H Camera Test (now with video!!!)

[Tuna]

100Mbps is far from broadcast quality very far from broadcast quality. our lowest data rate for 3.8K on the Arri Alexa is 340Mbps usually non vex shows record at 734Mbps (ProRes 444HQ) and VFX shows will record at 4444XQ at 1650Mbps

Yes, but those are raw (lossless encoded) file sizes, aren't they? And remind me how much the Alexa costs?

I'm not sure what you're trying to prove here. The Typhoon, GoPros, Phantoms and other similar equipment use physically small sensors and write to single SD cards. That puts a hard limit on how high a bit rate you can generate and how much noise you get from the camera. Codecs can help get around that, and a good codec will improve the quality you can get from your hardware - but you're absolutely right that if you compare the Typhoon to a camera that costs twenty times as much, it's not as good.

However, the quality is more than good enough to use online - YouTube, Vimeo etc. And as others have pointed out it's 'good enough' to be used in TV broadcasts in the right circumstances. Would I use it to shoot a feature film? No! Would I use it in a short? Quite possibly. Is it about the same as equivalent cameras from other manufacturers? Yes, and in some circumstances it's better.

So whilst there are some issues that Yuneec need to address (120fps encoding and some people suffering soft focus), the basic platform is completely sound. Encouraging people to panic because their camera doesn't match up to professional broadcast standards is really unhelpful. There are people in this forum looking to invoke consumer rights protection because some magic number that they don't understand doesn't match up to another number that means nothing to them. Is that sensible? Are either of those numbers absolute measures of quality? No they're not and I think a professional like you should know not to pretend otherwise.

The bottom line is for a thousand (ish) bucks, you've got a hexacopter, base station and camera with a good quality gimbal. You can absolutely get it out of the box and produce a video that will be good enough to show on TV. If you thought it was going to turn you into Spielberg, you're going to be disappointed. It's up to Yuneec to address the outstanding concerns, but there's no reason to think they won't, and no reason to think that this isn't a lot of kit for relatively little.

 

[CianMcLiam]

Advertising '100MB' and delivering 50 is false advertising. You really don't need to know much about video codecs to understand that. They have very recently changed it to 60MB on their web page so they do know the 100MB was unrealistic and misleading.

 

[LooseSid]

The equivalent data rate for 4K would be 152Mbps. Yuneecs choices for the camera are just flat out bad.

Why? Because they are not broadcast quality? Nobody ever claimed they were!
I think you are completely missing the point of this machine!!!

 

[LooseSid]

what I'm trying to prove? Nothing, I'm explaining and clarifying why the CGO3+ looks so bad. As for comparing other cameras and data rates it's to show whats being done. the Alexa outputs a 444 signal but when you are recording ProRes 422 its lossy so yes its a fair comparison

GoPro runs 60Mbps and looks MUCH better than the CGO3+ why? better written codec, and a better lens on what is in essence the same sensor. The P4 has a better performing camera and its 60Mbps, same for the Xstar. Sensor size has nothing to do with data rate pixel to pixel, data rate is determined by the codec and the processor chain. The GH4 runs a 100+Mbps data rate and it shows.

The airframe is great and flies very well. The gimbal is well tuned and does a very good job at stabilizing. But right now the camera is not ready for prime time and no it's not "Good enough" and yeah Yuneec defiantly stepped in it when they originally claimed a 100Mbps camera but then delivered a camera that can barely hit 50Mbps. For $1300+ I would hope that the package would produce results that are equal or better to a Typhoon G (which right now even if you have to buy the GoPro you can get into for ~$900) but it's far from there. and no this camera is not "Good enough for TV"

It's irresponsible for you to keep saying that it's Good Enough

Ok, you have made your point (many, many times). Now, I think it's time you give it a rest!

 

[Sticks]

No Not missing the point at all. Yuneec is selling this as a "Pro level" system and they originally sold this as a 100Mbps camera....

How on earth are you coming to that conclusion? Pro Level - Really? I've yet to see, read, or observed anything from Yuneec that would indicate to me "Pro Level".

Maybe the 920 Tornado as "Pro" level. The Typhoon series (H and Q) are toys, nothing more. One could stretch it to "Hobby Grade" - but the end reality is still...TOYS. It's an aerial sports cam platform, less the water resistance factor.

