Mavic Pro-2 vs Zoom and P4P - Line Skipping + Sensor Heat?

[jarmokan]

Well, this is awkward... Someone should do a post about it to official DJI forum... This could be the whole reason they postponed the event because the chip didn't handle the full readout of the 1´sensor in FOV then they did a coding for HQ mode in firmware as a solution...

 

[CanadaDrone]

Well, this is awkward... Someone should do a post about it to official DJI forum... This could be the whole reason they postponed the event because the chip didn't handle the full readout of the 1´sensor in FOV then they did a coding for HQ mode in firmware as a solution...

I'll save you the time and give you DJI's reply to literally everything:

"Hi there, I'm sorry to hear about the issue that you are experiencing. This has been forwarded to our engineers for a check; when there is an update, we'll let you know at the first time. Appreciate your patience!"

***Silence for Months***



In all seriousness, they did sort of release a response to it but it was extremely vague and sounds like it was written by marketing rather than an engineer:

 

[Category 5]

I was looking around to see if I could ID some of the other chips on the board and most of them look like they are the same onces carried over from the original Mavics. What's missing is obviously the A9 chip, and in its place is the only chip likely large enough to be the video processing chip...labeled H3. Either they ARE using the Ambarella H3, and the supposed employee that said otherwise is incorrect, or they are in fact using a custom SOC that they printed H3 on. If it's the latter you could not convince me that they did that for any other purpose than to mislead people once an inevitable teardown finally occurred. Either way, it's pretty shady of them to not be up front about it at this point, and handle it with a proper technical response rather than a paragraph from page 3 of the "PR" handbook. Even the supposed employee who responded saying it was a custom SOC was deliberately vague.

I am not nearly equipped to do a teardown in my current situation, but is anyone willing to get some better photos of that chip so we can see what's really printed on it? There are more details printed there, but they aren't visible from a direct angle. I really think it's the Ambarella chip myself, because any other answer is idiocy since H3 is clearly printed on the package.

 

[prothorin]

What do you think? Maybe an Ambarella logo under 4 character? (Left side of copied version)

 

[Dronefriend]

If it is an H3 chip I see no other pausible explanation for the lack of 4K FOV other than

1. Something (over-heating?) wrong with Sony image sensor. Q: Why does it work on P4P then?

2. They are actually downgrading the Mavic on purpose. They recently put a cap on shutter speed in Hyperlapse to 1/30th, rendering it almost useless for night Hyperlapse. This was either done for A) Helping noobs not using a slow shutter in day shots or B) Forcing users to go Inspire to be able to shoot night city scapes etc.

I didn’t think they’d downgrade it on purpose but after the Hyperlapse shutter cap I might reconsider.

 

[noosaguy]

2. They are actually downgrading the Mavic on purpose. They recently put a cap on shutter speed in Hyperlapse to 1/30th, rendering it almost useless for night Hyperlapse. This was either done for A) Helping noobs not using a slow shutter in day shots or B) Forcing users to go Inspire to be able to shoot night city scapes etc.

I didn’t think they’d downgrade it on purpose but after the Hyperlapse shutter cap I might reconsider.

In fact, the 1/30th sec limit is ONLY if you try and set the shutter AFTER selecting Hyperlapse mode. If you do all your settings prior to entering Hyperlapse mode you can use the full range of settings. I'd say it's more a firmware issue than anything else.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Either way, it's pretty shady of them to not be up front about it at this point, and handle it with a proper technical response rather than a paragraph from page 3 of the "PR" handbook. Even the supposed employee who responded saying it was a custom SOC was deliberately vague..

I'd like a detailed/technical response too, but to be fair to DJI, most major consumer electronics companies do not detail the exact suppliers/manufacturers of various things inside their products. Also, this is often complicated by the fact that these items are custom or a custom modified variant of something that would otherwise be off-the-shelf. Just as one example, try getting Nikon to tell you who fabricates most of their sensors (Sony) or who makes their EXPEED image processors (Fujitsu). If the manufacturer has any design input, which they almost always do, they usually actively try to hide the fabricator. The only reason we know these things is due to detailed tear-downs. Heck, Apple doesn't even want you to know what model of Intel processor is in their computers - all they tell you is "I7" or i5", etc., nor do they advertise a list of every iPhone part/fabricator. Or try getting detailed specs on their A-series, processors, it's incredibly difficult and sometimes impossible.

