EVO questions for potential buyer

[Autelguy]

I am so close to pulling the trigger on the Evo, but one thing that is still bothering me is the props in the frame. Is this something a FW update could fix, or is it a design flaw?

I couldn't agree with you more. It's insane that Autel released it that way. All they had to do was move the camera forward by a small amount. Notice that on almost all videos, you see the props on the top left. That means that the camera gimbal must be off center a bit. Think about it, the whole point of buying an arial drone is for the video. I'm so sick of the BS. State REAL flight times. Don't release a product before most if not all the bugs are fixed. I could go on and on. I've decided to hold off and wait to see if Autel gets it's act together in the next version before giving them a dime. "Just drop the gimbal a little" is a joke to me.

 

[jcommstudios]

I couldn't agree with you more. It's insane that Autel released it that way. All they had to do was move the camera forward by a small amount. Notice that on almost all videos, you see the props on the top left. That means that the camera gimbal must be off center a bit. Think about it, the whole point of buying an arial drone is for the video. I'm so sick of the BS. State REAL flight times. Don't release a product before most if not all the bugs are fixed. I could go on and on. I've decided to hold off and wait to see if Autel gets it's act together in the next version before giving them a dime. "Just drop the gimbal a little" is a joke to me.

@Autelguy The video from this little drone is excellent! Taking the gibal pitch down as little as 3% gets rid of the prop situation. If you are shooting video it still leaves plenty of sky in the scenes. I fly other drones as well. At some point you will get a prop shot regardless of what you are flying. Check out this little test video I did!

 

[Autelguy]

@Autelguy The video from this little drone is excellent! Taking the gibal pitch down as little as 3% gets rid of the prop situation. If you are shooting video it still leaves plenty of sky in the scenes. I fly other drones as well. At some point you will get a prop shot regardless of what you are flying. Check ou this little test video I did!

Nice video. Love the colors. Was that shot with the latest FW? In most of the shots the horizon tilt is pretty noticeable. Another big pet peeve of mine that Autel shipped with that obvious problem. Beautiful footage. Well done.

 

[jcommstudios]

Nice video. Love the colors. Was that shot with the latest FW? In most of the shots the horizon tilt is pretty noticeable. Another big pet peeve of mine that Autel shipped with that obvious problem. Beautiful footage. Well done.

@Autelguy It was shot with the older firmware although I have updated to the beta then the public release. I never did experience the horizon problem. I think what you are seeing is the actual curvature of the land. If you don't have one how would you know? I always calibrate my gimbal no matter which drone I am flying and I have 3! You can actually correct any tilt if necessary but if you are one of those who shoot "full auto" and haven't dug into the controls on this rig you are missing the whole point of how good it is!

 

[Hysteresis]

I measured one of the shots and got 0.9° tilt.

I was surprised how sensitive our eyes are to this. Are there any auto-horizon leveling postprocessing filters for video editors like Premiere? Or better, ffmpeg?

 

[jcommstudios]

Nice video. Love the colors. Was that shot with the latest FW? In most of the shots the horizon tilt is pretty noticeable. Another big pet peeve of mine that Autel shipped with that obvious problem. Beautiful footage. Well done.

@Autelguy Ahh I beg to differ. The horizons are all very straight in this whole piece. I have seen some of the problematic shots others have posted in a variety of other forums and the horizion issues are pretty extreame. I have not experienced it at all. I always do a gimbal calibration prior to flight. I suggest you pick up an EVO and experience it for yourself. I have no idea what your experience is with Autel products but this is a great little drone!

 

[jcommstudios]

I measured one of the shots and got 0.9° tilt.
View attachment 3180
I was surprised how sensitive our eyes are to this. Are there any auto-horizon leveling postprocessing filters for video editors like Premiere? Or better, ffmpeg?

It is the delta my friend the direction you are focusing on is running to the sea. If you have a burning desire to see the world as level you would put the 4K clip on a 1080 timeline in Premiere, or whatever edit program you use, resize it and rotate it... The earth is not flat.. lol
I would be interested to see some of your work and what you consider a perfect horizon.

 

[Hysteresis]

It is the delta my friend the direction you are focusing on is running to the sea. If you have a burning desire to see the world as level you would put the 4K clip on a 1080 timeline in Premiere, or whatever edit program you use, resize it and rotate it... The earth is not flat.. lol
I would be interested to see some of your work and what you consider a perfect horizon.

Hi jcommstudios!

I wasn't criticizing the Autel Evo's Gimbal here - sorry if you thought i was. If the land is sloping down to the right by that amount, then thanks for explaining that. Though, even if it were level - a skew of 0.9° out of 360° is one part in 400, or 0.25% error. That seems good to me, but I don't know the engineering challenges involved or the state of the competition in great detail.

