's the utility of having the propellors be able to go up and
| down relative to the body? Usually they show the propellors way
| above the camera, which makes sense to keep them out of view. But
| one of the shots shows the arms way down with the propellors very
| close to the camera. Why?
| OhNoNotAnother1 wrote:
| [dead]
| nomel wrote:
| Perhaps different flight modes, with the "camera low" case
| having a much high moment of inertia, so more stable flight?
| The "camera high" case should reduce the moment of inertia,
| fore more nimble movement. For rotation, moment of inertia acts
| as "mass" does for a linear movement [1].
|
| I don't think you would want to zip through obstacles in a
| "camera low" scenario.
|
| 1. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/mi.html
| olex wrote:
| Basically, this mechanics is the drone's landing gear. When on
| the ground, the arms pivot down, allowing it to touch down with
| the camera staying above ground level, protected from impacts.
| When airborne, the arms pivot up, opening up a 360deg field of
| view for the camera. DJI have done this since the original
| Inspire 1 and it seems to work pretty well.
| sc00ty wrote:
| From the video:
|
| > By having the landing gear down, an 80-degree upward gimbal
| angle becomes available, with no obstructions in the FOV.
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