Laptops are another good example - it's a nightmare trying to find out which OEM makes the SSD's - worse yet, you can very often buy the same laptop but depending on what storage variant you choose (and sometimes even on the same variant), a different SSD OEM is used, and there are massive performance differences between the two. Same thing has happened in smartphones with flash storage. It's almost always up to the consumer to figure stuff like this out - I wish that were different but it is very standard in the tech industry. In the iPhone 6S, there was a bunch of controversy because Apple used two different SoC manufacturers for their A9 processor - TSMC and Samsung. There were battery life differences greater than 10% in some cases, which is significant when consumers are asked to pay the same price...good luck getting Apple to admit that haha.

 

[Category 5]

I'd like a detailed/technical response too, but to be fair to DJI, most major consumer electronics companies do not detail the exact suppliers/manufacturers of various things inside their products. Also, this is often complicated by the fact that these items are custom or a custom modified variant of something that would otherwise be off-the-shelf. Just as one example, try getting Nikon to tell you who fabricates most of their sensors (Sony) or who makes their EXPEED image processors (Fujitsu). If the manufacturer has any design input, which they almost always do, they usually actively try to hide the fabricator. The only reason we know these things is due to detailed tear-downs. Heck, Apple doesn't even want you to know what model of Intel processor is in their computers - all they tell you is "I7" or i5", etc., nor do they advertise a list of every iPhone part/fabricator. Or try getting detailed specs on their A-series, processors, it's incredibly difficult and sometimes impossible.

Laptops are another good example - it's a nightmare trying to find out which OEM makes the SSD's - worse yet, you can very often buy the same laptop but depending on what storage variant you choose (and sometimes even on the same variant), a different SSD OEM is used, and there are massive performance differences between the two. Same thing has happened in smartphones with flash storage. It's almost always up to the consumer to figure stuff like this out - I wish that were different but it is very standard in the tech industry. In the iPhone 6S, there was a bunch of controversy because Apple used two different SoC manufacturers for their A9 processor - TSMC and Samsung. There were battery life differences greater than 10% in some cases, which is significant when consumers are asked to pay the same price...good luck getting Apple to admit that haha.

Not so with those other sources. Of course most of us know that Sony makes everyone's sensors except Canon. IN fact, that is Canon's achilles heel (their sensors are behind). As for mac and iphone, you can get an app that will identify what chips are present, and in the case where variants exist from different manufacturers you can even identify who made yours. You can ID the screen maker, the chip maker, and usually even the RAM. Granted it's not a layman's task, but if that chip is anything other than Ambarella it's a crime in my eyes to write H3 on it. A custom SOC would need no branding of any kind, so that was either put there to identify Ambarella's processor, or to mislead someone at some point.

Maybe it is the H3, and they are deliberately underutilizing it so they can release a camera upgrade that can be retrofitted to the drone in the future. 6k or 8k even. Heck, maybe it's an H3 and custom. Maybe they had Ambarella design a custom SOC based on the H3, and then used a loophole in the contract to have it independently manufactured by someone else. Then it could all be true.

 

[sar104]

Not so with those other sources. Of course most of us know that Sony makes everyone's sensors except Canon. IN fact, that is Canon's achilles heel (their sensors are behind). As for mac and iphone, you can get an app that will identify what chips are present, and in the case where variants exist from different manufacturers you can even identify who made yours. You can ID the screen maker, the chip maker, and usually even the RAM. Granted it's not a layman's task, but if that chip is anything other than Ambarella it's a crime in my eyes to write H3 on it. A custom SOC would need no branding of any kind, so that was either put there to identify Ambarella's processor, or to mislead someone at some point.

Maybe it is the H3, and they are deliberately underutilizing it so they can release a camera upgrade that can be retrofitted to the drone in the future. 6k or 8k even. Heck, maybe it's an H3 and custom. Maybe they had Ambarella design a custom SOC based on the H3, and then used a loophole in the contract to have it independently manufactured by someone else. Then it could all be true.

Or maybe sensor readout limitations, not the processor chip, are the issue. Yes, the P4P appears to manage it, but it's a different and larger package.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Not so with those other sources. Of course most of us know that Sony makes everyone's sensors except Canon. IN fact, that is Canon's achilles heel (their sensors are behind). As for mac and iphone, you can get an app that will identify what chips are present, and in the case where variants exist from different manufacturers you can even identify who made yours. You can ID the screen maker, the chip maker, and usually even the RAM. Granted it's not a layman's task, but if that chip is anything other than Ambarella it's a crime in my eyes to write H3 on it. A custom SOC would need no branding of any kind, so that was either put there to identify Ambarella's processor, or to mislead someone at some point.

