=== Let's Drone Out — Episode 489 ===
Title: LDO 489 - New Year, New DJI Release
Recorded: 2025-01-09
Hosts: Stephen "Belrik" Howell, Koel "Koala" Anderson, Andrew "Frank" Hyams, Jack "Brightontillifly" Nash
Guest(s): (none recorded)
Total audience: 956
Platforms: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZgAPgG_irM); SoundCloud (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/2005736695-letsdroneout-ldo-489-new-year-new-dji.mp3)
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[0.0] Jack: Hello! And you're listening to Let's Drone Out, a special thank you to our lovely patrons that helped donate, so that we could pay the editor to remove the swear words and silly things we say. Massive thank you to...
[14.0] Jack: Carlos Campos!
[16.0] Jack: Art Faulkner!
[18.0] Stephen: Sam Dahmer. On with the show.
[21.0] Koel: Let's Drone Out now.
[23.0] Stephen: Reach for Lasers, and welcome to Let's Drone Out, episode 489, for Thursday the 9th of January 2024. Look who's got a new Mac, Cole.
[62.35] Stephen: You're joined this week by our Lord, Savior and Master, Andrew slash Frank.
[69.35] Frank: Hello. Good evening.
[71.35] Stephen: Our friendly Canadian freestyler, Cole.
[75.35] Stephen: Howdy.
[76.35] Stephen: And myself, Stephen.
[78.35] Stephen: I'm here on the evening of yet another new product launch. You know it's a new year when you've got a new video system, and here we are once again.
[87.35] Frank: Yep.
[88.35] Frank: It's at least six months since the last time of the year I released entirely new video systems.
[94.35] Stephen: And they've managed, surprisingly, after releasing an A unit, a Vista, and then an O3, to actually stick to a standard numeric frame of reference and go with O4.
[108.35] Stephen: They didn't go for the DJI Supreme or the DJI Extra Cheese or anything, they just went straight to four, which is slightly surprising.
[118.35] Frank: I'm glad they didn't just sort of reset and go back to one, because that's usually what they do.
[123.35] Stephen: I'll just do Vista V2, just to keep everyone on the wrong foot.
[127.35] Frank: Maybe 2.0, just to make it clear it's not the V2 or the two.
[134.35] Stephen: So we've got the A4, which of course, as everyone knows, because it's the A unit four, you use that with the goggles three, of course, because that's how it works.
[146.35] Stephen: They're in the same generation, the A unit four and the goggles three are clearly in the fourth G.
[154.35] Stephen: Yeah, you need a lookup chart for this, basically, but thankfully, millions of people have rated lookup charts.
[158.35] Stephen: So we can see that the new A unit works with the goggles three, the budget 60 hertz N3, and apparently, the goggles two and Integra will get you somewhere towards that in a kind of compromised version as well.
[172.35] Stephen: Yeah.
[174.35] Stephen: And it looks like DJI kind of cranked the bitrate on this one.
[178.35] Stephen: So they've gone for wider channels, which gives them more bitrate, going up to 60 mega bit, 60 megahertz channels.
[187.35] Stephen: And that kind of pushes the image quality a bit.
[190.35] Stephen: And apparently, the newer goggles can get a racing mode that lowers the frequency.
[196.35] Stephen: They don't say what the regular frequency is, I think, but they advertise a racing mode frequency of 15 milliseconds on the 100 hertz capable goggles three, going up to a bit more on the 60 hertz goggles and falling back to same as the O3 30 milliseconds on the the older goggles.
[215.35] Frank: So is that latency then?
[217.35] Stephen: That's latency, or you don't know if it's like wire to wire, like camera interface to goggles, internals, or whether it's glass to glass.
[227.35] Stephen: They're really imprecise.
[228.35] Stephen: So we're going to have to wait till someone buys it and measures it.
[231.35] Stephen: And in all probability, it'll end up being like 33, 34, because that's just kind of how it works.
[237.35] Koel: And I'm sure it's still pretty damn good, though.
[240.35] Koel: From what I've gathered, I've tried some digital systems, but everyone says once you fly it enough, you get used to it.
[249.35] Koel: And there is latency compared to analog.
[251.35] Koel: And I'm sure that just will follow the suit for any digital system, right?
[255.35] Koel: Right, right.
[258.35] Frank: You know, if the racing mode so called, like, is that a fixed latency?
[264.35] Frank: Because that's the other issues with digital systems, right?
[267.35] Frank: It's a variable latency.
[269.35] Stephen: It's fundamentally the way they're doing it.
[271.35] Stephen: It's like a packetized radio system with some degree of error correction.
[276.35] Stephen: So it's not like one bit of video data in one end, one video bit of video data at the other end.
[282.35] Stephen: It's kind of like you put the video data in and the other end goes, have I got enough to actually build a frame?
[288.35] Stephen: Maybe, okay, I'll try and draw it, or I might need to wait for some more to do error correction and then build the frame.
[295.35] Stephen: So there's still going to be variability because there's this forward error correction stuff.
[299.35] Frank: In terms of making a frame, though, right?
[302.35] Frank: Yeah.
[304.35] Frank: Can it make a frame and it just has?
[309.35] Frank: It still does error correction, right?
[311.35] Stephen: So it might be more predictable, but I think if they had a hard latency number where it was just down to one millisecond,
[319.35] Stephen: they would have been shouting about that and they haven't.
[322.35] Stephen: So it makes me think there's still variability.
[324.35] Stephen: It's just it's much less variable than it normally is when you put race mode.
[330.35] Frank: Yeah, because the other thing is it doesn't sound like they're doing anything different with the actual radio system to make it like a race mode that will work
[340.35] Frank: with the VTX timing systems.
[343.35] Frank: So that's going to be presumably it's not going to mean that just because they've made a new race mode,
[350.35] Frank: that it's going to be suitable for quad racing, for example.
[355.35] Frank: Right.
[356.35] Stephen: Yeah, I don't think anyone is queuing up to put this in a quad, not least because a single VTX,
[363.35] Stephen: even if you go for the little loop one, that's still a hundred pounds.
[368.35] Stephen: This is not cheap and they typically don't make it easy to replace items like camera lenses and camera housings.
[375.35] Stephen: And in the past, we don't know what's going to happen here, but in the past, spare cameras were not easy to obtain.
[382.35] Stephen: So you'd have to buy a completely new VTX to get another camera.
[386.35] Stephen: So there wasn't it's not really friendly for racing.
[389.35] Stephen: What you're thinking about here is maybe some aggressive freestyle at most, definitely for long or mid-range,
[397.35] Stephen: I guess, because you don't know if there's a distance limitation.
[400.35] Stephen: There certainly used to be one at like 26K, I think, for the previous system.
[404.35] Stephen: So you probably bet there's going to be a similar range limitation because there's a maximum round trip that the system tolerates.
[411.35] Stephen: And if you go beyond the signal propagation delay for that, then it just goes, nope, you're too far away.
[417.35] Stephen: You can't work with you. But yeah, it looks good. Looks good.
[421.35] Stephen: The light VTX is supposed to be technically 1S, but it looks like it only goes down to 3. something volts.
[428.35] Stephen: So you probably don't want to actually run it on a 1S system because if you punch out a whoop, it will go below 3 volts.
