Nerdy Awesome shit you bought!

[Moriath]

This is going to be a lot of fun...

Till you get poised off neighbours for stalking in their windows hehe

 

[ECA]

Those are £500+ right?

Looks like fun .

 

[caLLous]

Just shy of £500 for just the 'copter then add another £250 for the 3-axis stabilised gimbal. Then add whatever for the GoPro, then add whatever again for all the FPV (seeing what the GoPro sees while it's in flight) stuff (a video transmitter to mount on the drone, a screen for the transmitter with integrated video receiver, various antennas and a couple of other bits and bobs to tie it all together on the drone). It seems nigh-on impossible to get hold of a GoPro Hero 3+ Black at the moment, I don't know if that means that the 4 is around the corner (I heard an announcement might be coming in October) but it's not easy.

Anyway, the footage it can get is incredible for the "low" cost:

 

[caLLous]

Just found a GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition yay (back in stock on amazon.co.uk).

 

[Tom]

The GoPro 4 is imminent.

 

[soze]

You have to be careful with the drones from what I hear. UAV's are against the law in Europe so any drone capable of flaying itself could be targeted. A lot of the rumors seem to be lead by rich people getting pissed with with the paparazzi though.

 

[caLLous]

The GoPro 4 is imminent.

Yeah that's the feeling I get from scarcity of stock of the 3's but I'm thinking the 4 might have a different body and will almost certainly have a different weight so it will mean a new gimbal being developed (or if it's lighter I can just add a bit of weight to balance it). The announcement itself might be imminent, but people who seem to know what they're talking about don't think the camera itself will be available until March.

 

[caLLous]

You have to be careful with the drones from what I hear. UAV's are against the law in Europe so any drone capable of flaying itself could be targeted. A lot of the rumors seem to be lead by rich people getting pissed with with the paparazzi though.

The second video above (Nancy vu du ciel) got the creator arrested (he was only 18 iirc) but he was pretty dumb with his, flying it a couple of feet above peoples' heads and stuff. Flying in a town is a no-no without a license and permission, of which he had neither. I can't wait to head off into the mountains with mine, the possibilities for landscape photography are endless. You don't get the fine control like with a DSLR or a CSC but it still has massive potential. And the cost starts running into multiple thousands for a hexcopter big enough to get a stabilised Sony NEX5/7 off the ground

 

[Tom]

UAV's are against the law in Europe.

Certainly in the UK, their use is neither illegal nor unlawful.

 

[caLLous]

The FAA is desperately trying to make it so in America, or rather they're trying to make it so difficult to become properly licensed that they hope people will just give up. They've sent cease and desist letters to all the the big estate agent groups and, rather than fight it, a lot of them have rolled over and said they won't use drone photography at all.

As for the UK, if you're planning to do it commercially:

You need a CAA license which involves a course and an exam. You need to keep detailed flight logs and never fly over built up areas or people.

and

Multirotors like the Phantom are amazing pieces of kit with GPS which ensures you can remain in a constant hover, they also feature a return to home failsafe, whereby a switch can trigger an automated landing back to the point of take off. They’re inexpensive and people are buying a very affordable piece of kit that produces an amazing perspective.

As soon as you add a camera GoPro in this case to any small remote aircraft, multirotor or heli you now have a Small unmanned surveillance aircraft, this means you have further regulations to comply with!

You also want to make sure you don’t fall foul of OFCOM by using overpowered video transmitters on RPAS, the UK legal limit for 5.8GHz is 25mw.

As for Scotland you fall under the UK CAA so you would need to go the same route as me, attend a course with either EuroUSC or Resource UAS. This process will cost in the region of £1500 and will see you sit a two day ground school with a 60 question multiple choice test in 90 mins. The test covers safety, air law and aeronautical map reading.

When passed you are on your own to write an operations manual, mine which covers two multirotors a DJI Phantom and a Phantom 2 is 31 A4 pages long and covers safety, presite and onsite procedures as well as emergency procedures. Finally you have a flight test where you are tested on your ops manual and your flying abilities. If you pass all of the above then EuroUSC or Resource will recommend the CAA issue you with Permission for Aerial Work.

When you fly you’ll need to keep aircraft, pilot and battery logs as well as keeping your presite and onsite survey forms for inspection.

and a linky.

 

[soze]

The FAA is desperately trying to make it so in America, or rather they're trying to make it so difficult to become properly licensed that they hope people will just give up. They've sent cease and desist letters to all the the big estate agent groups and, rather than fight it, a lot of them have rolled over and said they won't use drone photography at all.

As for the UK, if you're planning to do it commercially:
and and a linky.

Here is another link in the UK http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-02/20/shoot-down-drones there are rules that apply to drones but they admit they can't really enforce it. There will be a drone law and it will be because of people using them to spy on a celebrity who is sun bathing in their garden behind a 20 foot wall and a Pap gets his drone out.

Drones that are under 20kg can fly in normal airspace for private use so long as the operator isn't planning to use data or images from the flight acquired by flying close to people or objects. UAVs have to remain 150m from congested events or large assemblies, 50m from a person or building, and within line of sight, which is 500m horizontally and 400ft (122m) vertically. Flights beyond this can be permitted but the operators need to show they can fly the plane safely. Live-streaming from the UAV to the pilot is not considered a good enough measure by the CAA to allow drones to be flown beyond line of sight.

The bit in bold must be what the farmer I work for was told about. He plots a course on a Map and his drone goes off and pictures all his drainage ditches and then comes back and he watched the video. It sounds like letting one fly itself is illegal.