I never cared much about horizons being level before, but after the Evo gimbal issues earlier in 2018, I was surprised to find myself noticing them much more. That's why I measured to see how many degrees the horizon was off from level : that horizon's tilt is right near the threshold where it starts to become noticeable to me - so i wanted to know the number. I'm kind of quantitative like that.

Lastly my question was whether anyone knew of auto-leveling video-processing plugins - perhaps as a feature in a deshaker package.

If I understood you correctly, you suggested manually rotating video in Premiere... I know that video can be rotated. I programmed my first graphical rotating objects on a computer in 1984. My question was if anything is currently available that's smart enough to do it automatically. Machine Learning and 'AI' is making great strides in domains like this right now. Perhaps you weren't aware that such things are now possible?

Cheers!
[EDIT] A prefect-gimbal horizon in say, Iowa corn fields, would result in the boundary between earth and sky occurring at the same y-coordinate on the leftmost and rightmost edge of the screen.

 

[jcommstudios]

Hi jcommstudios!

I wasn't criticizing the Autel Evo's Gimbal here - sorry if you thought i was. If the land is sloping down to the right by that amount, then thanks for explaining that. Though, even if it were level - a skew of 0.9° out of 360° is one part in 400, or 0.25% error. That seems good to me, but I don't know the engineering challenges involved or the state of the competition in great detail.

I never cared much about horizons being level before, but after the Evo gimbal issues earlier in 2018, I was surprised to find myself noticing them much more. That's why I measured to see how many degrees the horizon was off from level : that horizon's tilt is right near the threshold where it starts to become noticeable to me - so i wanted to know the number. I'm kind of quantitative like that.

Lastly my question was whether anyone knew of auto-leveling video-processing plugins - perhaps as a feature in a deshaker package.

If I understood you correctly, you suggested manually rotating video in Premiere... I know that video can be rotated. I programmed my first graphical rotating objects on a computer in 1984. My question was if anything is currently available that's smart enough to do it automatically. Machine Learning and 'AI' is making great strides in domains like this right now. Perhaps you weren't aware that such things are now possible?

Cheers!
[EDIT] A prefect-gimbal horizon in say, Iowa corn fields, would result in the boundary between earth and sky occurring at the same y-coordinate on the leftmost and rightmost edge of the screen.

@Hysteresis ...Whisky Tango Foxtrot are you talking about "I don't know they are possible" I've worked as an independent video producer for many years and one of the things I pride myself in is being abreast of the latest tech.... lol You can get stabilizers from a host of companies ProDad, deshaker etc. but it is not going to do anything but stabilize the footage. Surely you realize that? I would still be interested in seeing some of your work. Cheers...and Happy New Year!

 

[Autelguy]

@Autelguy Ahh I beg to differ. The horizons are all very straight in this whole piece. I have seen some of the problematic shots others have posted in a variety of other forums and the horizion issues are pretty extreame. I have not experienced it at all. I always do a gimbal calibration prior to flight. I suggest you pick up an EVO and experience it for yourself. I have no idea what your experience is with Autel products but this is a great little drone!

Thanks for your suggestion and I'd love to buy an Evo but not until the issues that matter most to me get resolved. The way I look at it is to ask myself whether I'm getting what I paid for and not having to compromise. The horizon tilt, jittery video just hovering, props in the shot and that the fact that the Evo can't hold the subject in the middle of the frame while in Orbit are the big ones. While there are other frustrations like lying about flight time, useless rear sensors, unprogrammable remote buttons and button placement are things I could possibly deal with, the others are telling me to wait and see what Autel does. In regards to horizon tilt, sure you can adjust in Post, but you shouldn't have to at least not for a 1k drone. To also have to recalibrate your gimbal before each flight is also silly and a huge waste of limited battery life. Many other drones have no problems with Horizon tilt from the day they launch. Autel obviously didn't see it as a priority for an aerial drone otherwise they would not have released it with so many bugs in the first place.

Thanks, but I'd rather save my cash for perhaps their next version if there is one. My biggest reason for wanting an Evo is simply the nfz. That alone is what separates Evo from the pack. As far as 4k 60fps, it's nice to have for slow mo but not the deal maker since most everything is still 1080p. I'd rather have 4k 30fps and a larger sensor for better night shots.

 

[Autelguy]

@Autelguy It was shot with the older firmware although I have updated to the beta then the public release. I never did experience the horizon problem. I think what you are seeing is the actual curvature of the land. If you don't have one how would you know? I always calibrate my gimbal no matter which drone I am flying and I have 3! You can actually correct any tilt if necessary but if you are one of those who shoot "full auto" and haven't dug into the controls on this rig you are missing the whole point of how good it is!

