Want to know what Drone Pilots see through their Goggles? Here is a short clip of the SD feed
My drone freestyle videos are recorded on a Gopro, but that is not the signal I use to fly. Below, you can see the goggles used for FPV drone racing.
The signal sent to the goggles is filled with static and is streamed in low latency Standard Definition. Here is a sample of what I see through my headset:
It isn't pretty, but it gets the job done.
If you haven't seen, here is what the cleaned up, edited GoPro version looks like:
FPV Freestyle North Bay near San Francisco, California. In this video I am flying the X-Labs Steez frame. Emax RS2306 Special Edition Motors, DYS 35A ESC, FrSky radio/receiver, DYS F4 Flight Controller with Betaflight 3.2, and a Matek 500 milliwatt VTX and Runcam Swift Micro. This is my favorite rig to date.
Frickin awesome! Is the feed so poor because it sacrifices pic quality to get around latency problems, so that your feed is more immediate without delay?
It must feel like you're actually up in the air with those goggles on :-)
I prefer this type of music by the way :-)
Cg
Frickin awesome is pretty much what I say every time I land. I gave up extreme sports for this. Once you give in and let yourself be immersed into flight, you are there diving the cliffs or dancing on top of the mountain
And you nailed it...the trade off is SD feed to overcome latency at a low cost. There are some pricey HD setups that most people do not use. Truth is, when the ground is rushing at you at 150 mph in a dive, you don't think about signal quality at all.
FPV has been described as extreme sports for nerds and an out of body experience. I concur with both.
Hahaha, you have so got me into this; what sort of entry level costs can I expect? :-)
Cg
Oh and as far as outer body is concerned, I saw this science doc years ago, and they showed how you could easily fool the human brain with cameras, into thinking somebody else's hand is yours, or even a table can be 'grafted' onto the end of your arm.
That's why films like Avatar are not that far fetched at all, seriously, you've got me hooked, and unless entry level costs are thousands, I'll be trying this pretty soon :-)
Cg
First things first: How much will it cost? Lets put it this way, nobody asks what it costs to try cocaine. The dealer gives you the first bit free. <--pretty sure that is not real. I have never seen dealers giving out free samples.
Give me a few hours and I will try and post a well thought out answer to entry cost with links. I think there is enough substance to that question that others may want to see the full answer.
As to the out of body experience: I fly drones and I own an HTC Vive. If you allow your mind to disconnect from "reality", both experiences are convincing for visual people. I am very visual. That said, if you are able to disconnect and be the drone, diving at the ground goes against all instincts and produces real fear. So much fun for the price of entry.
And thanks for the tip!!! It was much appreciated.