Hey John, my Son and I used to design and build fixed wing rc aircraft back in the day. I think we met you at the Santa Fe Dam in Irwindale, Ca. That was a few years ago. Was that you? Do you remember that? If that was you, your passion for the hobby is the reason why I got into fpv. I've been flying fpv for a few years now and it's a big part of my life. Thank you so much!
I can see DJI forcing you to fly slower in the vid. Sharkbyte is great and I agree I prefer the foxeer cam as well. Good news is better cameras are coming soon.
Good honest review. I have been flying my sharkbyte a fair bit and I am really impressed with it. The picture is much better than analog, it has been playing nicely with other analog pilots and the timer seems to pick it up no problems ( even just leaving the timer on normal raceband it picks it up just fine!)
Everything you said was spot on. Wish the Runcam had a wider focal length because I otherwise definitely like it better. Also definitely can't wait to see it more widely adopted. Glad you made this video. It's important to see this type of content from established racers.
Fantastic flying and review, John! Really nice! 😃 Yeah, for racing it's the way to go! I hope the system gets better and better! Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Really nice balanced review. A lot of us have been racing sharkbyte over the Australian summer. There are still a few issues like if your upside-down with antenna buried. However divimath are working super hard with a few local racers here and are really focusing on race specific upgrades.
Proper support for 4:3 would make me dig out my Sharkbyte to use again. It's kinda dumb of Fatshark don't you think? Their premier goggles, the HDO2 is 4:3 but their premier HD system is 16:9...like WTF? It's like the right hand doesn't know the left hand is doing...
100% this! It's absolutely perplexing to me that Shark Byte as a technology seems perfectly tailored to racing, yet they completely omit the feature that would make the product a perfect fit for racing. I really hope they address it soon, it's way too obvious. They definitely seem to have catered more to the freestyle market because there are more freestyle pilots, but I think they're not positioned to compete as well there, and they're ignoring the fact that racers tend to buy more quantity than freestyle pilots.
Thanks for the video. Don't use any of the Shark Byte VTX with any more than MAX 3s after that use BEC & VTX Switch. Then you should be safe if the capacitor go bad. This is my favourite. "T-Motor Mini F7 20x20 Flight Controller with a 10V/2A VTX switch" Can't put links on the comments. I dropped you an email. I use the Ratel 1.66mm Lens to get the FOV I need. I make a custom case to use 12M lenses, I use the RunCam HD Camera. With HDO2. RunCam HD Settings important: PERSONAL SCENE PERSONAL SHARP VIEW OFF WIDESCREEN OFF SYSTEM 60FPS
DJI just announced they've stopped producing dji fpv (air unit and that, they only produce their own fpv drone now) so I guess that is a pretty big selling point for sharkbyte too...
I don't think that's an accurate report. From what I hear they're stopping the air unit, but Caddx will still be producing the vista. But yeah, if DJI ever did something crazy like stopping all support but their BNFs it would be a major plus to shark byte.
@@JohnEFly I don't know what it actually means. Just saw that the website says "For your attention: DJI Digital FPV System is no longer in production." and suggests the dji fpv drone. Remains to be seen what it means in the end. (seems my original reply disappeared. Cant post links I guess?)
@@mece66 yeah I'm not sure, usually those comments show up in a "under review" section, but I don't see any comments there, so I don't know what happened with the other reply. But yeah, that is what the post says, but I think this is a case of bad translation from a Chinese company to an English website. I'm guessing the wording will be updated within a day or so.
Great video. I dont have the system yet but your own observations are basically what I thought. I've been holding out for a smaller reliable vtx before i pull the trigger on it. That and a true 4:3 ratio like you say.
Have you put it in a 5inch quad yet? If so, what frame of choice to work with the 25x25 layout of SB? I have the SB in a 5inch frame, but mounted above a 20x20 and difficult to stack safely. SB has been a yo-yo experience for me, but I still want to see them progress into a true trust worthy product - especially for RACING!
I have not put it in a 5" yet, but I would have thought any 5" frame would work. I've seen someone else with a switchback where it seemed okay with the 25x25 mounted on top of the 20x20 stack with the provided adapter. I also know Fatshark is working on a 20x20 VTX for the near future.
Hi mister 😊 good review off the sharkbyte system 👍 I actually have the system in one off my race 5inch quads and have been flying some with it. But the SB quad and the analog quad didn't have the same motors on the first tests so it felt little bit weird when flying, the analog quad has much more power motors then the SB one, but have changed to same motors on the sharkbyte quad and will test more, first flights felt good and had more vision when flying with it. It's not pretty inside the 5inch but it works. Info on the vtx input power is possible to find of fatsharks webpage and it is also a update there if you don't have done it already 😉 I have seen some stuff on a new board that can be mounted in the stack not like the whoop board like it's now. I think also this is the future for racing. Did you try to fly with the camera in 4:3 and vtx/module in 16:9? For me that felt better ☺️
Hey thanks for the comment. I have tried every combination of 4:3 and 16:9 that I could so far. 16:9 camera and 4:3 chopped is what's currently working best for me, but maybe I'll try your suggestion again. As far as specs go, I was able to track down some information on the TX5M.1, but I wasn't able to find anything on the TX5S.1. When I bought this none of the listings on any retailers had specs, I couldn't find anything on the website, and absolutely nothing came in the box. They need to do better. As far as your 5" build, did you use the TX5S.1 or TX5M.1? The TX5S.1 should fit reasonably well in most 5" frames.
