Thanks for the comments. But i think the word was "softer" wen i watched the 1080p clip i had at 1600 to 3200 iso. Comparing it to my clip at 4k at same isos, 1080 was more watchable than the grainy n noiser 4k clip i had. Thats y i wanted someone with a 4k tv to compare it as well so that i know its not my tv struggling to playback. Which i doubt. I still think hardware is struggling in p4 to write the 4k data on the card. Sucha a waste buying the extreme pro sandisk though.. Thanks for the explanations boys! I just want to get the best set up so that i dnt hv regrets later wen shooting something spectular. Ill keep playing around wid settings though. Im very happy wid the p4 btw. Its just not a big step up wid the camera in video.
It's not though. I keep using the same examples but if you have an iPhone 6s in your pocket, the camera on it is a lot better than the camera on the Phantom, any of them.
The iPhone 6s can shoot 4K at 127Mbps which is more than twice that of the camera on the P4 which is around 60, and for comparison, the just above average prosumer camera (that shoots in ProRes, not h264 btw) averages about 100MBps and can go as high as 200 in certain settings but not many. It has larger CCDs and better camera components so it shoots a much better image and of course interchangeable lenses and stuff.
But my point is people are not realizing what they are getting with that little camera. It's nothing short of amazing how well it shoots considering its MANY limitations. It is innovative actually I think for a camera that small and hooked up to a flying machine to shoot as well as it does. That said, because of the unfortunate, but needed to keep the price down H264, it doesn't need to be, and really can't be higher than 60. The X5R will change that on the Inspire soon but that will require a HDD, not a MicroHD card because of the file sizes and speeds.
To give you a little perspective, a SSD drive has the information in it (in the right conditions) flying around at about 500mbps while a micro SD card if you get the very best ones (I mean the ones you can barely find) at about 90 (and I mean steady not "can reach").
Also, to your point about someone with a 4K TV vs. a UHD TV, you need to understand the formats. I've tried to explain this too but I'll do it again.
ZERO 4K TVs are UHD. The reason is that 4K is a thinner or wider aspect ratio (DCI 4K (native resolution) 4096 × 2160 1.90:1 while UHD is a larger size and is a TV format (Ultra-high-definition television 3840 × 2160 1.78:1 (16:9).
Okay, that might confuse you to look at but all you really need to know is that 4K is for movie people that want to watch movies at the SAME aspect ratio and frame rate as they do in the theater which is really why there is only one frame rate for it 24 (which is what 90-95% of all theaters are and the exceptions are for things like 3D where they sometimes have 48 so you have 24 in each eye for the stereoscopic 3D 24 in each eye).
UHD, which is a TV standard is exactly 2x the size of 1920x1080 (1080p). Multiply 1920x1080 = 3840x2160 (TV). If you take the 2k of film and double it DCI 2K 2048 × 1080 4096x2160 (FILM).
I'm pretty sure almost all UHD TVs can play 4K (but with a letter box because of the minor size discrepancy above).
*So the reason at 4K you can see your grain more is because you can see more. More resolution, more color space and just more everything is gonna show everything more, for better or worse and jacking that little camera up to 3200 ISO or whatever you said, is gonna create a lot of grain.
This image visualizes all the crap I just wrote:
See how you could fit that 4K into the UHD screen, but not vice versa. Actually you could but you would lose part of the UHD resolution and you would have to pan and scan or just cut off the video. If anyone that was into video for over a decade and is over 30-35 remember pan and scan well because when movies came to a 4x3 TV we literally were missing about 35-40% of the movie! It drove directors nuts. That's why movie buffs started demanding the cinematic 4k versions even on the 4x3 NTSC televisions. It was not as bad on PAL because even though it wasn't as wide as anamorphic 4k, it was still 16x9 long before we caught on. When they invented NTSC (National Television Standard Committee), they thought they were gonna make film better by raising the resolution to basically 30fps (29.97 drop frame, where it drop every 10th frame to not have the audio slip with 48k). PAL (Phase Alternating Lines) ran at 25fps (closer to film) and 16x9 as I said. I used to marvel at the difference of how PAL vs NTSC looked when I would travel to Europe. Night and day. Also, the colors were better for PAL.
But now here we all are and we still have to deal with the NTSC and PAL standard but not the actual formats. Just what kind of TV it is. It matters not at all in actuality.
What does matter is understanding the formats and resolutions, frame rates, pixel aspect ratios (is it square, circular, rectangular?), refresh rates, and most importantly BITRATES, and then the media. People are used to point and shoot and automation and you can get away with it but if you want to create, you better understand these things. If you want to know what you're doing even with automation, you need a little bit of understanding on what's going on underneath the hood. It's a strange thing that has happened with these photography UAVs, as you need to have a pretty strong interest in both to have the desire to really learn it.
By the way, if you don't believe me that the iPhone 6s shoot better 4k than the Phantom (any of them), check out this video shot with an iPhone 6s 4k with UltraCam 4K. The apps on the iPhone really matter BTW. The video I am linking to below, please watch on a 4K screen. It is honestly a beautiful 10 seconds of video. One of the best I've ever seen from a purely crisp, clean and colorful vid. I would believe it was shot on any camera in the world if I didn't know it was an iPhone 6s but I would never believe in a second it was shot with a P4 or any other integrated low grade prosumer camera. No drone shoots this nice under $5000.
http://esotericsean.com/video/iPhone6s_4K_Sample.mov
Happy Flying!