You guys are talking like buying a Ford Focus with EcoBoost, and expecting it to keep up with a Ferrari.

I'd think you all would be better off talking about post production skills and software than griping about the camera.

 

[CianMcLiam]

How on earth are you coming to that conclusion? Pro Level - Really? I've yet to see, read, or observed anything from Yuneec that would indicate to me "Pro Level".

Maybe the 920 Tornado as "Pro" level. The Typhoon series (H and Q) are toys, nothing more. One could stretch it to "Hobby Grade" - but the end reality is still...TOYS. It's an aerial sports cam platform, less the water resistance factor.

You guys are talking like buying a Ford Focus with EcoBoost, and expecting it to keep up with a Ferrari.

I'd think you all would be better off talking about post production skills and software than griping about the camera.

I think most would be happy if it could match or exceed the Phantom 4 or Inspire 1 X3, it is marketed as a competitor to these but has a camera that is below the performance of a typical smartphone.

That's the big problem with the false advertising, they claimed '100MB' while taking pre-orders which on paper exceeds the performance of DJI offerings in the same price range. I had mine on pre-order based on this and the promise of a new sensor and new lenses that were going to be individually tweaked and checked.

Most knowledgeable people would have seen 100MB for the Typhoon H and 60 for the Inspire 1 Pro or Phantom 4 and would choose the H on that. Then they find the H actually produces significantly less data than the DJI products, not more. Even now Yuneec are claiming 60MB as if it matches the P4 or Inspire 1, when in reality it never exceeds 50.

I'm truly amazed people are OK with this underhanded selling.

 

[Sticks]

95% (estimated guess) of the people buying these have ZERO photography skills, or post processing skills. Myself being one of them (I have not purchased one yet, I may, I may not - lack of time to use it).

So, yeah, I would have been fine with it. It's a freakin' toy.

Way too many people here with skills, jobs in the industry, or wanting to start using the "H" to make money...that's just dumb. What exactly did you expect for $1300?

I paid $1800 the components to a rifle I assembled, hand load my own ammo, and I get the sub MOA shots I expect (you don't get that accuracy off the rack from the local gun store and off the shelf manufactured ammo). I initially slapped a $150 piece of glass on top of it for a training class that was a short notice opportunity, that glass is now gone. Sure, It's the same 2.5x10 variable zoom as the $2k glass that now sits there, same FOV @ 100, but the difference is night and day.

You get what you pay for, regardless of "advertised specs".

 

[JohnL]

This thread has degraded horribly. The unuseful analogy with weapons certainly doesn't help IMHO, nor the Mbps tit-for-tat.

 

[yuneec53]

Great stuff Tuna.

I work in TV and will use my H to film aerial footage that, contrary to what some people here seem to think, will be fine for broadcast!

Neither this camera or the GoPro actually meet the BBC's camera requirements as their sensors aren't of sufficient size, however, they will treat the footage as non HD, and, as long as it is less than 25% of the programme duration they will allow its use.

I don't think the compression artefacts are too excessive but I do see there is quite a severe red caste on all the clips I've watched, which interestingly seems to disappear on footage where the lens has been changed.

I edit and grade my raw footage on Avid Symphony and overall I'm very happy with the results.

Just to add there is of course a big difference when dealing with News and Current affairs and Mainstream productions when dealing with UK TV companies. One is totally about content and the other aims to keep the quality of the highest sort. I would guess it is the same with North American TV companies.

I

 

[yuneec53]

The BBC shooters I know are using Inspire 1's with Zenmuse X5R's or bigger ships with Sony A7r's None of them are using anything like the H or Phantom.

Yet in the BBC promo stings shown before the News on the BBC News Channel one of the shots is of a Phantom taking off. Which suggests they just might have used some Phantom footage.

 

[Tuna]

I think most would be happy if it could match or exceed the Phantom 4 or Inspire 1 X3, it is marketed as a competitor to these but has a camera that is below the performance of a typical smartphone.

That's the big problem with the false advertising, they claimed '100MB' while taking pre-orders which on paper exceeds the performance of DJI offerings in the same price range. I had mine on pre-order based on this and the promise of a new sensor and new lenses that were going to be individually tweaked and checked.

