Does shooting in 4k drain battery faster than 1080?

jlh96 · May 22, 2019

Does video recording have ANY impact on the mavic air's battery?

CanadaDrone · May 22, 2019

It shouldn't. The same area of the sensor is active and the bitrate is the same in both modes. Processing requirements are probably slightly different. Any differences related to resolution and battery life I imagine would be so small as to be immeasurable compared to all the other ever changing external factors that would affect battery life much more, such as wind.

MavicFT1P · May 22, 2019

Ive been told recording as opposed to not recording at all gives might give you 5 seconds extra flight time.
Ie; It's negligable.

Former Member · May 23, 2019

CanadaDrone said:
It shouldn't. The same area of the sensor is active and the bitrate is the same in both modes. Processing requirements are probably slightly different. Any differences related to resolution and battery life I imagine would be so small as to be immeasurable compared to all the other ever changing external factors that would affect battery life much more, such as wind.

Any facts to back this up?

CanadaDrone · May 23, 2019

Thunderdrones said:
Any facts to back this up?

Certainly. The fact that you stay at 24mm FOV in both 4K and 1080P means that the entire sensor width is being used for both. Alternatively we can look at the M2P for an example where the entire sensor is not used in certain modes (HQ) which is where the FOV drops to around 40mm equivalent when only the center portion is used. If the Air was using a different sensor portion for different resolutions, the same effect would occur.

As for the bitrate, they are well documented and easily verifiable by any user. I don't think that requires any further explanation as it is so easy for anyone to verify, but here is a link to a full list for those not wanting to test it themselves: DJI Mavic Air Bitrates

As for flight times, again, very easily verifiable by any user. Hover the drone until the battery is low while shooting 1080P and repeat the sane test again in 4K. There will be no noticeable difference in flight times.

Former Member · May 23, 2019

CanadaDrone said:
Certainly. The fact that you stay at 24mm FOV in both 4K and 1080P means that the entire sensor width is being used for both. Alternatively we can look at the M2P for an example where the entire sensor is not used in certain modes (HQ) which is where the FOV drops to around 40mm equivalent when only the center portion is used. If the Air was using a different sensor portion for different resolutions, the same effect would occur.

As for the bitrate, they are well documented and easily verifiable by any user. I don't think that requires any further explanation as it is so easy for anyone to verify, but here is a link to a full list for those not wanting to test it themselves: DJI Mavic Air Bitrates

As for flight times, again, very easily verifiable by any user. Hover the drone until the battery is low while shooting 1080P and repeat the sane test again in 4K. There will be no noticeable difference in flight times.

Can you do a test for us?

Drone on · May 23, 2019

Thunderdrones said:
Can you do a test for us?

What does it pay?

MavicFT1P · May 23, 2019

I think i read somewhere that the sensor is designed for 4k, and running it at 1080p does it some diservice.
Perhaps it is less efficient at 1080p if anything

Former Member · May 23, 2019

Drone on said:
What does it pay?

Its a volunteer job.

CanadaDrone · May 24, 2019

MavicFT1P said:
I think i read somewhere that the sensor is designed for 4k, and running it at 1080p does it some diservice.
Perhaps it is less efficient at 1080p if anything

Because it's a 4:3 aspect 12MP sensor, it's 4056X3040. If you apply a 16:9 (1.78:1) aspect to that you get 4056X2280, and that is only slightly more than 4K/UHD (3840X2160) which is 8.3MP. So it can pretty much give you full sensor width. If it's doing 1080P, which is only 2MP, it is going to subsample, line skip, or pixel bin to get to 1080P without reducing the FOV. A 1:1 pixel readout of 1080P on that sensor would cause a significant change in FOV (zoomed in). 1080P isn't great on the Air and in my opinion you're probably better off shooting in 4K and outputting 1080p in post if that's what you want your end result to be.

True 4K is actually 4096X2160 at a 1:90 aspect ratio, but that does not match most people's displays. It's interesting because 1080p/FHD is named after it's height (1080), but 4K is most commonly referred to by it's width rather than 2160p. Less marketable I guess!

Former Member · May 24, 2019

CanadaDrone said:
Because it's a 4:3 aspect 12MP sensor, it's 4056X3040. If you apply a 16:9 (1.78:1) aspect to that you get 4056X2280, and that is only slightly more than 4K/UHD (3840X2160) which is 8.3MP. So it can pretty much give you full sensor width. If it's doing 1080P, which is only 2MP, it is going to subsample, line skip, or pixel bin to get to 1080P without reducing the FOV. A 1:1 pixel readout of 1080P on that sensor would cause a significant change in FOV (zoomed in). 1080P isn't great on the Air and in my opinion you're probably better off shooting in 4K and outputting 1080p in post if that's what you want your end result to be.

True 4K is actually 4096X2160 at a 1:90 aspect ratio, but that does not match most people's displays. It's interesting because 1080p/FHD is named after it's height (1080), but 4K is most commonly referred to by it's width rather than 2160p. Less marketable I guess!

Back to the topic of this thread. Does it drain the battery faster? Have you tested it by hovering a Mavic Air a full battery on 4k vs 1080?

MavicFT1P · May 24, 2019

Be sure to hover to %1 battery to get accurate figures, and give your batteries a healthy discharge

edit: dont tho

tcope · May 24, 2019

I have little doubt that it does drain the battery more at 4k then at lower resolutions. Many digital cameras have an issue with recording 4k at extended periods of time because they overheat. They overheat as there is more draw through the electronics and the CPU heats up. The real question is if this makes any difference in flight time. Personally, I'd say that there are so many other variables (wind, type of flight, etc.) that are so much more of a factor that the additional battery draw from filming on 4k is really moot.

Former Member · May 24, 2019

Battery drain is most likely affected, but nobody has tested it. What is also affected is the drones temperature in 4k vs 1080. 4k requires alot more chip horsepower than 1080. The core board requires power to record video, and 4k is more of a chore than a lower resolution.