Upgraded my Advanced gimbal/cam to Pro...WOW!!!

theTastyCat · Jul 7, 2016

Hey all - bought my first quad a month ago and ended up getting a P3A because I found it for a fantastic price and didn't want to drive four hours to a Microcenter. Well, I immediately began to wonder if I'd made the wrong decision since I *did* want to do FPV flying through VR goggles. Sure enough, I was soon creeping around the backyard, nervous as a crack baby, because I could barely make out branches and power lines with the downlink speed limited to 2 MB/sec; the pixelation and blurriness was just untenable for that kind of use.

So, I asked around here, and ended up talking to Hunch (who is fantastic - see my other thread!!), who kindly agreed to send me a brandy-new P3P gimbal/camera in exchange for my basically new P3A gimbal/camera and $200.

Seriously...the difference is AMAZING!!!!!! I know that not everyone needs the higher downlink speed (and even less people probably need 4k!) but for anyone who likes to fly semi-low, it's just incredible. I think once you're higher and the image isn't changing quite as rapidly, the P3A's lightbridge does fine, but to have a really crisp and clear image in my VR goggles (or even on the iPad) was absolutely everything I'd hoped it could be.

So - if you're on the fence, GO FOR IT!! The difference is night and day and I am *SO* glad I did it! I wish I had saved some of the raw downlink files from the P3A on my iPad so I could upload a relatively similar flight with each one, but of course I didn't think of it. Obviously it's not as crystal-clear as watching the 2.7k video file off the SD card, but it's really pretty close - I don't have any safety concerns while flying because I may not be able to see an obstruction.

Just wanted to share - happy flying!

alokbhargava · Jul 8, 2016

Happy Flying!

I know solution works very well. The best way to do is to sell your P3A gimbal and buy a brand new P3P gimbal from DJI.

jjpetroski · Jul 8, 2016

Does this really make a difference? I just received the MyBUD glasses and a new P3 Advanced Gimbal since I broke the Professional one last weekend. So my FPV will be less now? I thought the only difference was the 4K which I don't need. I don't want to "dumb down the bird in the process when it comes to the flight experience.

theTastyCat · Jul 8, 2016

JJ, it really depends how you fly - if you typically fly at 100' or higher, you may well never notice a difference. I like to do some low-and-slow around the yard for fun, and it makes a huge difference there. If you do want to exchange for a Pro, Hunch is the guy to do it! Just search for him here - extremely well regarded and just a first class gent. Good luck!

jjpetroski · Jul 8, 2016

I just bought it from DJI at Amazon, so should be able to return it. I hope I can try it out to see first to see if there's a difference. I never did FPV with the Pro gimbal, so nothing to compare it to.

BayouBill · Jul 8, 2016

I believe the 2 Mbps vs 10 Mbps refers to the recorded video on the bird's sd card. But there is definitely a difference in the downlink video even though they are both 720P, 30 fps. There has been a lot of discussion about this issue. One is on this forum at Phantom 3 Advanced Lightbridge not the same as Pro. There are similar discussions on several other forums.

It appears that many people were deceived by DJI advertising and dealers that the only differences between P3P and P3A are the charger and 4K camera on the P3P. They purchased an HDMI module and HD goggles expecting to see a sparkling clear 720P display to do FPV with a P3A. They were disappointed. After reading several other forums where users actually measured and compared downlink bit rates I have come to the conclusion that the P3P downlink bit rate is actually around 3 Mbps and the P3A is less than 2 Mbps. The P3A uses severe compression on the downlink video that results in distracting artifacts.

The P3A lightbridge downlink video was the major selling point for me as well as a great price point. I find that the display on my tablet is acceptable and somewhat better than the analog SD systems I have used. Also the 2.4G downlink is much more reliable than the popular 5.8G video systems. But I was shocked when I looked at a recorded live video stream on a TV.

jjpetroski · Jul 8, 2016

Thanks. OK...so the Advanced gimbal arrived. There's no little white cooling fan on it like there is on the Professional's. I don't believe there's anyway to wire this up, and I don't know if it's needed or just part of the Professional gimbal.

