Wow, would have never gotten that one. Fascinating stuff in that link- thanks for passing it along. The history is much longer than I knew and it's incredible to see how far things have come.
You guys criticizing the stabilization on that gasser are funny. Have you ever built, maintained or flown any gas powered RC helicopters? I can't even imagine ever using one for any kind of aerial cinematography. The machines have an inherent vibration at all times, typically significant- no matter the level of tuning and balancing. Lot's of harmonics. This fact alone is why the vast majority of conventional RC helicopters used for AC are either electric or turbine. Vibrations are reduced by an order of magnitude. So, I give a lot of kudos to DJI for mounting the gimbal on that $hitty gasser and showing what it can do. The jerky camera pans and tilts are terrible but the overall stabilization given that platform is impressive, period. Those sensors were subjected to a worst case scenario in terms of baseline vibrations and if they performed that well in that environment it might be a hell of a system on something like a multi rotor. I have no intention of buying that gimbal. It's too small for the cameras I need. But that demo really impressed me. It's not trivial if you understand that kind of helicopter.
Toys a little harsh since its a young FC and it beat the main player in alt hold and gps hold from day one. The arrogance of MK to speak of the WKM as a cheap China thing also makes me shake my head since we are back to the good old bias approach stuff from china must be crap instead of acknowledging some of the strengths and taking those as a bench mark. If one remembers the pathetic MK tries to match the auto-landing/failsafe feature from the WKM and still not be wiling to acknowledge damn some if their stuff beats us we better get our heads together, i also don't have that much trust in MK either.
There is a lot of crap from China. And many German manufacturers are very arrogant. Certainly a lot of high end, precision equipment has come out of Germany for decades and everyone knows that. 70% of the equipment I use for work is from Germany because it is the de facto standard in the industry and it works consistently and reliably. Many times I have sent feedback to engineers back in Germany who resisted ideas for improvements. They incorporate them eventually but it's slow and frustrating and I think it stems from the arrogance that the product was designed right to begin with and your 'improvements' are not needed. Very painful. It seems similar with MK. But, conversely, Holger is not an idiot and he sees what's going on and I think the forthcoming firmware from them will bring parity or close to what DJI has. This kind of competition is good for everyone.
As for the Cineflex, there is no doubt that the stabilization is the very best available but I think the same integration with the Sony optical block that allows for such a tight, integrated system might also become its biggest limitation. Directors and DP's I work with don't want to be limited to the Sony sensor as nice as it is. The irony here is that if the ever increasingly smaller HD cameras continue to improve their sensors and image quality we could really bring something to the party using RC with a truly good stabilizer.
nick
