I trashed the 2.7K camera on my P3A, and the insurance had it “repaired” but really sent a 4K camera assembly with my original “ADV” serial sticker stuck on it. The assemblies look identical with the exception of “4K” printed on the camera and a fan on the processor plate. See photos.
At first I was happy that I’d gotten a free upgrade but now I’m not so sure. I swapped the new 4K camera on my second P3A with its original 2.7K “HD” camera just to test.
Results after the swap:
I first loaded P3 ADV FW (P3S_FW_V01.08.0080) and got a “Camera firmware needs updating” message in the Go app. The camera worked just fine and I had the same Adv camera setting selections up to 2.7K.
Next I loaded the P3 PRO FW (P3X_FW_V01.08.0080) on the Advanced and again got the “Camera firmware needs updating” message. Again, the camera worked just fine however, I now had all the Pro4K settings in the Go app.
I shot video in all resolution formats and they all played from the Go app on the mobile device (streaming from the AC) however none of the 4K mp4 files would play on my PC using any of the multitude of players I have. Since I have no experience with 4K, this may be a limitation of my players. The file sizes of the 10 second videos shot in each resolution corresponded with their resolutions.
The reasons that I may ask the insurance company for a direct 2.7K replacement instead of the 4K is that
1. I’m bothered that an error message displays, even though it doesn’t seem to have an effect of performance. What if this isn’t the case with future FW releases?
2. I’m not a professional aerial videographer and never shot more than 1080, so there's no need for the higher resolutions.
Thoughts?
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