[435.35] Stephen: And then your VTX is dead and you have to wait 10 seconds for it to reboot, which is not really what you want.
[439.35] Frank: Sounds unpleasant.
[441.35] Stephen: Spicy. Yeah. The HD01, I think, goes down to kind of 2.5 volts.
[446.35] Stephen: They put a decent regulator in there, good coat, but it doesn't look like they've done that here.
[451.35] Stephen: But it is under 10 grams, which is pretty wild. Yeah.
[456.35] Stephen: And under that sub 10 gram figure still nets you some pretty good capture as well.
[463.35] Stephen: It's not like a GoPro 12, but it's probably going to beat your GoPro 8 and the old Hero Session 5.
[472.35] Stephen: Just a single camera solution.
[474.35] Koel: So I was watching Potato Jet's review on it just maybe a couple hours ago.
[480.35] Koel: And I mean, he wasn't reviewing or using it.
[483.35] Koel: I mean, I didn't get to the whole video, but I didn't see the 04 light version.
[489.35] Koel: But apparently the 04 Pro version pretty much rivals the DJI Osmo Action 5, not quite in dynamic range.
[502.35] Koel: Like the highlights do blow out a bit with the 04 compared to the Action 5.
[507.35] Koel: But what he was also saying was, if I'm not mistaken, the 04 Pro camera is he thinks it's pretty much the same thing as the Avada 2 camera.
[519.35] Koel: Because even the ND filters from the Avada 2 work with the 04 Pro system.
[525.35] Koel: So it's kind of interesting there.
[528.35] Koel: But I don't know, man, like I think going forward, like as we as we keep going forward, these digital systems keep getting so good that you don't even need an action camera anymore almost from what it seems like.
[540.35] Stephen: You're getting incremental updates every 12 months, really, on these.
[544.35] Stephen: And it's not that big going from, say, 2022 to 2023.
[550.35] Stephen: But when you look at the progress they make over four or five years, it adds up, definitely adds up.
[556.35] Koel: Oh, yeah.
[557.35] Koel: Yeah.
[558.35] Koel: Well, it's crazy, too, because I look at the prices.
[562.35] Koel: I was on Amazon and I saw in Canadian this new 04 Pro system was like, after taxes, I'm looking around like 300,000.
[568.35] Koel: I'm looking around like 350, 360 Canadian dollars.
[572.35] Koel: And I mean, if you don't need an action camera, you're like, it's not a cheap system.
[581.35] Stephen: Like, like I was looking at the GoPro going to cost you zero if you have the subscription.
[588.35] Stephen: Well, OK, if you're lucky enough to over here, it's just basically it's going to cost you a new GoPro if you break it.
[595.35] Koel: Surely you guys can have access to the GoPro subscription.
[598.35] Frank: I'm not aware of it being a thing in the UK.
[603.27] Stephen: I've not heard anyone here using it.
[605.27] Stephen: I always hear about people in the US talking about it.
[608.27] Koel: Yeah.
[609.27] Koel: Like, because I don't like what people do with the Best Buy thing or people do like the GoPro thing.
[614.27] Koel: But certainly you can do that Best Buy type of deal.
[616.27] Stephen: Like you walk into a store and say, hey, yeah, this got smashed to bits because reasons are going to go, well, that's nice.
[622.27] Stephen: Do you have a credit card?
[624.27] Koel: No.
[625.27] Koel: Well, like what I was thinking is like so I did the kind of math on it because obviously I'm an analog flier.
[630.27] Koel: So goggles and three, which is the cheapest option as compatible with this new system, they're about I think it's like two hundred fifty three hundred bucks or something like that.
[640.27] Koel: Then three hundred and fifty bucks for for the old four system.
[643.27] Koel: So under a thousand bucks, you can get into the latest and greatest digital system, maybe not like the latest and greatest goggles.
[653.27] Stephen: And if you've got some like secondary quads, you can put the light one on there for like one thirty bucks a pop just if you don't need the best.
[663.27] Koel: Yeah. And then if you don't. And then if this negates the use of an action camera, you can slap way bigger batteries on your quad because now you're reducing at least one hundred to one hundred fifty grams ish on a GoPro.
[679.27] Stephen: And it's got a micro SD card slot that takes up to 512 gigs.
[682.27] Stephen: So you don't get stuck with the like because the DJI.
[686.27] Stephen: What was it?
[687.27] Stephen: The action.
[688.27] Stephen: You had to like drain the footage of it.
[690.27] Stephen: Whereas this, you just swap SD cards and you're good.
[693.27] Stephen: Right.
[694.27] Koel: Well, so I what I was looking at was the four pro does have an SD card slot.
[699.27] Koel: The small one doesn't.
[701.27] Koel: Only internal.
[702.27] Koel: Okay. Yeah.
[703.27] Koel: Yeah.
[705.27] Koel: But I mean, I was watching potato jets.
[709.27] Koel: I think it was like his younger brother or something in the video who was flying it.
[713.27] Koel: And man, on a woop or like a little, you know, to it can't go down to one as Kenneth or it's kind of pushing it.
[721.27] Koel: Right.
[722.27] Stephen: So this is what I was hearing.
[724.27] Stephen: Like it goes down to three point something volts.
[727.27] Stephen: What's the actual stated figure?
[729.27] Stephen: I've got the specs from Oscar here.
[732.27] Stephen: And damn, I can't see.
[737.27] Stephen: I think it was three.
[738.27] Stephen: Yeah, three point seven volts.
[739.27] Stephen: You see input voltage of a minimum of three point seven volts.
[743.27] Stephen: That's just going to that's death on a one S.
[746.27] Stephen: True.
[747.27] Stephen: Yeah.
[748.27] Stephen: Three point seven a lot.
[750.27] Koel: Yeah.
[751.27] Koel: So like two S.
[752.27] Koel: I mean, dude, on a two S woop or tiny woop or whatever.
[756.27] Koel: I mean, that's to have that kind of image quality is insane.
[761.27] Koel: Yeah.
[762.27] Stephen: And honestly, like two S systems are so much easier to work with them.
[765.27] Stephen: One S.
[766.27] Stephen: One S is like you have to buy the super primo batteries from this one place that imports them that always sells out.
[772.27] Stephen: You have to use the weird battery connector that's not that weird battery connector.
[775.27] Stephen: It's the other one isn't compatible with the other battery.
[778.27] Stephen: You have to have a special charger that's different to your other charger.
[781.27] Stephen: Then the batteries degrade and they come down really hot.
[784.27] Stephen: But that's OK.
[785.27] Stephen: It's normal.
[786.27] Stephen: Don't worry about it.
[787.27] Stephen: Just come on.
[788.27] Stephen: If you go to two S, everything's just like back in the realm of the saying again, it's easy to manage.
[794.27] Koel: Well, you know what?
[795.27] Koel: So like the isn't done like right now.
[798.27] Koel: I'm still waiting on props for my little tiny woop that I think I talked about it maybe a few weeks back or a month or so ago.
[805.27] Koel: And because the only props I have the the whatever you put it down on it and it's cracked.
[811.27] Koel: So it just flies off every time you try to fly.
[814.27] Koel: I've been waiting for new props for it for like a month now.