Most knowledgeable people would have seen 100MB for the Typhoon H and 60 for the Inspire 1 Pro or Phantom 4 and would choose the H on that.

That's very strange. It's like saying you bought a Ferrari based on the Fuel economy figures. Most knowledgeable people would know that like fuel economy, figures quoted tell you a bit about the engine, but not it's overall performance, nor what the car is like to drive.

I can understand people being upset about out-of-focus lenses, and the 120fps mode is clearly not right. It's up to Yuneec to fix those issues. But if you're after absolute image quality, you should always wait for reviews and test footage rather than relying on a number.

 

[Burntpixel]

How on earth are you coming to that conclusion? Pro Level - Really? I've yet to see, read, or observed anything from Yuneec that would indicate to me "Pro Level".

Maybe the 920 Tornado as "Pro" level. The Typhoon series (H and Q) are toys, nothing more. One could stretch it to "Hobby Grade" - but the end reality is still...TOYS. It's an aerial sports cam platform, less the water resistance factor.

You guys are talking like buying a Ford Focus with EcoBoost, and expecting it to keep up with a Ferrari.

I'd think you all would be better off talking about post production skills and software than griping about the camera.

On Yuneecs main website,at one time the H was claimed to give PROFESSIONAL results . That has since been edited off the site!

 

[Sticks]

This thread has degraded horribly. The unuseful analogy with weapons certainly doesn't help IMHO, nor the Mbps tit-for-tat.

It's not unusefull. I am making a point. You don't get high end results with low end products, and like it or not, the Yuneec Typhoon "H" in the grand scheme of things here, is a low end product when people start talking about "Professional", "Cinematography", "Business Use" and so on. It's a toy.

On Yuneecs main website,at one time the H was claimed to give PROFESSIONAL results . That has since been edited off the site!

Well, it's not there anymore, and you state that they claimed PROFESSIONAL. Did it actually say that, or is that what you interpreted it as?

Now we need to decide what is "Professional".

Full Definition of professional

1. 1 a : of, relating to, or characteristic of a profession b : engaged in one of the learned professions c (1) : characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession (2) : exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace
   
   
2. 2 a : participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs <a professional golfer> b : having a particular profession as a permanent career <a professional soldier> c : engaged in by persons receiving financial return <professional football>
   
   
3. 3 : following a line of conduct as though it were a profession <a professional patriot>
   

Did not see a darn thing in there anywhere that mentions quality. Technical standards would be a stretch, so what are the technical standards for "Professional Results"?

If one got paid for a video taken with an "H", then that one person could be considered "Professional", and evidently getting "Professional Results". ****, you don't even have to necessarily get paid. IIRC doing a thing for 2000 hours a year made you a "Professional" regardless of making money at it.

All the adverts are subjective. Up to the end user to decide if they meet their own definition. If they don't, don't blame the mfg, you are the one that arbitrarily set the standard.

People read "Max flight time of up to 25 min", and for some mind blowing reason, expect that 25 minutes, no less, and get pissed when they only get 18.

People read "Max range of up to 1 mile", and the same thing, get pissed when they can only get 2000'.

All theses maximum specs are under IDEAL conditions, things nobody will ever see in the field...ever.

Admittingly there are some evident issues with the camera and other features. Teething pains for a new product. Waaaaayyyy too many people here expected it to be flawless out of the gate. Half of those people could not praise it enough at first, now call it a worthless POS.

The Q5004k is probably v5.0 for the Q500 line, and it still had/has some issues.

This and other forums were an awesome learning point with all the user comments, suggestions, experiences at first. Lots of positive attitude, looking forward to the firmware fixes, communication with Yuneec. Now it's a ***** fest. Small wonder they don't post here or anywhere else. They don't make a flame suit strong enough to handle the venom of the prolific posters.

Guess the honeymoon is over.

 

[tinchob]

I replied to your scaling comments on the other thread. Let's talk about bandwidth here.

