Typhoon H Plus

[Ty Pilot]

Glad to read that video may be a fluke but it got me thinking. . . .didn't some of the early 480's have a wider or different lens installed?

 

[YuKay]

Thanks for looking into this Oliver. I did not see the lens distortion in other videos so it’s quite possible the H Plus did not shoot that.

Are you seeing the same distortion throughout the Italian video or are there good and bad sequences?

 

[rdonson]

You can fix distortion in software/firmware. Its non-trivial though. We do this easily with our post processing apps. Since the drones are fixed focal length the task is easier but dependent on processing power in the camera and how much space is available for firmware to accomplish this.

When shooting 4K video on a 20 MP sensor we are NOT utilizing the full sensor. The 1" sensor typically has a resolution of 5472 x 3648. That's more than what's needed for 4K video capture so they either use a portion of the sensor or they are downsampling. My guess would be they're using a portion of the sensor for 4K video.

Just my $0.02

 

[NorWiscPilot]

Good points. It would seem to me that; the Yuneec "ship" is near dead in the water. With the Q500, Breeze, 520 and 920 boilers out and the 480 at the end of its usefulness, the only hope of getting the ship moving again is to get the Plus right, and fast. I will say that as for test one - releasing the H Plus on the announcement date - they did pretty fair, though they never gave a date, it did look like they suggested May or June. My initial thoughts on the camera were favorable and still are - even with the distortion, I will still take that over a Phantom. I spent a good amount of time going through Phantom 4 videos and the camera appears to still have a slight edge. No Doubt.

Every consumer UAV has drawbacks and one must look critically at the tasks they wish to accomplish with a particular system and decide which set of drawbacks they can work with, or around. I feel like we have sorta done this with the 480 all along. And it took a while to get the work-around's ironed out, and now it is a solid system, given what it is and what is expected from it. I kinda think the same will unfold with the Plus. Between building our own system which will be larger and more expensive than I want to use for day to day type shooting, going DJI (Nope), jumping into another manufacturers waters, or sticking with the system I really like, I'm still seeing that, as it stands now (for me) the path that will get me where I want is the Plus - once proven. I'm just waiting to see a semi bug-free system, one that has; at the very least, a proven flight performance with experienced operators.

Ty,

This is meant as a compliment...

The problem with your logic ("...waiting [for] ... a proven flight performance with experienced operators...") is this: Many here likely hold an opinion of YOU as one of those "experienced operators" and thus are waiting for YOU to tell them what YOU think!

There are plenty more here who fall into this category; fellow pilots are looking forward to reading up on what these experienced pilots have to say. Some have already jumped in and are tweaking our interest.

I bet there are plenty who are waiting for the frequent contributors (read: respected insights) to jump in and get the ball rolling.

Just one observation.

Jeff

P.S. Please do not interpret the above as a call for anyone to just "buy it already". Just giving Ty and others a compliment.

 

[YuKay]

Ty,

This is meant as a compliment...

The problem with your logic ("...waiting [for] ... a proven flight performance with experienced operators...") is this: Many here likely hold an opinion of YOU as one of those "experienced operators" and thus are waiting for YOU to tell them what YOU think!

There are plenty more here who fall into this category; fellow pilots are looking forward to reading up on what these experienced pilots have to say. Some have already jumped in and are tweaking our interest.

I bet there are plenty who are waiting for the frequent contributors (read: respected insights) to jump in and get the ball rolling.

Just one observation.

Jeff

P.S. Please do not interpret the above as a call for anyone to just "buy it already". Just giving Ty and others a compliment.

The conundrum is that some experienced pilots seem to have learned not to splash out on new models until the early bugs are fixed - unless they are lucky enough to be offered a test machine. (And freebies inevitably tend to make reviewers a little less critical than they might otherwise be.)

But we/YouTube have had video contributions from some experienced overseas pilots - just not perhaps the forum regulars since the H Plus isn't shipping in the US yet.

 

[NorWiscPilot]

The conundrum is that some experienced pilots seem to have learned not to splash out on new models until the early bugs are fixed - unless they are lucky enough to be offered a test machine. (And freebies inevitably tend to make reviewers a little less critical than they might otherwise be.)

But we/YouTube have had video contributions from some experienced overseas pilots - just not perhaps the forum regulars since the H Plus isn't shipping in the US yet.

Very good points, YuKay!

I'll volunteer to be a reviewer! And I promise to be as truthful, forthright, and straightforward as possible.

As a developer, I value honest feedback. I want the best. We can't get the best if we can't see the flaws. Sometimes takes another set of "eyes".