[818.27] Koel: Still hasn't showed up.
[819.27] Koel: I have everything else but new props to fly this tiny woop.
[822.27] Koel: And it's on one S although the board is two S capable.
[827.27] Koel: I think boom boom boom.
[830.27] Koel: But yeah, it does seem like I don't know it.
[835.27] Koel: If you're going to.
[837.27] Koel: Would you even be able to fit a gram VTX on a one S?
[841.27] Stephen: Would that be someone you know this like I remember Rabbit Ambulance like he had all these bills that he did with the original DJI the two board stack and he was like yeah I get this on a one S woop.
[852.27] Stephen: Immensely creative applause to the guy for his dedication.
[856.27] Stephen: Yeah.
[857.27] Stephen: He did a lot of work to make that happen.
[859.27] Stephen: You're going around and you're shopping for special screws.
[862.27] Stephen: You're shopping.
[863.27] Stephen: Everything is unique in the build.
[864.27] Stephen: Everything is a special built board apart.
[866.27] Stephen: It's a challenge.
[868.27] Stephen: Either it's just a massive tape or something.
[872.27] Koel: That's the one thing about the whole tiny woop scene is like you're from what I've seen.
[877.27] Koel: I don't know a whole lot about it but you're pushing the limits on weight to performance to flight time and whatnot.
[883.27] Koel: Right.
[884.27] Koel: And it's people are doing everything they can to save weight and just.
[890.27] Stephen: I mean I think certainly when you when you get up to like that two inch two and a half inch this is it's totally a no brainer.
[896.27] Stephen: You just do it and you're going to somewhat between two inch quads and up to like three and a half inch that light unit is going to be great.
[904.27] Stephen: It's going to fit pretty much everything.
[906.27] Stephen: It's basically the same size and weight as the walks now system and I've put that into a whole bunch of quads in that bracket.
[913.27] Stephen: They work great.
[914.27] Stephen: It's easy.
[915.27] Stephen: And this one has a USB C plug to get the footage off which.
[919.27] Stephen: That's good.
[920.27] Stephen: Yeah.
[921.27] Stephen: The walks now ones didn't seem to remember you had to kind of mess around with their little adapter.
[927.27] Stephen: Yeah.
[928.27] Stephen: I think so.
[929.27] UNKNOWN: Yeah.
[930.27] Stephen: So it looks like the the light unit has 23 gigs available space which is probably going to if there's anything like the previous DJI that's going to get yourself quick.
[941.27] Stephen: It's going to fill up quick.
[942.27] Stephen: Not crazy quick.
[943.27] Stephen: If you can constrain your flying to scenic flying at like 4K 30.
[950.27] Stephen: Yes.
[951.27] Stephen: It's going to last a lot longer 4K 100.
[953.27] Stephen: That thing's going to be nailed inside of two packs.
[956.27] Stephen: Totally.
[957.27] Stephen: Less than that you'll be OK.
[959.27] Koel: But the other thing too that potato jet was like begging of DJI for this release was can we please get 24 frames per second in for recording.
[970.27] Koel: And they said no.
[973.27] Koel: You can't.
[974.27] Koel: But they also know we eat though.
[976.27] Koel: They gave 48 frames per second.
[978.27] Koel: So it's.
[979.27] Koel: Yeah.
[980.27] Stephen: On the fourth three apparently your S.O.L. also.
[984.27] Stephen: Because if you put the you've got this weird situation where on DJI the goggles are always running like an integer multiple of what you're recording.
[994.27] Stephen: Yeah.
[995.27] Stephen: So if you if you if you have like 120 FPS goggles with the goggles V2 you could like you could record 4K 60.
[1005.27] Stephen: Yeah.
[1006.27] Stephen: And then you could fly 4K 120.
[1009.27] Stephen: But you couldn't like on the 100 FPS goggles.
[1012.27] Stephen: There was no option to record at 4K 50.
[1016.27] Stephen: So you had to step it down and run like 2.7 K 100 or some crazy.
[1021.27] Stephen: Yeah.
[1022.27] Koel: It was just a little bit messed up and you're still some kind of limitation I guess right.
[1026.27] Koel: Like something.
[1029.27] Koel: There's going to be a reason for it.
[1030.27] Koel: Like I don't know what that reason is.
[1032.27] Koel: But I'm sure there's some kind of hardware limitation.
[1035.27] Stephen: I mean integer integer frame drops.
[1037.27] Stephen: You know you can imagine how easy it is Cole.
[1040.27] Stephen: You're literally just throwing away every second frame.
[1042.27] Stephen: It's super easy.
[1044.27] Stephen: Yeah.
[1045.27] Stephen: Whereas if you're trying to go from 120 FPS to 50 or you're trying to go from 100 to 60.
[1052.27] Stephen: You're like it's you don't have a one to one anymore.
[1055.27] Stephen: You're like well I dropped this frame and then I reconstruct another frame out of these two frames and then drop a frame and then I reconstruct frame out of these other frames.
[1064.27] Stephen: And it's just there's a lot more maths to do.
[1066.27] Stephen: So don't do it.
[1068.27] Koel: Well and that was the one thing too like I mean it's not for related or anything like that but.
[1074.27] Koel: And I know when it comes to analog we don't talk about frames per second we're talking about like fields per second right.
[1082.27] Koel: And I don't know if you guys are familiar with this at all but.
[1087.27] Stephen: I am more familiar with fields per second than you want to know Cole.
[1092.27] Stephen: I've had computers back in the old days when I had to have RF modulators.
[1096.27] Stephen: I am too familiar if anything.
[1098.27] Koel: Because now that I have these fat shark HDO plus goggles like I don't know if they even advertise what the fields per second are.
[1109.27] Koel: Someone was saying like that it's a high refresh rate which I don't think that's even the correct terminology but.
[1116.27] Stephen: 60 mates like you get 30 30 frames per second 60.
[1122.27] Stephen: That's NTSC and pal is 50 25.
[1126.27] Stephen: That's all you get.
[1128.27] Stephen: There's no there's no like miraculous.
[1130.27] Stephen: Maybe if you're a Frenchy and you're smoking like a goal was inside a jeton and being super cool.
[1137.27] Stephen: You might get Seachem.
[1139.27] Stephen: But I think anyone in FPV is using Seachem.
[1143.27] Koel: Well it's weird because like I mean if you look at the specs I mean I know we're kind of getting off topic here but like.
[1149.27] Koel: The other the DVR recording is still six megabits per second.
[1154.27] Koel: Crying.
[1155.27] Koel: Wait is there.
[1156.27] Koel: Wait wait.
[1157.27] Stephen: Oh there we go.
[1158.27] Stephen: There you go.
[1159.27] Stephen: I thought that I thought you're going to end up with a poop on your head for a second.
[1162.27] Stephen: I wasn't sure what was going to happen.
[1164.27] Stephen: Yeah.
[1165.27] Stephen: But I mean yeah sorry.
[1167.27] Stephen: Sorry six megabit would be okay if it was like H two six five.
[1171.27] Stephen: But I think that's the good thing about these digital systems because.
[1175.27] Stephen: Yeah.
[1176.27] Stephen: The DVR is using the over the air format onto the goggles and naturally inclined to make that a space efficient as possible.