For a variable rate encoder, the bandwidth will change according to how 'complex' the scene is that is being encoded. Complexity isn't necessarily about how much detail there is in a picture, but how much it changes over time. So I could show you the most detailed picture in the world, but if it is completely still then for a video I only have to send it to you once and for each subsequent frame I say 'same as last one' - bandwidth is almost zero. Video codecs are designed so that some changes are easier to compress than others. So we might say that sky turning a little more blue takes low bandwidth, but if it turned bright red we'd have to send a little more data.

People on here have complained that the chip in the H is 'designed for a security camera' which focuses on getting a picture down a network connection. That's not necessarily a bad thing. As a rule better compression takes much more calculation - codecs these days use some pretty freaky maths to compress the video stream. So if your processor is designed to be powerful enough you can take the same stream and compress it more without so much loss of quality. Better compression does not mean worse picture - all video streams are compressed (a completely uncompressed video stream is Gigabits a second, not Megabits!). However, the codec chosen and the power of the processor will decide how much the compression affects the quality of the video stream. Over the years, codecs have got better and better, and the maths has got more and more complex, and the chips needed to handle the maths have got smarter and smarter.

Now, for the H, as it's a variable rate encoder, scenes that are easy to compress will take lower bandwidth. Lots of open sky will mean smaller sizes and I've taken videos that rarely go above 20Mbps. I assume that the 100Mbps figure quoted is the maximum throughput for the processor - the point at which it would have to skip frames to keep up. As it is, you'd probably have to rig up some sort of test scene to push the video that high. It looks like typical flying footage suits the codec much better and yes, I've not seen anything that exceeds 50Mbps - but that number isn't a measure of quality. a 50Mbps stream isn't automatically worse than a 60Mbps stream. You can only decide by looking at the actual output and seeing how noticeable the compression artifacts are.

It doesn't help that the out of the box automatic settings for the camera give slightly unpredictable white point and exposure. They're not as smart as we see in some other drones. However, that's nothing to do with bandwidth or the video quality. For pro video you'd want manual control over exposure, fixed white point and the 'raw' profile to give flat, predictable video that can be properly controlled in post.[,

thanks! very well explained

 

[Chilcotin]

I did a little test the other day with the H, all in their version of RAW.
Any opinions??

You really have no idea about data rate do you? Data Rate infers a cameras capability. As for waiting for reviews? I'm a little better equipped to make may own decisions since I work with professional camera systems every day and consult on their design. I did my own testing, I understand what it's shown. You on the other hand make apologist arguments with no apparent experience in what actually makes a camera work well.

 

[Chilcotin]

You really have no idea about data rate do you? Data Rate infers a cameras capability. As for waiting for reviews? I'm a little better equipped to make may own decisions since I work with professional camera systems every day and consult on their design. I did my own testing, I understand what it's shown. You on the other hand make apologist arguments with no apparent experience in what actually makes a camera work well.

Why are you here??

 

[Tuna]

You really have no idea about data rate do you? Data Rate infers a cameras capability. As for waiting for reviews? I'm a little better equipped to make may own decisions since I work with professional camera systems every day and consult on their design. I did my own testing, I understand what it's shown. You on the other hand make apologist arguments with no apparent experience in what actually makes a camera work well.

Then why are you here? You have told us you have at least $100K worth of video equipment, you're an expert in your field, you don't need reviews because you consult on camera design. And yet you bought a cheap drone with a fixed lens camera that (like all GoPros, DJIs and other similar drones) has a small sensor and low cost processor. You should know what to expect from such a system. Within a day of testing you should know whether it meets your requirements. Yet you're still here reminding us how much experience you have. How are you actually contributing in any way?

You keep telling us how you're an expert, yet so far all you've done is linked to other people's spec sheets and told us (repeatedly) that a large number is better than a small number. I bothered to explain how bitrates work, some of the subtleties of codecs and variable bit rate encoding and the difference between sampling and scaling which you didn't seem to understand. I got off my *** and tested the typhoon camera, compared it with a GoPro and posted the results. Your contribution to date has been to suggest I'm lying about my experience, I'm employed by Yuneec and that a large number is better than a small number (again).