I looked a the video again and it's pretty obvious that the horizon tilts downward to the right on a lot of the shots. Again, I think your video is beautiful but it's pretty obvious to me Perhaps it's because you weren't using the latest FW. I have yet to come across Evo footage without a tilted horizon. The vast majority of videos out there all have it obviously because they were pre fw updates. While it's much better on some newer videos, compared to other drones, it still looks like the problem isn't fully resolved. Especially after yawing then coming to a stop. It seems like their is a catch up period while the gimbal tries to find center. And when it does, it's not always perfectly centered. Just because a new video gets posted to YouTube, it's impossible to tell if the pilot has the latest FW update and if he performed a dreaded gimbal recal.

 

[mjbok]

I looked a the video again and it's pretty obvious that the horizon tilts downward to the right on a lot of the shots. Again, I think your video is beautiful but it's pretty obvious to me Perhaps it's because you weren't using the latest FW. I have yet to come across Evo footage without a tilted horizon. The vast majority of videos out there all have it obviously because they were pre fw updates. While it's much better on some newer videos, compared to other drones, it still looks like the problem isn't fully resolved. Especially after yawing then coming to a stop. It seems like their is a catch up period while the gimbal tries to find center. And when it does, it's not always perfectly centered. Just because a new video gets posted to YouTube, it's impossible to tell if the pilot has the latest FW update and if he performed a dreaded gimbal recal.

I love my Evo, but I had an issue with it yesterday. When I first took off I had about a 15% or larger tilt. After about a minute it was fine, but at first it was really, really bad.

 

[UnRanged]

I love my Evo, but I had an issue with it yesterday. When I first took off I had about a 15% or larger tilt. After about a minute it was fine, but at first it was really, really bad.

Two or three times mine has done that. Always to the right side. It also warned me about stick calibration twice so I've done that a couple of times.

 

[QuadSquad]

@Autelguy The video from this little drone is excellent! Taking the gibal pitch down as little as 3% gets rid of the prop situation. If you are shooting video it still leaves plenty of sky in the scenes. I fly other drones as well. At some point you will get a prop shot regardless of what you are flying. Check out this little test video I did!

Just that horizon.....

I'm one of those first supporters of Autel who got burned. Bought 2 X-Stars, and a dozen batteries, cuz you need backups when in business. Still have a bad taste left.

 

[jcommstudios]

Just that horizon.....

I'm one of those first supporters of Autel who got burned. Bought 2 X-Stars, and a dozen batteries, cuz you need backups when in business. Still have a bad taste left.

@QuadSquad sorry to hear that. I went through a few different brands before choosing the Typhoon H as my work drone. I have 2. They fly great as they are Hexes and if you know a bit about cameras the 4K 30p video is pretty good when dialed in properly. I just ordered a couple of Peau 3.97 82d lenses to upgrade the focal point and the megapixel count from 12 to 16. I shoot video rather than stills. In a typical production we might shoot 20 minutes of drone footage and use maybe 10-20 seconds in the piece to give another perspective from the the footage we shoot from the ground.
I really like the camera in the EVO and the fact that it shoots 60fps and is small. I do experience some props in shots if I don't pitch the gimbal down about 3% (which Autel could fix with a firmware patch by just setting 0 down a bit IE: 3% as it shows a ton of sky as it is) and an occasional horizon issue but usually very minimal and if noticeable I just take the 4K clip place it on a 1080p timeline resize it and rotate it to level it out. The EVO is a pretty good little drone. Hopefully you will give it a consideration. I think they did alright on this one! All the best, Jim

 

[macoman]

I was contemplating buying a Walkera vitus. But the lack of people using this drone, no recent reviews and if you try to buy it from the Walkera store. It's not encrypted, which mean that your credit card can be compromised.
I then turned to the Autel Evo. I already have a Mavic Pro Platinum but want a second drone that is small as well and with the Evo, you find the majority of recent reviews positive, Autel robotics have one of the best customer service in the industry. I am still waiting for my order to arrive next week.

 

[m0j0]

If you are here you likely have already done your research and have decided or are close to deciding on a unit. I like the EVO but do understand the differences between it and it’s competitor. As long as you go in knowing what you are getting buy what suits you and then be happy with it. Autel makes a solid product.

I think sometime we buy things then feel like we have to defend our purchase that’s why people get heated and defensive.

My one and only issue with Autel is they never delivered on the XSP. To me that was significant. I don’t have a lot invested in them 1 XSP and a couple of batteries. That said every time someone talks about how great the CS is it rubs me the wrong way. Is it great CS to bait and switch? That doesn’t mean I won’t buy the EVO but you can bet I will consider all the options. There are options out there that are equal or better but they have trade offs too. So do your research and absolutely know what you are buying 1000-1500 is a lot to spend. Then be happy and fly it.