[1184.27] Stephen: So you get really good DVR on the goggles and you get excellent DVR on the quad.
[1189.27] Stephen: Yeah because it's part and parcel of the whole system.
[1192.27] Stephen: Whereas on analog the DVR is hey we've got an extra bullet point we can put on our features list.
[1197.27] Stephen: We'll get the cheapest DVR module we can find.
[1200.27] Koel: Yeah.
[1201.27] Stephen: Sorry for running away with that.
[1204.58] Koel: No no no honestly it's better that we're kind of going back to the digital realm I guess on for this topic.
[1210.58] Koel: But I mean I guess the big thing for me I think that really draws my attention.
[1217.58] Koel: Obviously like I said I'm not a digital guy when it comes to this drone stuff but being able to ditch an action camera.
[1229.58] Koel: Throw on a heavier battery still get really nice footage does seem like something that would be just game changing in the sense of just longer flight times almost as good as an action camera.
[1244.58] Stephen: This is interesting.
[1245.58] Stephen: I knew it was going to happen eventually and I guess I've been kind of waiting with curiosity call but it's finally it's tripped some like invisible line in your opinion of the system where we've now got to the point where it's gone from being that's too expensive.
[1260.58] Stephen: No no no to like okay.
[1264.58] Koel: I mean I guess here's the thing I was toying with the idea at the O3 release as well.
[1269.58] Koel: So like it always peaks my interest it doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to jump on the bandwagon but and the other thing too is every time there's these releases people put out footage that looks so good and it looks so nice and it's like it blows your mind.
[1284.58] Koel: But then I'll see like other people's footage and it doesn't look anything like that. So then I'm like do I want to do a thousand dollar investment for an experiment to see if it's good enough like.
[1296.58] Stephen: Well you know every year GoPro has a competition and they produce the most amazing footage you've ever seen it doesn't mean if you buy a GoPro you get anything like that right.
[1305.58] Stephen: Well you can. You've got like a tiger sanctuary and a fireworks factory and a squirrel suit. Yeah that's true that's true.
[1317.58] Frank: I mean it's Coles video from Taiwan like I think he's got a fair claim to some of this stuff like has been to places and flown in a way that does justify some of this nice video stuff.
[1332.58] Frank: You know when it's like 3 p.m. on a December day where it's gray and wet in the UK and flying around like yeah your local park.
[1348.58] Stephen: It's possibly not the justification. This is where they tend to perform really well when the light levels are generous and it'll be interesting to see how this works with all lighting because well for the Vista and for the O3 I can tell you low light levels are the curse of that system.
[1370.58] Stephen: The noise flares up the graininess is really apparent and all of a sudden you're not looking at sharp footage you're looking at kind of a smear mush.
[1379.58] Frank: So that was I've got a what a 30 percent bigger sensor. Yeah they've got the same inch is pretty good. I think is it a half inch or is it one over one.
[1392.58] Stephen: Oh yeah actually we're getting one over one point three on the fat boy so the fat gets a bigger sensor.
[1401.58] Koel: Which again I think let me just double check here. I think on the DJI Mini 3 and on the DJI or Mini 3 Pro Mini 4 Pro.
[1411.58] Koel: I think they also yeah they get the same size and those are those cameras are really good and low light.
[1417.58] Koel: So referencing back to potato jets as well like he did a some low light tests and yeah it's not quite as good as like the the action 5 camera.
[1429.58] Koel: But I think that has a bigger sensor than that but compared to the O3 I think it's going to kind of blow it away.
[1437.58] Koel: And I think that's a bit of a huge complaint. I think it's even a one point seven aperture lens as well.
[1443.58] Stephen: So you're going from like point five eight square inches on the O3 to point seven six or point seven seven on the four.
[1451.58] Stephen: It's an appreciable increase in area. Yeah.
[1455.58] Koel: And I think oh no you know I lied it's not a one point seven aperture it's a two point eight aperture.
[1462.58] Koel: Oh wait wait. Oh it has a one point seven. OK sorry I'm looking at wrong specs here.
[1469.58] Koel: But look at the O4 Pro has a two point eight aperture.
[1473.58] Stephen: They also drop the weight on the Pro. So it's down from the hair under 40 grams to 32 grams.
[1479.58] Stephen: So weight savings on the full fat one never mind the light.
[1483.58] Koel: I feel like they're as every year comes in the releases come out like they're refining it to a point where it's going to get smaller and smaller.
[1490.58] Koel: And better and better. So I'm one thing that I'm confused at though is like why don't they use a faster lens.
[1500.58] Koel: I guess maybe two point eight is like the point where they're like we need this much in focus.
[1504.58] Koel: We don't even want any barrel distortion. It could be. Yeah.
[1509.58] Stephen: Because you tend to go for the low the low F like the prime lenses the glass ends up costing more.
[1516.58] Stephen: You need like more bulk in the lens and maybe they just don't want to give you like a giant camera.
[1522.58] Koel: But the thing is with the DJI Mini 3 Pro and Mini 4 Pro they do have a one point seven aperture lens.
[1529.58] Koel: So I'm like if they can put that in their little mini drones couldn't.
[1534.58] Stephen: Yeah. But how big is the sensor behind that as well.
[1537.58] Stephen: And also designing the entire chassis around the camera whereas we're going to just shove it on the pointy end of something.
[1544.58] Frank: Yeah. That's true. With a couple of bits of carbon. Call it good.
[1548.58] Frank: And F2.8 it's pretty that's a pretty wide aperture for this tiny sensor.
[1555.58] Frank: Yeah. It's fine. I'm interested in the thermals on this because they're making it smaller.
[1564.58] Frank: They're making it lighter. And the O3 already had overheating problems.
[1568.58] Stephen: And they're increasing the power output. You go from 30 dBm on the O3 to 33 dBm on the O4.
[1575.58] Frank: Or normal numbers from one watt to two watts.
[1579.58] Frank: Yeah. Or also.
[1582.58] Koel: 25 milliwatts obviously. 25 to 25.
[1589.58] Koel: So that actually is an interesting thing as far as like people go out and say they buy this system.
[1597.58] Koel: Can you choose? Because I don't know anything about these digital systems. Do you choose your output? Do you choose your high levels?
[1606.58] Stephen: No. You just say I'm an American yeehaw yeehaw and then you crank it to FCE.
[1613.58] Stephen: And I've heard other people have had good results based on SD cards I found in the park.
[1619.58] Stephen: Definitely. Yeah.
[1621.58] Frank: I've heard it's very easy to do. You just stick a file on an SD card. You put your SD cards in your...
[1627.58] Stephen: You whistle a couple of bars of Yankee Doodle Dandy and it just sets you to FCE. You're good.
[1633.58] Stephen: Yeah.
[1634.58] Frank: All of a sudden it just does everything you could want it to do.
[1639.58] Koel: So no matter which mode you're in, whatever region-wise, there's no like I want to be at this dBm. I want to be at this dBm.
[1647.58] Koel: I want to be at this dBm. And you can choose and see if you're going to fly close. You have it on the lowest.
[1652.58] Koel: Or is it all just dynamic?
[1654.58] Stephen: It's dynamic. So what it's doing is looking at the amount of errors that are in the stream.