 

[oliver]

Thanks for looking into this Oliver. I did not see the lens distortion in other videos so it’s quite possible the H Plus did not shoot that. The distorted imagery delivered very much what early GoPros did.

A good question was raised about firmware corrected lens distortion. Once fitted to a camera there’s no way I’m aware of for firmware to enable a mechanical correction, cropping the image size is the only way it can be done which absolutely reduces image resolution. It’s one of the reasons I never bought a 520 with an E-90. The image produced required a crop to fix the distortion and we can’t be telling our customers they are getting a 20mp image if we have to cut 15% from it to straighten it out. That also throws mapping accuracy out the window. At only 12mp the E-50 is the better lens for that machine. Ultimately, the best way to permanently fix the E-90 image problem is to use a different lens. If they want to charge that much for a rig they need to spring for a higher quality lens and/or reduce FOV, not crop the image through firmware.

Hopefully your testing shows my assessment of the distorted video as being wrong and produced by a different camera.

@PatR I do not know if you could download these 2 examples (C23 vs RX100 IV) look at the edges
https://we.tl/2a1He0TlTQ

 

[PatR]

The conundrum is that some experienced pilots seem to have learned not to splash out on new models until the early bugs are fixed - unless they are lucky enough to be offered a test machine. (And freebies inevitably tend to make reviewers a little less critical than they might otherwise be.)

But we/YouTube have had video contributions from some experienced overseas pilots - just not perhaps the forum regulars since the H Plus isn't shipping in the US yet.

Yukay,

The problem, and it is a large one, of assessing performance from a YouTube video is YouTube themselves. Toss in the individuals available bandwidth and issues multiply. YouTube does a lot of detrimental things with their multiple compression programs which alters the final image render. Far better would be for people to post their work on Vimeo, which was designed from day one to provide the most accurate upload and playback possible.

Alternatively, posting a raw, unedited file in Dropbox or other cloud service with open access for download would provide the opportunity for anyone to review the actual, unedited product.

That brings up another issue. When people edit their work to compile a video they most likely do a lot of things to make it look and flow better. Most posting on YouTube do so for “hit count” and to collect YouTube advertising revenue. They all want to attract as many viewers as possible so if their videos don’t look as good as they could they lose viewers, ad revenue, or attract fewer potential clients, so they trick their work out to improve end quality. Ultimately we rarely, if ever, see unmodified video at YouTube, which corrupts quality reviews.

 

[PatR]

@PatR I do not know if you could download these 2 examples (C23 vs RX100 IV) look at the edges
https://we.tl/2a1He0TlTQ

I’ll give them a shot. Thanks!

 

[oliver]

I'm leaving with the T PLUS in mountain shooting on the theme of fishing on 10 sites (torrent, fly, lake, river, trout, etc.), I would say if I'm annoyed

 

[Eagle's Eye Video]

@oliver new spin on fly fishing

 

[rdonson]

@PatR You're correct about absolute video quality. Vimeo is better. If you upload a lot of videos though you'll probably want to pay for an account. Most people these days like FREE and YouTube is free.

To truly assess video quality its also often important to know the settings used during capture. Resolution and frame rate, WB, shutter speed, ISO, etc. Time of day and weather could also be factors for a critical review.

If people want to move large video files around between people I recommend "WeTransfer". They have a free offering too. Perhaps not as convenient as Dropbox or similar but still an option.

 

[PatR]

Oliver,

Got them both and they present pretty much the same. Much better than what I saw in the one earlier video. A request if you don't mind; Using the Plus, would it be possible to capture a few images that contain as many straight vertical and horizontal architectural subjects as possible? Preferably images that provide straight level and horizontal lines near all the edges of the image?

Despite my grousing, there are some things I like thus far about the Plus.

• It will generate less noise than the H-480, which was already the least noisy hex on the market in it's size, and less noisy than most quads in the 350mm up to 500mm size class. *** only recently started to address their noise issues, which were significant.
  
• The ability to use the H-480 battery is a very big deal. Even if providing a little less flight time than the Plus battery the 480 batteries reduce operational costs tremendously. If 12-15 minutes can be obtained using the 480 battery it would fulfill the time necessary to complete most missions. I have rigs that can do 20 minutes all day long but find most (90%+) of my flights are back on the ground by the 15 minute mark.
• Slightly longer flight time over the H-480.
• Increase in maximum wind component, similar to or the same as the 580.
  