 

[Hawkwind]

Make sure you have it properly calibrated and Home Loc GPS Set before takeoff. Also use the latest DJI Software tools to set flight boundaries. The first one I had (Vision 2) did a flyaway when testing the out of range return to home, never to be seen again! Now have the H3+ with Gimbal and a Kumba Cam FPV kit. Great fun and FPV is definitely worth the extra 350 USD.

 

[caLLous]

Yeah I've seen some horror stories, including a DJI S1000 disappearing into the distance with a Canon 5d3 on it.

From a legislation point of view, France seem *relatively* relaxed about it. I have to fill out some forms (which are awfully formatted Word documents and look like they were made about a decade ago) if I want to do anything commercially but the fact that it's <2kg fully laden works in my favour.

As far as FPV goes, I went with the Black Pearl 7" screen with integrated receiver and a DJI AVL58 transmitter, a DJI Mini iOSD (for overlaying live flight info onto the FPV stream) and a DJI FPV hub to connect it all. And a 3D-printed monitor mount and some other bits and pieces.

 

[ECA]

My understanding was for personal use it's fine, for commercial use you need a civil pilots license.


Re: Gopro 4 - I dunno what they can really do to make it more appealing.
the 1080/30fps recording on the 2 wasn't really improved on the 3 beyond the improved lens. ( Marginally better )

Sure you can do 1080/60 on the 3, if you want slowmo, at the expense of shorter battery life.

4k on the 3 is limited to 15 fps, so I'm guessing we'll see like 4k @30fps and the rest will be marketing bollocks.
They are definitely at the "overpriced" point right now.

 

[caLLous]

I think they're doubling up FPS across the board with the 4, I specifically saw that it will reportedly do 4k/30 and 4k is 4x1080p (ish) so it stands to reason that it might do 1080p/120 too. Although, 2.7k/30 and 2.7k/24 are supposed to be very fancy (especially if you're reducing to 1080p in post and want to stabilise or crop).

I have no idea what the price of the 3+ Black has been historically but I found one for £279.99. It's annoying, all I want is the camera but I guess they think people will want to do *something* with it other than just hold it so they include all these cases and mounts.

 

[Hawkwind]

I was flying mine in a desert area couple of months back and did not notice Police 4x4 appear over a dune behind me. They got out to see what I was doing and spent the next hour with me flying it There is a privacy law in UAE and your not even allowed to photograph a person without permission. Flying around a desert area or scrub land is not an issue but I would not even try to go to a beach area.

 

[ECA]

Oh yeah I forgot to mention, I got some chromecasts on that sale a week or two back, they are SEXY AS FUCK.

For £18, does everything I want it to.

It even handles fucking mkv subs. Sweet Jesus.
There's some really cool shit as well, like it can do on the fly queues, so if you have a bunch of friends round everyone can just throw a few songs on and you get a nice playlist for the evening.
It also has HDMI CEC so when you start to stream something to it from your phone or instruct it to stream something it'll auto switch your TV to the correct HDMI input ( assuming your TV is within 3-5 years old and supports HDMI CEC ).

V impressed with it.
Was gonna spend near £100 on the new 3288 based android box, but fk it.
It's very seamlessly integrated into the android youtube app, bunch of other stuff for streaming my mp4s/mkvs off the nas, yeah I'm very happy.

Only thing I'd like to see changed is an RJ45 connection instead of wifi, but that'll hopefully come in 2nd gen.

 

[Moriath]

Hôw would you use a chrome cast if you have a amp for sound etc.

 

[ECA]

Not sure sorry. Pretty sure if you google if you can find out.
I saw a 3d printed setup for someone to use with portable speakers online the other day though Although it was jury rigged to connect via hdmi.

 

[Poag]

@caLLous Ooh where from and how much?

Did you go for the inbuilt camera or a hero?

If the hero let us know how the streaming works, not seen much of it yet

 

[ECA]

The heros built in streaming is over wifi so you'd run into range issues pretty fast. There are some chinese things that use the display output on it to transmit over RF for longer ranges.

 

[caLLous]

@caLLous Ooh where from and how much?

Did you go for the inbuilt camera or a hero?

If the hero let us know how the streaming works, not seen much of it yet

People have reported getting a good video feed over 1000m away from the drone. It's very dependent on what antennas you use. I will let you know I play with it though.

This is the exact same setup that I've ordered (not sure what antennas he's using though):

 

[MYstIC G]

Hôw would you use a chrome cast if you have a amp for sound etc.

Imagine you'd need a HDMI port and that would be it tbh.

My Chromecasts are now rooted in the fond hopes of a future DNS solution for watching US Netflix arriving.

 

[Moriath]

Imagine you'd need a HDMI port and that would be it tbh.

My Chromecasts are now rooted in the fond hopes of a future DNS solution for watching US Netflix arriving.

It's got a USB bit on it ? Or just a hdmi dongle

 

[ECA]

It's attached via HDMI, the usb is just for power - which can be via the TVs own USB ( will be unpowered when tv off so you cant use the hdmicec to wake from standby ), or via adapter in which case you can wake.

 

[ECA]

Just because I can.

4 instances of borderlands 2 running in 1080p on my pc, with all settings maxxed.
On one 4k monitor.

 

[Overdriven]

Stop mocking @ECA

I'm STILL stuck. Not made a decision on what I want yet. 4k seems ideal and I have no issues playing 1080p windowed.

Post pic of setup please?

 

[old.user4556]

Four times as much virginity protection @ECA ! No ass aids for you!

 

[Billargh]

Bukkake risk on the other hand is magnified ten fold from people of the internet masturbating over your set up.

 

[Scouse]

Don't see the point of 4k on anything less than a 50" screen...