[1658.58] Stephen: And if the amount of errors creep up, then it thrashes up the power.
[1662.58] Stephen: Similar to what Express LRS does, but there's evidently a bunch more maths and a bunch more communication.
[1668.58] Stephen: It's just, what's my link quality? Oh, that's a bit dicey. Crank it. Oh, that looks fine. Let's try and back it down.
[1674.58] Frank: I believe on the OGA unit, you could select it, which is why certain people like that.
[1683.58] Frank: Because then they can pick the right one for them.
[1686.58] Jack: Yeah.
[1687.58] Frank: But yeah, from three onwards, it seems like...
[1692.58] Stephen: You set the ceiling, and it goes below that ceiling, but you don't get to statically set it for the whole time.
[1699.58] Stephen: Which is good, because you don't really want it burning the quad up while you're arming it and checking it.
[1704.58] Frank: No, there is that. But it does mean that if you're flying somewhere where it's spotty, like if you go behind something and you lose that connection,
[1715.58] Frank: in that instance, I would be gone. I would be completely lost, because in my experience of seeing people use this in places where you're allowed to use Lano power,
[1728.58] Frank: when you lose the connection, the air unit goes, oh, I don't have a connection. I'd better go back to my minimum power.
[1737.58] Stephen: It was one of the accusations people leveled against O3 that once it went, oh, I can't see any VTXs at all, I give up.
[1747.58] Stephen: Both sides of the link shrugged and waited until they had returned to within 15 feet of each other and could connect on minimum power.
[1756.58] Stephen: Which, if you're flying a distance or in a challenging RF environment, is terrible.
[1762.58] Stephen: What people really want to see from the O4 that we've yet to see born out with any testing is aggressive link re-establishment.
[1769.58] Stephen: This is something that walksnail to their credit. People like to give them a bunch of shtick, but they figured it out and they made it work.
[1776.58] Stephen: You don't worry about losing connection with walksnail. It'll just appear when it has line of sight to the receiver again.
[1786.58] Koel: Because I remember some of the things that deterred me from going digital with these DJI systems was like,
[1794.58] Koel: you'd see people flying, it would go, and then it would be pixels, and then it would be splash screen.
[1802.58] Koel: And to me, I'm not even on board with that, even slightly.
[1809.58] Koel: But apparently with the O3 unit, it got better, or it doesn't just do that. It kind of fixes itself a bit.
[1818.58] Stephen: I mean, it's not perfect. I don't know if I'd really trust my O3. I fly my O3 stuff when I want to take a light quad and I want to get some nice footage with it.
[1828.58] Stephen: I don't want to have to carry an action camera as well. I want to fly something that's like sub-250 and still get decent picture.
[1838.58] Stephen: Would I put it behind Bando walls at distance? I'd probably recce it with another drone before I did that. I wouldn't do it immediately with the O3.
[1849.58] Koel: The weird thing that I see on these spec sheets of O4 versus O3, or O4 Pro versus O3, is like supposedly the maximum range on O3 was like 23 kilometers supposedly.
[1864.58] Koel: And what I'm seeing on Oscar Lang's website is that it's supposedly 13 kilometers, but maybe to be, you know, continued or to be discovered.
[1874.58] Koel: But you'd think, I mean, you'd think, okay, four is better than three. Four should be able to go a little further.
[1884.58] Stephen: Caroline's saying on race mode, you can fix the bandwidth or the power or the race channel or all of them, I guess.
[1893.58] Stephen: She also mentions that, yeah, you do get a good picture down to low single digits on O3. It's much better at hanging on to those last few fragments of MPEG data and rendering it on the goggles.
[1905.58] Stephen: The issue that people had was when it did lose connection, it didn't then reestablish that connection. That was the problem. You ended up in this situation where both sides kind of thought, well, there's no point trying and didn't.
[1918.58] Stephen: For instance, what you really want, you want the VTX to just go to maximum power and blast and for the goggles to be wide open for a new connection from the VTX.
[1927.58] Stephen: And O3 wasn't doing that, which is why it's a little bit problematic.
[1932.58] Frank: This episode was recorded in front of a live online audience, downloaded and edited to make sense when it played audio only, censored to please the iTunes people, hosted on the Internet, forwarded through to your podcast provider, downloaded, playing on your device and is now playing in your ears.
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[1958.58] Frank: Caroline is also saying that the official number for O3 was 10 kilometer range compared to the fours claimed 15. So they're claiming more. Yes.
[1970.58] Frank: I guess.
[1974.58] Koel: It's the same thing as when they put out a like a Mavic tape drone so you get this amount of flight time battery buyers.
[1980.58] Stephen: But I just thought it's academic. If you're going over 10K, aren't you just running like a pilot or I now with a route plan anyway, and you'll just be like, see, you know, you're out in a desert in the US or somewhere and you're just like going to fly this thing.
[1995.58] Stephen: And if you lose signal, it's going to have a kill switch that just bumps it up to a thousand odd meters and just bombs it back at home at sensible level, right?
[2006.58] Koel: Yeah, I mean, if you're flying 10 kilometers away, you are.
[2011.58] Stephen: You'd be kind of crazy to do it full manual, right?
[2016.58] Koel: That's a long walk. That's a that's a hike.
[2020.58] Koel: Hopefully you had to make sure you got GPS on that thing. Yeah, yeah.
[2023.58] Stephen: You're like, oh, I know exactly where it landed, but it's going to take me like two hours to hike there. Maybe if I run.
[2031.58] Koel: Yeah, what I'm curious about, like, I wonder what like the long range record, but like I want the long range record is just fully like free ball in it.
[2043.58] Stephen: No GPS. Like, I'm curious. Well, the LRS guys did 100 K infamously in that instant that landed Wesley a letter from the aviation.
[2054.58] Stephen: Yeah. So 100 K I say is that's pretty pretty strong, strong entry.
[2061.58] Stephen: Those on two point four gigahertz radio forget crossfire as well. Like, wow. Yeah.
[2067.58] Stephen: That's wild, man. Yeah, it's people who say they may crossfire to do more than like a 5K. Yeah. Take that with a pinch of salt.
[2076.58] Koel: Yeah. Yeah, it's it is cool, though, man. It is cool to see. Well, one thing that I thought was funny was like leading all up to this DJO for release.
[2089.22] Koel: Bardwell was like, DJ, I hates me. They didn't send me anything. I'm so annoyed. And like, what what's like one of the first things I see today. Bardwell reviewing. Yeah, DJ, I turned up at his house and personally orally pleasure him.
[2105.22] Stephen: Give him a presentation on oh, sorry, you made a mistake on that.
[2111.22] Stephen: I mean, they spoke to him about 04. It gave him great pleasure. Yes, that's better. You think I meant the gutter cold. Sorry, sorry.
[2129.22] Koel: Yeah, no, it is interesting, though, like, I always love seeing these are like these releases because you find out who's on the inside.
[2140.22] Stephen: You know what I mean? Like, who's, you know, who's got over a million subscribers and has earned a living off YouTube real quick. Yeah.
[2152.22] Stephen: In case anyone's wondering, not us. But we are coming up to our time here. Just out of shock. Cole is actually sitting on a pile of DJI kick. It's about two foot off the ground, about two foot off the ground, just about five air units. And I'm waiting for next year. Yeah.