• The Plus is still a hex, which increases the flight safety factor significantly.
• Yuneec gimbals have been the best in class for a very long time and I expect that attribute to hold true with the Plus. If the image horizon is slanted to one side it will be a software/calibration issue and relatively easy to remedy, not a gimbal defect.
• The camera control interface has very much to offer and those willing to learn it will benefit greatly.
• The view screen has been retained in the flight controller, not moved to an accessory viewing device.

Two things the Plus needs to make me happy; the most important is Cruise Control, with the second being ability to use a team mode/camera operator. You really can't have complete control of the camera when your hands are busy flying the aircraft. The imagery always suffers if you have to remain dedicated to the flight controls. I'm not the least bit concerned if the aircraft is a little twitchy like the H-480 was/is around center stick. None of that has ever transferred to the video due to the quality of the gimbal and offsetting software, and flight control has always been positive even if the aircraft was doing a little jiggle. You can't have fast control response without impacting the manner an aircraft initially responds to control input.

Time will tell us what Yuneec does.

 

[PatR]

Ron,

I've had a paid Vimeo and Dropbox account for a long time so I'm biased a little in that direction, but any service that allows for a clean transfer of raw imagery would be a good one.

 

[Ty Pilot]

Ty,

This is meant as a compliment...

The problem with your logic ("...waiting [for] ... a proven flight performance with experienced operators...") is this: Many here likely hold an opinion of YOU as one of those "experienced operators" and thus are waiting for YOU to tell them what YOU think!

There are plenty more here who fall into this category; fellow pilots are looking forward to reading up on what these experienced pilots have to say. Some have already jumped in and are tweaking our interest.

I bet there are plenty who are waiting for the frequent contributors (read: respected insights) to jump in and get the ball rolling.

Just one observation.

Jeff

P.S. Please do not interpret the above as a call for anyone to just "buy it already". Just giving Ty and others a compliment.

Thank you for that vote of confidence and I have considered all of what you say and it is a conundrum. While I probably will jump in early as things stand now. When I said "experienced operators" I guess I was saying that as a preface for the fact that we know as soon as these hit the shelves, a wave of newcomers are going to buy and crash and likely blame the equipment. So basically anyone who has had a typhoon H and successfully flown for a while will suffice. I am planning to call Yuneec and see if I can a couple questions answered.

 

[rdonson]

@PatR While I have a Vimeo account I don't use Dropbox much as I have a minuscule amount of space there. Others may have neither or like a drone shop, wish the wider exposure of YouTube.

Another thought is that I'm encountering a number of people who lack the ability to view 4K video on their computers either due to lack of ISP bandwidth or lack of hardware on their computer.

 

[PatR]

@PatR

Another thought is that I'm encountering a number of people who lack the ability to view 4K video on their computers either due to lack of ISP bandwidth or lack of hardware on their computer.

That is much too common, especially among those new to camera drones. They don’t understand the limitations of their computers, graphics cards, monitors, play back programs, and instantly blame their new camera instead of the real culprit, which is their own ignorance.

It’s why I almost never believe what’s stated in a “problem post” from anyone that has less than 15 or 20 previous posts, and never, ever from anyone who’s first post goes along the line of “my brand new (insert brand and model) flew away, crashed, rolled over, won’t properly record or play back good video, won’t charge batteries, or won’t acquire GPS satellites inside my living room or under a roof on my porch, or after updating the firmware before the first flight. The odds are 99.9 to 1 it’s something they are doing wrong.

If they started out with a full description of what happened, along with a reasonable history of what, where, and how they were doing things when it happened, along with some of their experience history, they would have a lot more credibility.

 

[Eagle's Eye Video]

Another thought is that I'm encountering a number of people who lack the ability to view 4K video on their computers either due to lack of ISP bandwidth or lack of hardware on their computer.

Bandwidth is an irrelevant issue, as it is easily solved by downloading the file and viewing as opposed to streaming on YouTube. Computer hardware issues can be "put on hold" until you upgrade to accommodate. The mistake many new pilots make, is a lack of analysis of where the root cause exists. Raw 4K files can be downsized to 1080 and handled by any computer made in the last 12 years.

 

[YuKay]

Raw 4K files can be downsized to 1080 and handled by any computer made in the last 12 years.

I wish! My emergency rig, a 10-year old iMac, won't even open a 4k video file…or to be precise, it will open in a black window and "plays" in a black window.

 

[Rubik]

Oliver,
Got them both and they present pretty much the same. Much better than what I saw in the one earlier video.

If you download and compare Oliver's earlier posted RAW files, the differences are much greater:
link: https://we.tl/tEGIASecri