Which mode to fly the longest

[anotherlab]

My impression is that flying while screen recording and/or with focus peaking turned on reduces my range. No idea if RC processor load can logically have such consequences.

It's not the load on the RC, but on the chipset in the drone. When your record video, the CPU is getting more of a workout. Modern CPUs don't run at a constant clock rate, they at a speed fast enough to do what they are asked. The faster they clock up, the more power they draw. The Mini 3 uses H.264 to write a compressed video stream. That's a lot of processing, which will spin up the CPU clock speed, which in turn is a higher draw on the battery. I don't know how much of a hit that would be, but I would guess it would be more noticeable on a smaller drone.

 

[scro]

It's not the load on the RC, but on the chipset in the drone. When your record video, the CPU is getting more of a workout. Modern CPUs don't run at a constant clock rate, they at a speed fast enough to do what they are asked. The faster they clock up, the more power they draw. The Mini 3 uses H.264 to write a compressed video stream. That's a lot of processing, which will spin up the CPU clock speed, which in turn is a higher draw on the battery. I don't know how much of a hit that would be, but I would guess it would be more noticeable on a smaller drone.

It's the RC or controller device that does all the work for the screen recording so that won't add any stress to the CPU of the drone - that stress will be taken by the controller CPU.

Focus peaking may add some load to the drone CPU as the video feed is HD rather than 4k so may not be the best source to use for highlighting focus peaks.

 

[anotherlab]

It's the RC or controller device that does all the work for the screen recording so that won't add any stress to the CPU of the drone - that stress will be taken by the controller CPU.

Focus peaking may add some load to the drone CPU as the video feed is HD rather than 4k so may not be the best source to use for highlighting focus peaks.

If the drone is recording video to the memory card in the drone, then the video encoding is being handled entirely by the drone.

Focus peaking is not a terribly CPU-bound process, especially when compared to the H.264 compression. When the image hits the camera sensor, it looks for high contrast area, which is typically what is in focus. It's basically a comparison between light and dark pixels. A false color is then applied to the video feed sent back to the RC over the high-contrast areas. This should be handled on the drone as the latency between the drone and the RC would make doing real-time focus peaking problematic and would require more data sent OTA. It shouldn't matter if the video is HD or 4K, the focus peaking would be calculated directly from the camera sensor in real-time at the native resolution of the image sensor.

 

[alexjo55]

"in N mode I have 58% battery left 12 min flight time
in S mode I have 41% battery left 9 min flight time"

But you also need to factor in your speed. If travelling at the alleged maximum speed in each mode, ie. 36 km/h (22.36 mph) in N mode and 57.6 km/h (35.79 mph) in S mode, you will travel further (approx 8.5km) in 9 minutes in S mode since 12 minutes in N mode gives you 7.2km.

Conclusion: battery life is obviously reduced when you put your foot down but you travel further.

So if im 3 km away and my low battery warning pops up, will i have a better chance to make it home in sport mode?

 

[Meta4]

So if im 3 km away and my low battery warning pops up, will i have a better chance to make it home in sport mode?

It's not that simple.
It depends on how far you have to fly and what wind you have to fight against.

But if wind is not an issue, you will always fly the longest distance at full speed in Normal Mode and Sport Mode will burn the battery faster and give less distance.

 

[alexjo55]

It's not that simple.
It depends on how far you have to fly and what wind you have to fight against.

But if wind is not an issue, you will always fly the longest distance at full speed in Normal Mode and Sport Mode will burn the battery faster and give less distance.

thats not what the other guy said, he says you will go 1.3km longer in sport mode even when the battery is 17% less:

"in N mode I have 58% battery left 12 min flight time
in S mode I have 41% battery left 9 min flight time"

But you also need to factor in your speed. If travelling at the alleged maximum speed in each mode, ie. 36 km/h (22.36 mph) in N mode and 57.6 km/h (35.79 mph) in S mode, you will travel further (approx 8.5km) in 9 minutes in S mode since 12 minutes in N mode gives you 7.2km.

Conclusion: battery life is obviously reduced when you put your foot down but you travel further.
"

 

[Meta4]

thats not what the other guy said, he says you will go 1.3km longer in sport mode even when the battery is 17% less:

He was wrong

Conclusion: battery life is obviously reduced when you put your foot down but you travel further.

As is that.
Your drone burns battery just like your car burns fuel.
There's a speed that will give max distance per litre and if you go faster, you get less distance.

Long distance drone flyers don't use Sport Mode

Many flyers have done testing to see what distances they achieve for different speeds.
You could easily do it yourself.

Or, don't believe any of that and possibly lose your drone when you assume you can travel further in Sport Mode sometime as several users have.