When Will Digital FPV Prices Come Down? Will DJI or Walksnail Ever Be Cheaper? - FPV Questions

[KillerWhale]

I think the question about "is hd zero considered digital" is based on the fact that HD0 is a one way transmitting system, so it operates more similarly to analog than dji.

[shatterpointgames]

What about OpenHD or another similar product coming up? It reminds me of how ELRS suddenly made long-range low latency protocols affordable. Open HD combined with an affordable single-board computer. Seems like a reasonable path.

[wtb]

I just realised again why I like JB so much. His logic and arguments always make a lot of sense.

[gmivisualsjason]

I don't often disagree with you JB.... But on this subject I do.
Here in the UK it's clear that Walksnail is competing with Hdzero on price.
Also in the states aren't the V2 goggles heavily discounted now?

It's just a matter of time for the prices to

[bot-skmt]

Longtherm we need something open source like erls, so competition gets stronger

[CarbonGlassMan]

A Vista was about $160 when I started out 3 years ago and it's still $160 for the 120fps camera Vistas. The V2 goggles came down, but they're not going to make them anymore, so that's basically to get rid of stock they have. Digital really isn't that much more expensive than analog if you're buying a good set of analog goggles, good VTX and good analog camera. My last analog setup was a Foxeer T-Rex camera $50, a Rush Tank Solo $50 and a $20 cherry rush antenna. That's $120, only $40 less than a Vista. My Skyzone 03o goggles were bought on sale for $400, about $50 less than a new set of V2 DJI goggles.

[PaulieShortcuts]

Luckily I got into the fpv hobby through used gear on OfferUp. Full dji fpv kit for $500 that was nearly brand new this year2023. Then went for a flywoo baby nano 20 that’s sluggish af but still my fav daily driver

[kacimierz]

You can get dji v1 goggles for less than a good pair of analog goggles right now, vistas are also more affordable, around $100 for a full set in my country. Granted, they're second hand, but this gear tends to be very durable, and should last quite some time. My two most used vistas probably have several hundred packs done without any damage, maybe a broken antenna here or there.

[definingslawek]

A fast chip for compressing and decompressing bog standard h264/h265 video can’t remain expensive for that long, maybe eventually it will become cheap, but then there’s the problem of the size of our hobby.

[Malik.essadi]

So hdzero is basically an open source but not actually fully open?

[MArgusChopinGyver]

I mean, for doing fpv as a hobby on my spare time, analog is good enough I guess.

I know digital is game changer, I even watch my friend that usually fly use it. But seeing O3 prize is really crazy, so I think I will stay on analog 😂

[calisti]

It long until we get the best system using the AV1 codec. But at least that’s open source and there no MPEG license fee on it!

I’m thinking part of what might make digital cheaper is that there are more players who can get their hands on encoding and decoding chips. Like walksnail can get artosyn chips just as well as DJI can. And with AV1 there should be more fabless companies starting to offer encoder and decoder chips.
Part of the problem is proprietary systems, and that could be resolved for a while with AV1.

Don’t get me wrong though- webp (vp8, vp9) were better than h.264. But then h.265 came along even better than that.
Will AV1 be replaced by more machine learning optimized codecs soon?

[bugsy]

See the big channels tell people that the majority of people coming into fpv are starting digital and that’s absolutely incorrect- the 2nd hand market for analog is off the charts at the moment! What teen, what parent of the next gen is buying digital? Not many compared to Analog but then again companies aren’t paying top channels to say good things about anything other than new tech!
Edit ; I appreciate this looks like I’m taking about this channel and to a certain extent I stand by that, it’s not ment as a moan but more of an observation, it’s not me saying there is a lack of integrity either x

[MrBumbles]

lol it also has to do with volume of sales. fpv is a very small market compared to tv's etc. they have set the price, it will only go up

[CarbonGlassMan]

I do think DJI FPV systems will get more and more expensive. Look at their drones. Each new version of their camera drones hit the market for more money than the previous version. So far their FPV system has gone up too. From $165 for the vista to $220 for the o3 air unit. The o4 air unit will probably be $260 when they put that on the market. It could be that as the digital systems get better and better that the equivalent to the original Vista system will lower in price. So 720p with 10 times the penetration of analog, but 20 times less penetration to the DJI o4 or o5 air units that are outputting 4k to the goggles, might be able to be cheaper than it is today.

[Dav]

Just go analog if digital is too expensive for you, there is absolutely nothing wrong with analog FPV.

[johncarold]

I know that digital will never be cheap, for that reason I will never have Digital. I on a fixed-income that will not be enough to live on,

[Miguel-oyit]

U forgot one of the main points why it would not get cheaper almost every company makes a tv so in turn there cheaper only walk snail makes walk snail dji only makes dji theres like what five? Hd goggles out there if they all made the same googles it would go down in price

[brianlangford]

Easy just like anything, have the will to stop buying it, hit them in the pockets, stores gas everything

[thirtythreeeyes]

Bardwell laughing about using a laptop for openhd lol he's definitely never flown Ardupilot.