Maybe it is the H3, and they are deliberately underutilizing it so they can release a camera upgrade that can be retrofitted to the drone in the future. 6k or 8k even. Heck, maybe it's an H3 and custom. Maybe they had Ambarella design a custom SOC based on the H3, and then used a loophole in the contract to have it independently manufactured by someone else. Then it could all be true.

Sony does not make everyone's sensors except Canon, but they make a lot of them. Canon doesn't entirely make their own sensors either - they use Fujitsu to do BEOL processing because Canon does not have the equipment for copper BEOL. To further complicate things, Nikon completely designs their own sensors in-house and just has Sony make it - they aren't off the shelf sensors and Nikon actually has a very large and talented in-house dedicated sensor design team. This gives Nikon access to Sony's patents and proprietary technology. Good luck getting any of those manufacturers to tell you that Sony fabricates their sensors though, they actively avoid it - you need to wait until TechInsights (formerly Chipworks) does a teardown. DJI not wanting to tell people the story behind the H3 chip is unfortunate for us curious folks, but 100% normal.

For iPhone/iPad how do I find out processor wattage at various processor frequencies, for example? I have not been able to find an app that tells me specifications like that which are easily found in the PC world. Identifying the processor is not an issue, getting detailed information on it is. The manufacturers actively hide this info and when you ask tech support they do not tell you or they don't know (I have tried).

My point is just that none of this is information that the manufacturers will give you - they don't advertise it and most of the time they actively hide it from the consumer. To find out these things you need to run special software or do a physical teardown - DJI has not done anything that isn't totally normal in the tech world as far as not wanting to identify the source of every internal part. The semiconductor world is indeed a complicated one. Also to be fair to DJI, we are all just speculating, including myself.

 

[Category 5]

DJI has not done anything that isn't totally normal in the tech world as far as not wanting to identify the source of every internal part. The semiconductor world is indeed a complicated one. Also to be fair to DJI, we are all just speculating, including myself.

I don't know if I agree with that. I really don't have a problem with any of it, except the notion that they may have laser etched a giant H3 on a possibly custom chip that is designed to do the same function as a product by another company, called the H3. Possibly Ambarella does not have a trademark and it's legal, or possibly it is a genuine H3, I don't know, but if Dell started selling laptops with "custom CPUs" and then went on to label them i5 or i7 I'm sure they'd have some legal repercussions for their action. Also, there wouldn't be much question that the move was a deliberate attempt to mislead.

Like I said before, the most logical scenario is that the M2 drones do in fact sport the Ambarella H3, and the shortcomings like elsewhere in the implementation. DJI could put an end to the speculation either way. If the SOC is in fact custom, they should be proud and let people know what is capable, especially compare to the A9 and H1 chips they were using before.

 

[CanadaDrone]

I don't know if I agree with that. I really don't have a problem with any of it, except the notion that they may have laser etched a giant H3 on a possibly custom chip that is designed to do the same function as a product by another company, called the H3. Possibly Ambarella does not have a trademark and it's legal, or possibly it is a genuine H3, I don't know, but if Dell started selling laptops with "custom CPUs" and then went on to label them i5 or i7 I'm sure they'd have some legal repercussions for their action. Also, there wouldn't be much question that the move was a deliberate attempt to mislead.

Like I said before, the most logical scenario is that the M2 drones do in fact sport the Ambarella H3, and the shortcomings like elsewhere in the implementation. DJI could put an end to the speculation either way. If the SOC is in fact custom, they should be proud and let people know what is capable, especially compare to the A9 and H1 chips they were using before.

Fair enough, but we are still speculating that "H3" has anything to do with the Ambarella H3 chip. I agree it would be quite a coincidence, but the fact is we simply do not know for sure. Using the term "H3" is so generic I doubt is protected by anything, regardless of their motives. It's probably an Ambarella H3 - the only evidence we have points that way.

I'm guessing heat was the issue, and the processor itself (whatever it is) is not the bottleneck. That exact same sensor is used in the Sony RX100 lineup and 4K is limited to 5 minute clips for temperature reasons. You can override this limit with a hack but the camera overheats. Cramming all that into such a small package possibly did not afford them the same cooling options they have available to them in the P4P lineup. To me, that is the most reasonable explanation. It would be nice to hear one from DJI but I doubt they would ever want to reveal the reasons behind their shortcomings - it's probably better for business to leave people speculating even though us enthusiasts don't like it.