[2176.78] Stephen: It's going to be nice. But back to the why, why would you move to DJI? Or why wouldn't you? You've got to bear in mind that if you buy now, there's every indication that it's going to work this year, and the next year. And then after that, you're going to get the birdie and you're going to get someone asking you to spend maybe 250 if you're lucky, but maybe $500 for a new set of goggles.
[2203.78] Koel: And that's kind of what it looks like if you're using DJI. Yeah, I got a buddy of mine locally who he's on O3. He says he's going to go O4. And what he was saying was like, oh, man, like, well, why don't you just get some like, V2 goggles now in an O3 air unit? And I'm like, because it's not going to be compatible with anything. Like those, those V2s aren't even compatible with any of this new system now.
[2232.78] Stephen: The goggles too, you can do, wait, wait, the goggles V2, you can run an O3 on them. Yeah. Thank you very much for someone for donating. Although I had to peel off some some bunch of stickers that were attached, which I think, I think were intended to look like American flags, but unintentionally actually had Dutch flags all over them.
[2259.78] Stephen: These are goggles American shoes that red, white and blue is just their flag. But when it's arranged in a specific arrangement, it's actually definitely Dutch. So France.
[2271.78] Stephen: Yeah, well, there we are. Yeah, so you're just going to be, you're going to be a little bit stuck. And this is why I'm curiously watching walks now to see what they do, because so far, they've resisted the urge to cut backwards compatibility.
[2286.78] Stephen: Whereas DJI have really set a precedent where when you went from the the original air units to the O3, the first set of goggles just was cut off. So well, good luck. Thank you and goodbye. And then when you went from back to the O4, what you're seeing is now the second set of goggles is cut off.
[2307.78] Stephen: The goggles fee to no longer works. And I think we're now so you need goggles to or Integra. And if you have those you lose race mode, because apparently they've changed some of the image processing. So instead of using the just one chip set and kicking out h 264 data. Now they're using a separate chips, they've added into the mix that has h 265. And that doesn't work with the goggles to doesn't work with Integra.
[2334.78] Stephen: So you can't do race mode on those. And there's every indication that when you get to that to the next iteration with O5, the Integra and goggles to are going to be out of the mix. So so then you need to think, well, how long are they going to actually be in stock? If I invest in O4 now, and I want to use these pair of goggles, how long can I realistically buy stock of these VTXs for? Which is, I guess, a lot of people are going to be in stock.
[2364.78] Koel: I guess something you don't really have to worry about with analog. In fact, it's the the one thing you don't have to worry about analog. No, no. Well, it's just crazy. I was looking at that, that the chart, basically. So 12345678. Oh, sorry.
[2383.78] Stephen: So 12345. They don't count for they count goggles, goggles V2. And then it goes from two to Integra. And then I'm getting headache goggles three and three. Yeah, yeah. So there's there's six different goggles. Now, like, there's six different goggles. There's three different sets of naming standards, like literally each
[2412.54] Stephen: generation, the product has a totally different naming standard. This isn't even the fourth generation, the product, this is the third generation of the product. But it's called O4. Because why? Well, f you were the first because I obviously the first one was the DJI air unit in this generation. Yeah, you've got the DJI air unit that was weird, weirdly shaped. Oh, congratulations, printed TPU mount and trying shoehorn it into a drone.
[2442.62] Stephen: And then you've got the Vista, we discovered bolt holes, you can now bolt the thing to a drone revolutionary. And then after that, you go to the O3 and now the O4.
[2454.94] Koel: So what I'm curious, though, is so what was the release date of the original OG air unit?
[2462.94] Stephen: Um, if anyone can remember that, it feels almost prehistoric. Now, I think the first couple of generations were on the 2018 2019. Yeah, I think the first ones were on like a two year delay before we got O3 took a really long time to arrive. And from O3 to O4, it's been much quicker.
[2485.16] Koel: I'm just I'm really curious because I think yeah, I think it was 2018. Okay, people are saying 2019 something. So let's say 2018 2019 just as a if we don't have the official because I just to get a feel for it. Yeah.
[2502.28] Stephen: So I think it was before lockdown. So I think 2019. Yeah.
[2506.92] Koel: Okay, well, it's really weird. Like I typed in DJI air unit release date. And nothing, I'm not getting the answers.
[2516.16] Stephen: It's all being flooded with our full release.
[2519.36] Stephen: I'm just getting flooded with our full stuff when I try.
[2521.6] Koel: Yeah. Okay, so let's say 2018. So 29, 2020, 2021, 22, 23, 24, 25. So in seven years, we've had six slash seven, well, essentially almost seven goggles of one goggle per year.
[2540.44] Stephen: But after the so the last two generations have included two bargain. Yes, yes, you've got the premium.
[2549.32] Stephen: So throw away two of those goggles iterations, you've got the goggles, the goggles v2, the goggles two, and the goggles three, you've only actually got four goggles.
[2558.48] Koel: Because Integra and m3 were bargain versions. Yes.
[2564.0] Koel: It's just yeah, I guess in the past when it comes to analog goggles, how often was fat shark putting out, you know, like, what was HDL to HDL two, and then or what was like, what was there?
[2577.0] Koel: It was the same tech, really, wasn't it?
[2579.8] Frank: Yeah, it didn't make a huge difference. Like you can still use all your old VTXs. Yeah, I can still use my old VTXs with breads.
[2591.6] Koel: There was no it wasn't like a proprietary anything. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's interesting. It's it's, I don't know, DJI put it this way, they know what they're doing, they know how to make money.
[2603.28] Koel: So and they also know how to make people excited about what they're releasing.
[2607.16] Stephen: And that's how you can trust them.
[2610.56] Koel: You know what, like, everyone hates on DJI, everybody hates on Apple. I always say that DJI is the Apple of drones. The thing is for me is like,
[2621.0] Stephen: if you want a good breakfast, go to McDonald's.
[2623.92] Koel: Well, I guess it's like, do we hate them? Because they're so good. And because they're the ones that are like, you know, they're like, Oh, let's figure out how we can make that everyone
[2636.64] Stephen: really don't engage with us at all. Like as much as we like, we swear and complain at DJI, because they just disregard us and throw products at us. And then it's the only thing we're going to get and they're not going to talk to us.
[2649.32] Stephen: So the community just goes size collectively, and figures out how to make it work.
[2655.2] Stephen: How to get one. Yeah, well, how to fit it into a frame, how to make the firmware work with it like none of this. They're making 20 mil sized cameras. No one else makes 20 mil sized camera, they could make it one millimeter
[2669.28] Koel: to narrow it. Do they? Do they? But I guess the question is, they're making it to what they can make it as right? Like, so they're like, we're the king here. We're the king. So everybody has to bow down to us. We're going to make it how we need to make it. Or you don't use it.
[2688.48] Stephen: I remember when Cadex released a camera, they did a 19 mil camera. Yeah. And they and they're just like, yeah, there's Yeah, of course, there's like a 90 mil one. And everyone's like, wow. And then after that, we went back to DJI doing the cameras themselves. And they're like, well, if you 20 mil, yeah, don't fit.