HWCM · Jul 8, 2016

From the reviews and actual picture and video comparisons I have read on here and other forums, there is no real difference in the video down-link you see on your tablet. The differences that you may see is just the software being on a different more clear channel when you see what you think is a better down-link from the pro. Sometimes the pro has a cleaner image, sometimes the Advanced does. It may just be a cleaner channel.
Also on the advanced you can go into the settings and change the down link quality from 2mb to 10mb. But the range suffers.
I bought Litchi and the googles that hold my phone to try out FPV, but ends up litchi does not work with my phone although it is less than a year old and well beyond the min specs.
What goggles are you using OP?
Edit: I see you are using the MYBUD glasses. You are definitely not seeing an advantage over the advanced down-link vs the pro with those glasses. They are only 852 x 480 (WVGA) resolution which is pretty bad, it is downgrading the video feed from 720p to 852 x 480 (WVGA).

snerd · Jul 8, 2016

Hunch is the man!

jjpetroski · Jul 9, 2016

So ordered through Amazon:
Thank you for contacting DJI.

For return policy, generally, customer can request a refund:
a. Within 7 calendar days of delivery if the product has no manufacturing defect, has not been activated.

So I have never replaced the gimbal and bought my first bird used. So I presume I have to register it and once I do I can't return it? Think I may just return for Pro as that's what I had.

jjpetroski · Jul 10, 2016

So these guys are killin' it with confusion:
Thank you very much for your question and sorry for any confusion. Since you purchased the spare camera, not whole unit of drone, it does not need activation. For the whole unit of drone, you will need to active it before fly.

impilot51 · Jul 10, 2016

BayouBill said:
I believe the 2 Mbps vs 10 Mbps refers to the recorded video on the bird's sd card. .

No, that is the downlink video speed. You always get full bit rate recordings to the sad card.

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

BayouBill · Jul 10, 2016

impilot51 said:
No, that is the downlink video speed. You always get full bit rate recordings to the sad card.

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

My bad. You are right, I found that the bit rate for recording on the SD card is much higher - around 40 Mbps.

Vertigo · Jul 10, 2016

theTastyCat said:
I could barely make out branches and power lines with the downlink speed limited to 2 MB/sec; the pixelation and blurriness was just untenable for that kind of use.

So you bought a new camera, instead of adjusting this setting at the bottom:

Which is available on both P3A and P3P.

Congrats I guess?

BTW, "auto" works just fine for me, so normally I dont even mess with the setting. OF course if you accidentally set it to custom and then 2Mb, it would be worth changing that. P3A vs P3P camera is not going to make any difference in this regard though. The lightbridge unit isnt even in the camera, its inside the VPS unit below the battery.

BayouBill · Jul 11, 2016

Vertigo said:
So you bought a new camera, instead of adjusting this setting at the bottom:
View attachment 59487

Which is available on both P3A and P3P.

Congrats I guess?

BTW, "auto" works just fine for me, so normally I dont even mess with the setting. OF course if you accidentally set it to custom and then 2Mb, it would be worth changing that. P3A vs P3P camera is not going to make any difference in this regard though. The lightbridge unit isnt even in the camera, its inside the VPS unit below the battery.

You must be using an old DJI GO app. The current version does not even display that adjustment. Older versions did display the adjustment bar but it did nothing on the P3A. The P3A has always been fixed at 2 Mbps.

HWCM · Jul 11, 2016

Mine displays that adjustment. It goes from 2MB to 10MB. I am using the latest updated version of the app. Updated yesterday again. It does make a difference. In range and the down link quality. I have the P3 Advanced.

theTastyCat · Jul 11, 2016

HWCM, even though some firmware still give a slider on the Advanced, the lightbridge will never go faster than 2mb/sec due to a hardware limitation. This has been discussed several times here. The difference is extraordinary - believe me, I didn't post here to congratulate myself for wasting time and money for absolutely no change