PATRONS FIRST: Fat Shark Shark Byte

Is fatshark gonna allow other companies to produce shark byte VTXs too?

Really excited by this. Recently I’ve been wondering whether I made the right decision with the HDO2s considering all the recent DJI hype. Now I feel comfortable that I did the right thing :)

So glad I waited too and I bought HDO2! In Japan with the trend for betafpv whoops or any micro whoops because of the 200g legislation for drones, I see a potential market for the Shark byte system.

So glad I waited. I have terrible eyes and I really need corrective inserts. Decision made.

Same question, is this going to work with HD3 with their HDMI bug, that does not allow HD3 to display full 4:3 image from HDMI ? Because if the requirement to fly Shark Byte is to buy new OLED goggles, then it kind of does not make sense at all ... I could just buy DJI goggles instead.

The byte frost DVR is totally self contained. It is not the same as the crappy fat shark DVR that you are thinking of.

Joshua Bardwell

Sorry man but that is just what it looks like. I wouldn't have used the DVR if I thought it wasn't accurate.

Joshua Bardwell

Yeah what does it look like with older goggles?none oled screen? That I would like to see

I'm one of the latter group:-)

So what does it look like on HD3's? Is it worth doing? This is looking within my $ range.

I think you need a golf cart instead of a lawn mower 🤣 😂

I like to see competition in digital fpv. When one company has a monopoly on something they can jack the prices up and people will pay it. Hopefully this is a start to open up the digital flood gates so people can fly digital and not break the bank. All the best to fatshark. Freaking awesome early review,thanks Joshua

I have refused almost aggressively to put DJI goggles on my face for over a year (believe me many people have tried to force the issue). Because of the fact I knew someone else would come up with something, I purchased HDO2 solely for the reason I have a giant watermelon head and that ipd was what I had been waiting for and now with this release I could not be happier! I love my toothpicks and micros and that whoop style board will be the perfect option for me when it comes out. Having only flown analog I am sure I will be blown away with the feed and I won’t miss anything as I still will not try DJI for no reason other than I don’t want to.... thanks JB for this video and I have to say I was a bit disappointed in the fact that with such an epic homestead you don’t have a side by side or golf cart. ;) thanks for all you do

I think DJI could extend their technology (in software) with a model that works more like Byte Shark for constant latency. No retransmissions, and another video codec which does per image encoding without backreferences to previous frames. Maybe they don't have any reason for this right now, but if a contender appears and grabs part of the market they may just do this. I could imagine that there will be a locked latency race mode for DJI in the future. That said, I watched Stingerswarms video about TBS Tracer and the 3ms constant latency seems to be a big thing especially if you fly using DJI Googles because the overall latency will be around what you had with analog (or better). I am not sure if the 20isch ms for Byte Shark makes up for the much worse video quality and I wonder why it wasn't more constant.

Hans Raaf

Awesome. Brings decent tech to the workers. I can actually afford that price. Looking forward to christmas now lol.

Was that variable latency that I saw! I'm a DJI user and am very happy with it. As things stand now many getting into the hobby go straight to dji simply because they can afford it. For those that can't then its analogue as it can be purchased significantly cheaper. With the release of the SharkByte system I'm not expecting anything to change.... those with the money will buy the best, DJI. Those with less will go analogue but will do so in the knowledge that when they have a few more pennies they can buy digital add on. Nothing will change. I don't believe this is death to analogue as I still fly analogue myself through my DJI just fine and still enjoy it. It's a great addition to the marketplace and I wish fatshark all the best in its release.

Jason (Gmi Visuals)

Nice review! A few thoughts though... I'd like to see something other than the notoriously bad Fat Shark DVR. Are we comparing DJI DVR to Fat Shark DVR and getting the wrong impression? Also, as we all know, with DJI the camera makes or breaks the system since Caddx digital cameras are far inferior to DJI cameras. So, it's really hard to make a comparison of the thing that is actually relevant, which is the digital transport. Overall, I see this as an improvement vs analog. It has features that make it more interesting to people with existing analog gear since we don't have to buy a $500 ($600?) pair of gigantic DJI goggles AND a $180 camera/vtx unit. Unfortunately for FS, I can't imagine anyone who doesn't own premium analog goggles buy this over DJI. Sorry for the novel.

Micah Vestal

woohoo! been waiting for JB review on this system! Thank you so much!

If nothing else hopefully DJI will now drop a V2 goggle or something new that’ll blow this out the water. It just looks like an ugly and vulnerable compromise to me.

Ok so I know this is super annoying, but I feel like the Shark Byte DVR just isn't that good. JB - could we pester you into running the Shark Byte through an HDMI splitter & capturing a feed on your computer with your capture card? The price is super compelling, and I keep hearing (rcgroups, whatever) that the goggle view is better than the dvr. Thoughts?

Thank you JB! Went with DJI in summer it took for ages to arrive and now I am just starting to figure it out. I am wondering what outputpower was used on the Vista? I assume you used 500mW on the sharkbyte?

I love the opening monologue and style of this video. It sets it apart from your others.

Not proprietary? Can you send me a list of brands supporting Byte Frost? Byte Frost is proprietary!

You have to consider the use case as to which system you’d choose, or you can also go with both. Shark Byte looks like the evolution for racing. BMS Thomas has Mark’s set at the moment. If you are a racer, or a race organiser; you’d go with Shark Byte because of the latency, weight and better quality over analogue as well as any one can tune into a channel and watch. Makes sense when you are trying to broadcast the FPV view during a race. If you are a freestyler, tough one, more subjective because that’s personal preference to chose mode between latency and visual clarity. However the consideration would be does having significantly increased clarity of image give more capability? JB, imagine a 3D Printed DJI Google faceplate that includes a mount for Shark Byte and then testing it on the DJI goggles, blasphemy I know.

Will most likely pick it up. Although DJI has a higher quality image, at least this isn't proprietary...and no audience mode is friggin' sweet!

It'll go nice with my HDO2's 👍🤓

John P Larson

"Is it better than DJI" isn't the right question to answer for everyone. "Is it a big upgrade from analog and a 'cheap' upgrade to my existing Hdo's" is what JB answered for me.

Drew Loika

Thanks JB, quality content as always

Totally Agree.

No competition to DJI.

+1 Andy M. And is fat shark so far behind the curve, that they will always be playing catch up? I do like the way it breaks up.

Actually looks usable... Definitely not close to DJI quality though. Might just pick one up to try. Might as well, I have spent all of my money on everything else💸💸. Why not, I’ll give this a fair shot. So any news on availability timeframes??

Brian

Is it just me, or does the video just not look very good? Like, not nearly as good as DJI?

Sweet! I've been waiting for this... Update: I'll keep waiting lol. Thanks for the truth Joshua.