Just as a suggestion you could: (a) show us from your experience how to get the best out of the camera (b) show us some of your work (c) provide some diagnosis for how the bit rates vary in the Typhoon codec (d) compare the Yuneec codec against GoPro's Cineform. Any of those things would be wonderful. I think you are a smart person and I don't doubt you have a lot of experience. Could you share it with us without shouting people down and telling us that a large number is better than a small number?

 

[tinchob]

Yes, but those are raw (lossless encoded) file sizes, aren't they? And remind me how much the Alexa costs?

I'm not sure what you're trying to prove here. The Typhoon, GoPros, Phantoms and other similar equipment use physically small sensors and write to single SD cards. That puts a hard limit on how high a bit rate you can generate and how much noise you get from the camera. Codecs can help get around that, and a good codec will improve the quality you can get from your hardware - but you're absolutely right that if you compare the Typhoon to a camera that costs twenty times as much, it's not as good.

However, the quality is more than good enough to use online - YouTube, Vimeo etc. And as others have pointed out it's 'good enough' to be used in TV broadcasts in the right circumstances. Would I use it to shoot a feature film? No! Would I use it in a short? Quite possibly. Is it about the same as equivalent cameras from other manufacturers? Yes, and in some circumstances it's better.

So whilst there are some issues that Yuneec need to address (120fps encoding and some people suffering soft focus), the basic platform is completely sound. Encouraging people to panic because their camera doesn't match up to professional broadcast standards is really unhelpful. There are people in this forum looking to invoke consumer rights protection because some magic number that they don't understand doesn't match up to another number that means nothing to them. Is that sensible? Are either of those numbers absolute measures of quality? No they're not and I think a professional like you should know not to pretend otherwise.

The bottom line is for a thousand (ish) bucks, you've got a hexacopter, base station and camera with a good quality gimbal. You can absolutely get it out of the box and produce a video that will be good enough to show on TV. If you thought it was going to turn you into Spielberg, you're going to be disappointed. It's up to Yuneec to address the outstanding concerns, but there's no reason to think they won't, and no reason to think that this isn't a lot of kit for relatively little.[

I completely agree!

 

[banned user]

.

 

[banned user]

Then why are you here? You have told us you have at least $100K worth of video equipment, you're an expert in your field, you don't need reviews because you consult on camera design. And yet you bought a cheap drone with a fixed lens camera that (like all GoPros, DJIs and other similar drones) has a small sensor and low cost processor. You should know what to expect from such a system. Within a day of testing you should know whether it meets your requirements. Yet you're still here reminding us how much experience you have. How are you actually contributing in any way?

You keep telling us how you're an expert, yet so far all you've done is linked to other people's spec sheets and told us (repeatedly) that a large number is better than a small number. I bothered to explain how bitrates work, some of the subtleties of codecs and variable bit rate encoding and the difference between sampling and scaling which you didn't seem to understand. I got off my *** and tested the typhoon camera, compared it with a GoPro and posted the results. Your contribution to date has been to suggest I'm lying about my experience, I'm employed by Yuneec and that a large number is better than a small number (again).

Just as a suggestion you could: (a) show us from your experience how to get the best out of the camera (b) show us some of your work (c) provide some diagnosis for how the bit rates vary in the Typhoon codec (d) compare the Yuneec codec against GoPro's Cineform. Any of those things would be wonderful. I think you are a smart person and I don't doubt you have a lot of experience. Could you share it with us without shouting people down and telling us that a large number is better than a small number?

look man, I don’t have ton’s of money, I sold my P2 with it’s GoPro 4 black, and bought this camera partially based on the fact it could spit out 4K at 100Mbs. It’s disingenuous to stick it to someone just because of how much money he has or does not have. We are all in the same boat in this forum we all bought what we thought was a useful piece of kit and all we want is for it to work as we were told it would.

What’s not cool is Yuneec changed there advertisement from 100 to 60, and never apologised or offered an explanation or refund, and 60 even seems to high it’s more like max 50. To add insult to injury they stuck on a rubbish plastic lens and even though everything looks like they acknowledge they made a mistake there is no word that they will straighten this out for those of us with plastic bags as lenses.

Someone from Yuneec needs to take charge and coordinate and talk to customers, a news channel on there site would be a start. Still today on one Yuneec USA site and the German site and god knows what other sites the bitrate is still shown at 100mbs.