I will try your way also and see how that turns out. That's true noe info followed my board either, had to go to there webpage and find it.... So that's something they have to do better. In my build Iam running the TX5S.1 the whoop board and that one doesn't stack up very nice in 5inch build. Iam running the switchback frame, the "old one". But a better board that can stack on top of the fc is on its way to production I think and it also have soft mount integrated in it.
Im not a racer but seems like a great system for racing would try it but already have dji will it work with hdo goggles i have em but they are 4:3 only
I fly with HDO goggles. Personally I'm using the 4:3 crop mode where it chops off the sides of the 16:9 image from the camera. it's not perfect, but it works. And honestly, like I mentioned, if you have DJI and you're not racing and not as concerned about 2-3" micros, I think DJI is a far better solution. So sounds like you have it right honestly.
Awesome! Do you know why the image quality of Shark byte still looks like analog? Is Fatshark working on trying to achieve similar image quality that we see in caddx vista using dji fpv? One thing I don't like with my dji fpv/caddx vista is that when starting to lose signal, it will freeze and it's to late to find out I've already crashed, LMAO! The signal loss in shark byte to me looks very promising I think. It's because we still might see video feed even if transmission is very weak. I hope my guess is right.
I don't think shark byte looks like analog at all. That being said it doesn't come close to DJI. There are a few reasons for it, the first biggest part is the quality of the camera. Hopefully sharkbyte eventually has higher quality cameras like what DJI is using.
@@GoatZilla Shark Byte is actually running at a much higher bitrate than DJI. However, it doesn't have the complex compression that DJI does, so it makes far less efficient use of that bandwidth. But at the same time, the lack of compression also helps with the latency. There is no doubt it's not just the cameras with DJI, but the cameras are a huge part of it.
@@JohnEFly I think some of those issues are orthogonal. There's no point in talking about number without the actual numbers. We have a number for DJI -- you can run it at 25 or 50Mbps. What's the number for Fatshark? What's the bitrate of the raw video files from the RX DVR at least?
First, nothing was in any of the boxes. Second I didn't find it by searching the fatshark website. Third, I did find a manual using Google, but later found out it was actually an old version of the document, which is why it didn't include the TX5S.1 which is what I was using. After posting this someone provided the correct link with the updated manual and now I have what I need. They still need to do better imo.
@@JohnEFly Great review, I always enjoy your honest, regular people style reviews. I agree with your opinion of the shark byte system. However, I don't know if Fat Shark just began doing this, but my Shark Byte VRX and VTX boxes both had a QR link to the support page with the manual and firmware downloads. The manual is 15 pages long, so it makes sense not to include the book...
@@antonioalemar5406 Thank you! My boxes did not include the QR codes. I think that's a fantastic addition by Fatshark and will make setup easier for new people. Thanks for sharing!
You prefer the digisight? wow, each to their own. I find it a major let down with it's pastel color pallet. Found runcam much better and reproduces reality better and a cleaner sharper image. I'm changing the lens on mine to get rid of the haze.
@@JohnEFly ahh.. I dunno maybe it's cuz I don't race, I've flown both of them up to today back to back and I don't feel one bit of difference, I've just reviewed my videos and I still don't see it.. perhaps it's because I'm doing 16:9 and not 4:3
@@tubsucks maybe, it's honestly not a huge difference. Neither is really a good enough FOV for racing IMO. I used both cameras in both 16:9 and 4:3 (16:9 in the 4:3 scale mode) and the foxeer was better to me in both. I just preferred the more natural (less blue) colors of the runcam, plus the runcam camera control works better. But overall while flying, I like the Foxeer.
@@JohnEFly ah okay fair enough. I've changed the lenses on my cams. the runcam has that weird haze and the foxeer over yellows everything so I added a infra red coated lens to it that takes out some of the yellow and its more palletable to me now. However the runcam is still a sharper better image. You try a different lens to get the fov you're looking for perhaps. I just figured out what you meant by fov..edit.. you're looking for vertical? yeah I guess a new camera with an actual 4:3 sensor is what's needed. hopefully new cams will have what you need and what we all want.. better quality
I mean a lot goes into what picture quality looks like. This make analog look worse than flying analog at the field on a perfectly sunny day with larger MultiGP style gates (you can see plenty examples of that analog on my channel, including this video), but I wanted to show analog and shark byte in the same area in similar conditions, because then it's a closer comparison. Also keep in mind I'm showing my analog recordings from an ImmersionRC PowerPlay. That's about as good of an analog recording as you're going to get.