[2708.4] Koel: Bridge of work in the chat has done some research and says it launched summer 2019. Yeah, okay. Right. Yeah, yeah. So so we've gotten a lot of goggles and not a lot of years, basically. And again, this is why I stick with analog. I do love I do love DJI products. I like their camera stabilizers. I do like their little mini drones, because they're so handy as a tool. But if it when it comes down to
[2736.56] Koel: just being able to fly, not having to worry about any bullshit. Like, that's why I'm an analog. That's why I'm an analog guy, man. Because it's like, yeah, I put a battery into my drone. I turn my bat my goggles on. And they work. I don't need a boot up. I don't need to wait for the splash screen to them, press a thing that says go live or go fly or whatever. It's like, you turn it on, it just works. And, and in most cases, it's more than good.
[2766.56] Stephen: Good enough to see. And like, I know, I know, I know analog is never going to be as good as digital picture wise. But it is good enough if you get good analog magnetism, man. Absolutely. Yeah, the right tool to do the job. You can't find one tool that does everything. DJI is not good for whoops. DJI is not good for except for now. Long range DJI is not good for racing. There's loads of things it's not good for just it happens to make the best TV
[2796.56] Stephen: commercial for people that don't really know anything about drones. And it gives those people the impression that it's the best for everything because they haven't tried to build something that's under 25 grams, they haven't tried to fly over 10k. They haven't tried to go racing. They're just, it just looks like, oh, pretty, I can chase someone on a mountain bike must be able to do everything.
[2818.12] Frank: Well, this, this links back to why keep saying about FPV is the barrier to entry for newbies. DJI keeps the barrier to entry for newbies to try any of these things. Yeah. To like, let's take their first steps, they can take their first steps towards long range towards cinematic towards FPV towards racing as in they can fly something round the track.
[2846.0] Frank: They might be able to finish. Yeah, yeah. And they, you know, they've lowered the bar to do all this stuff.
[2855.0] Koel: Which, which honestly, in a lot of ways, like you have to tip your hat to them. Because again, going back to the Apple of drones, like the way that Apple has always been inside, you get a small little nice computer, it looks nice, you just press a button, it works. And you don't have to know anything about a computer for it to work.
[2874.72] Koel: And for you to get good results out of it. And then you get Steven, who's about to rip his mustache out because I'm saying these things.
[2882.36] Koel: But I'm just pulling my head with my glass.
[2886.24] Koel: But but it's so true, though. And I'm not even I'm not even being like, Oh, yeah, I love them. They're so great. But that's just what they do. And for the average Joe who doesn't even know how to like,
[2896.24] Stephen: they can take something out of the box. They don't need to be like, Oh, I need to flash my ESC. What's an ESC?
[2901.88] Frank: Yeah, what is flashing me?
[2904.2] Stephen: Yeah, by the way, I've got a dirty Mac, and I've got the drone. This doesn't feel like I'm doing the right thing.
[2911.92] Koel: Well, I don't know, man. It's like, it's almost like it's like going to the dealership to pay them for a new wiper blade. It's like, I mean, I'm sure people do it. And they get fleeced and they do it. But that's what
[2927.56] Stephen: No, it's gonna take half an hour, mate. At least.
[2931.56] Koel: And it's gonna charge we're gonna charge you like 30 extra dollars on top of the cost of the actual wiper.
[2936.88] Stephen: There's a $3 wiper blade is now $50. But yeah, we want to start to update the warranty claims. Oh,
[2946.48] Stephen: man, yeah. And fair enough people get into the hobby that way. I was buying Hobson kit, you know, when I got started. And then I just got infuriated because I'm like, Yeah, this is this all
[2956.92] Stephen: look suspiciously like BS. Surely there's another way. Oh, you mean read millions of manuals, I can read millions of manuals off we go.
[2965.12] Frank: Well, that's the thing. But you've you'd, at that point, you derisked the time you needed to spend to learn everything, right? Because you'd already had a bit of an experience and gone, Oh, this is something I enjoy. It's worth putting the time
[2979.72] Frank: and actually just wants to get a pretty picture of the sea, then maybe you're not someone that wants to learn to solder just to do when you start out, you don't know what you're like, right? Like, you don't know if what really is going to excite you is long range or proxy or racing or cinematic or you don't know. So to have some options to get into that easily. And that's, that's what I worry about.
[3010.56] Frank: You know, this the separation of racing and everything in FPV is is that it's, you know, the outside of the hobby is actually really hard for anyone to get a taste of everything. But you can't sample everything the way when it was all bits of wood and on power. Like, you could dip your toes into everything because it was all similar enough
[3039.76] Frank: to each other. But now everyone's spent all this time and effort developing all all these kind of different branches of FPV. And they've evolved away from each other. Like, they're all really, you know, the bleeding edge, they're amazing things that those 10 people can do really well. But they've, I don't, you know, not not meaning to, but they've almost drawn up the ladder behind them by
[3068.48] Frank: making it harder to get into these areas, like to get into any of these areas, because, you know,
[3074.56] Frank: it's not a musical person who was really enjoyed freestyle, tries freestyle before racing is isn't very slim. And now if they've, if they bought racing kit, and they can't, you know, or they bought whoop kit, and they can't go and do some freestyle stuff outside with what they've got, or whatever, you know, there's, there's, it's a lot easier for people to
[3097.88] Frank: end up getting themselves into a dead end of off the hobby and be like, I've got this kit, but I didn't enjoy it. So this is not a hobby for me. So that's it. Yeah, it almost never blinders get put on when all you've done is gone down one street when there's branches of streets, right? Like,
[3115.04] Stephen: it reminds me of musical genres where you could rewind like 60 years and be like, Oh, it's, it's played on electric guitar, it's rock music done. And now you're like, Oh, is it like symphonic black metal? Is it hardcore? Is it reggae? Well, you know, there's this guitar can be put to a million different uses in totally different spectrums of the sound. And it feels like we've diverged like that. My concern is, if we say DJI
[3145.04] Stephen: is just categorically the best way to get into the hobby, it's kind of like, well, the best way to get into computing is to buy a Mac, please get $2,000 together and buy a Mac. And that is then the drawbridge for new users that they need to get this huge pile of cash.
[3161.92] Frank: So what we're saying is we need the BBC micro of FPV.
[3165.72] Stephen: Yeah, the micro drone, perhaps, Frank.
[3169.08] Koel: Yeah. And on my what's the BBC micro all the all the old computer?
[3173.28] Stephen: Yeah, yeah, yeah, really cheesy, like Motorola CPU based thing that black and red keyboard. Yeah, it was funded by the BBC. And a lot of people here in the UK, their first experience of computing might have been at a school with like a fishbowl CRT
[3188.64] Stephen: monitor, yellowed BBC micro and you'd learn to do programs that look like an idiot typing a poem with lots of go to statements.
[3201.6] Stephen: Jack. Yeah, acorn atom for Caroline. Oh, fancy pants. I don't know. I, in my opinion, like I feel like
[3211.72] Koel: whatever works for anybody. That's I think that's all that really matters. Like, there's no right or wrong way of doing anything. Stephen might disagree when it comes to computing.
[3223.48] Stephen: But you work to the Mac store, I mean, just get the sales percent. There's no right way or wrong. There's an Apple product for everyone.