For them to release a statement regarding what is viewed as a disadvantage, they are damned if they do, damned if they don't. If they do, there is now a searchable statement on record that will be featured in news articles and people will always be able to find it. If they don't, they upset a small group of enthusiasts like ourselves but 95% of owners are none the wiser. From a marketing perspective it's better to say nothing usually. For example this is how Canon treats all their issues - it's very rare for them to address some of the widespread and well documented issues their cameras have had, but in a few years everyone forgets because no advisory or news item was ever formally published.

 

[Anndybo]

Cramming all that into such a small package possibly did not afford them the same cooling options they have available to them in the P4P lineup.

but we don't see special cooling in P4P camera, except just bigger housing. Unless the sensor board takes enough heat to cool it down.

 

[CanadaDrone]

but we don't see special cooling in P4P camera, except just bigger housing. Unless the sensor board takes enough heat to cool it down.

Bigger housing, much better ventilation - probably doesn't take too much. After years of building my own custom PC's, I've seen how the tiniest things can make huge differences in temperature. I don't know for sure either - I just think that is the most plausible explanation at the moment.

 

[Anndybo]

Bigger housing, much better ventilation - probably doesn't take too much. After years of building my own custom PC's, I've seen how the tiniest things can make huge differences in temperature. I don't know for sure either - I just think that is the most plausible explanation at the moment.

That's maybe true, M2P camera is really small. What I think. DJI doesn't want to kill P4P yet. They are waiting until P5 will be on the market, then they can unlock M2P capabilities. Just speculations. Or they just didn't have time to finish firmware. Like lack of precision landing. On dji forum they said they working on it. It just doesn't make sense to not to implement this feature in their newest drone when was available in M1 and MAir. Even Spark lands more precisely.

 

[CanadaDrone]

That's maybe true, M2P camera is really small. What I think. DJI doesn't want to kill P4P yet. They are waiting until P5 will be on the market, then they can unlock M2P capabilities. Just speculations. Or they just didn't have time to finish firmware. Like lack of precision landing. On dji forum they said they working on it. It just doesn't make sense to not to implement this feature in their newest drone when was available in M1 and MAir. Even Spark lands more precisely.

The P4P already offers a mechanical shutter for stills and 4K/60P video - DJI is still holding back those two things on the M2P so giving us 'better' 4K/30 without endangering the P4P should have been possible from a marketing standpoint, at least in my opinion. Also, I think the Mavic is their top seller, and willingness to cannibalize their existing products at least to some degree (i.e. Mavic Air is better than original Pro in many ways) is one thing that has made DJI so successful.

Maybe the Phantom 5 will have a removable gimbal and folding landing gear

 

[peros550]

If some of you believe that DJI limited M2P camera in order to protect P4P, then please answer to me this:

Why would DJI want to unleash M2P camera capabilities when P5P comes out. Do you expect such superior image capabilities on the P5P compared to P4P ?

 

[WithTheBirds]

If some of you believe that DJI limited M2P camera in order to protect P4P, then please answer to me this:

Why would DJI want to unleash M2P camera capabilities when P5P comes out. Do you expect such superior image capabilities on the P5P compared to P4P ?

It is reasonable to expect a P5P might offer better performance than earlier phantoms. Just as we found the M2P is better than earlier models in the line. Given the trend here there might be some expecting the P5 to be better than an inspire.

 

[Dronefriend]

If some of you believe that DJI limited M2P camera in order to protect P4P, then please answer to me this:

Why would DJI want to unleash M2P camera capabilities when P5P comes out. Do you expect such superior image capabilities on the P5P compared to P4P ?

If they actually are ”protecting” by limiting M2P on purpose, I would not think it is to protect the P4P. They don’t care about older products. But they might protect the future P5P.

If they realize that, Crap, the M2P is so darn good, no one is going to get the P5P we spent $$$$$ on R&D to release. Then they might want to cripple the M2P.

Since we are probably not going to know exactly what the reason behind this is from DJI, and in some ways I can understand this, I think the question could rather be: Is this the final firmware version for the camera or are there future fixes? They should be able to tell us that.

That way you can at least make an informed decision.

 

[CanadaDrone]

If some of you believe that DJI limited M2P camera in order to protect P4P, then please answer to me this:

Why would DJI want to unleash M2P camera capabilities when P5P comes out. Do you expect such superior image capabilities on the P5P compared to P4P ?

Rumors are for the P5P to have interchangeable lenses and possibly a M43 sensor. Definitely nothing concrete yet though. I also suspect they sell many times more Mavics than they do Phantoms.