[3232.64] Stephen: Or maybe you want an iPhone, or maybe you're going to get this fancy display over here. There's really a lifestyle product for everyone.
[3239.64] Koel: Wait, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Wait for it. Wait for it. Well, since have you got over there? Oh, wait, oh, wait, it's going the wrong way. Oh, crap. Don't, don't show that. Oh, my God.
[3252.52] Koel: That's not a Mac down there. There we go. This is that's actually 1000 corg. First wavetable synth ever. And it works again, which is really nice.
[3270.4] Koel: But I don't know, man, like, like, what is it? What's the what's the term? Like,
[3279.72] Stephen: I've had an Atari ST for those that are listening along. That's what I started.
[3285.36] Koel: Yeah, I guess I guess it's just like, in the day and age of everybody wants everything as simple and easy as possible, even if it costs more money. That's the that's the age we're in right now, which, like, we all want, as humans, we all want to walk the path of least resistance, right? And that doesn't actually help you in any way, from what I've learned, because I was a DJ I mavic guy, for many, many years before I got in this.
[3312.96] Stephen: Yeah, Janet, very well, I'm sure it just doesn't nothing does everything. And you've got to figure out what you want to do.
[3319.76] Koel: No, exactly. Yeah, it's, it's, I don't know, man. It's a never ending debate of like, what's right and what's wrong. But there is no such thing as right and wrong when
[3329.12] Koel: moral relativism.
[3330.92] Stephen: Yeah, that's what we end up walking into is the ancient philosophical battleground of moral relativism. Yeah, what's right at 100 years ago, now looks like some seriously misguided nightmare.
[3344.76] Koel: And what was right, five plus years ago with analog is still right today. So for analog. Yes.
[3355.36] Koel: Big ass.
[3357.4] Koel: No, that's funny, man. That's so funny.
[3360.36] Koel: No, it's good, though. I think it's good to talk about because people, people should think about this stuff more like, we don't need to just necessarily be so blinders on. But
[3371.0] Stephen: the right tool for the job, man, time and time again, like I work in it. And there's always some evangelist who's trying to tell you that this one thing they've just discovered a week ago is the best way to do everything ever. Yeah. And it's never true. I mean, it's cool. And I'm sure it's exciting. And it's probably useful for the thing they just discovered
[3389.24] Stephen: it with. Yeah. But trying to sell it to everyone for everything ever. It's almost always a hiding to nothing. It's just, you know, this kind of rum and it brings the rampant tribalism that we see in FPV, where something is new and exciting. And all of a sudden, people are throwing horrible, horrible slurs around to people that they used to call friends just because they don't agree with that this new thing happens to be the best thing ever. And you know, you got to bear in mind, like,
[3419.4] Stephen: another 12 months time, there's gonna be another new thing. There's gonna be the old five year, you know, you want to be in a position to buy it in 12 months time, and someone else is going to be shouting at you for being some kind of Neanderthal and not being on board. No, I literally goes round.
[3435.36] Koel: I like, I swear, it's like this trend where people pop up from time to time after see my videos and they say, you're still flying analog, dude, like, you're not going to be able to do this forever. And you better get on the train
[3449.0] Koel: before it's gone. And I'm like, I don't know, man, I think, I think that most technology doesn't just disappear. That's why we still have synthesizers from the late 70s, or 80s kicking around, like, things still work. You know what I mean? Like, do I have a digital emulation version of the synth?
[3468.96] Stephen: It depends. If they start marketing off the spectrum and make it so that you need a handshake, that's when it's gonna be problematic. Because yeah, you with digital systems, you can check a frequency, see if it's alive, and only handshake once you've got the frequency up, and then you can do spread spectrum and you can hop.
[3489.4] Stephen: Oh, three does this by default, right? You don't lock it to a frequency, you just say, go, and both sides, look at the best frequency, pick that and then they go ahead and use it. And that's why it's a nightmare for races. But on the flip side, that's how Wi Fi works. That's how Bluetooth works. That's how a lot of other modern technology works. And if that gets enshrined in law, then you're looking at us a world where analog video effectively becomes outward. Yeah, and so you just gotta hope that doesn't happen.
[3520.4] Koel: Yeah, yeah, it's a, you never know. You never know. I'm sorry, I ended up on a down run. Quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly. So the 04 or sorry, yeah, the 04 is great. You should get one if you want it.
[3540.4] Stephen: If DJ I want to pay us some money, then we'll say that show. Yes, there was always a graveyard as Jack says. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think for a while yet, we did see terrestrial die in some countries, I think they didn't actually pass a law to kill it here. But I know some countries, you know, they're killing off FM radio, they're killing off analog TV. And once you've got those out of the way, you're kind of in an
[3570.4] Frank: march where sooner or later, you're going to stop people from just blasting on a frequency forever. Yeah, yeah, I mean, the benefit of using 5.8 and 2.4 is that, you know, they are unlicensed bits of spectrum, but they're not permanently unlicensed, right? There has already been talk about taking some of that 5.8 and giving it to more 5G type situations.
[3600.4] Stephen: So, you know, there is still the spectrum of off comm in the background, being like, are you want to use some bandwidth? Do you? And if you're running Wi Fi, you could do that at 100 milliwatt or something. But if you're going to run a fixed frequency, that's not spectrum, spread spectrum, you're going to be stuck at 25. Right now and in future, you might not get 25.
[3629.4] Koel: Yeah, the future hold the future will unravel the truth.
[3638.4] Frank: Yeah, so, you know, enjoy things while they're here. That's I think that's the message. Yeah, like, you know, we can go and fly. We have the technology, we have the stuff, we can go and do it.
[3653.4] Frank: So don't squander the time that we have. I think that's the message about life even like, enjoy things while we can.
[3662.4] Koel: Do the ones you love. Yes.
[3668.4] Stephen: Love the ones you do. Something like that.
[3672.4] Koel: I guess I'll try.
[3676.4] Stephen: Everyone happy 2024. And thank you to our wonderful patreons, including Francois Peltzer stubs the clean flight.
[3685.4] Stephen: Chris N. Aard of DM. Wait, are we in 2024? What's happening?
[3691.4] Stephen: 25 Andrew Lawrence, Caroline Tyler-Cargan, Alma McFly, B.K. M. S. E. Gay Poland, Sam Dahmer, Lewis Chapman, John Bertram, Robin Moore.
[3703.4] Stephen: Sorry, yes, of course, 2025. Stuart Thorne, Stephen, who's that? David Powell, Wes, Aris, Michael Murgatroyd, David Myers, Fraser Steen, Lee Southeath, Live Art Faulkner, Gwen Davis, Richard Warwick.
[3723.4] Stephen: Josh Bardwell, who, I don't know, Greg Spelzer, Bloods FPV of the Frame Design, Phil Flying Dog Passlow, Dan Upton, Dan Carboni, Dom Robinson, and Sawnee Bean FPV. Thank you for your support. You're all amazing. We really appreciate you.
[3746.4] Frank: Thank you very much.
[3749.4] Stephen: And I'll try and remember the right year next time.
[3753.4] Stephen: And that's goodbye from Bob, and it's goodbye from me.
[3760.4] Koel: Bye. Bye, guys.