Reminds one of the Sussex Police and that Gatwick drone fiasco two years ago – when the only confirmed drones in the sky were the FLEET of industrial drones operated by the police themselves:
It was only after a drawn-out “pursuit” that she sought help from senior officers, who told her it was Jupiter – some 365 million miles away.
But it’s okay, lights on buildings and towers miles from Gatwick were being reported as drone sightings. Clowns.
Here is a summary from the Academy of Model Aeronautics: AMA IN ACTION Advocacy for Members | Academy of Model Aeronautics
I am a member of the AMA. I was critical of how the AMA initially re-acted last January when it urged members to file a form letter to the FAA’s NPRM proceeding. We know that sending form letters are not a good approach to dealing with the regulatory process. The best is to write individual, or at least individually edited, letters with specific talking points.
That said, the AMA has done good work since then, forming alliances and lobbying Congress, and in interaction and education of FAA staff.
One year ago, the FAA’s NPRM literally spelled the end of the home built model aircraft world, and was likely to end the recreational flying of even purchased/built products due to its proposed requirement to log all flights, in real time, over the Internet. This would have likely required a monthly subscription fee.
What we ended up with one year later is vastly improved. It meets the Congressional law directive to implement Remote ID – without going beyond what Congress asked for. The final rule permits retrofitting existing aircraft with an add on Remote ID Module. It no longer terminates FRIA applications, a feature the FAA originally envisioned as shutting down home built model aircraft.
Aircraft under 250 grams do not need to have a Remote ID.
For most of us, if we continue flying at our local air field, we don’t need to do anything. If we wish – or we wish to fly elsewhere – we can add a Remote ID module to our aircraft.
We will need to register ourselves with the FAA as we’ve had to do now for several years, but will also need to add our aircraft Remote ID information into the registration database. Whereas the FAA had proposed a fee per aircraft, they eliminated the per aircraft fee.
Some existing, commercially built aircraft (such as some DJI drones) may be able to implement Remote ID via software updates. DJI’s proposal has been to embed Remote Id information inside the existing control link.
Note – I’ve seen posts on social media blaming the AMA for Remote ID. Those posts are nonsense. The AMA should not be blamed and should instead be thanked.
Congress passed a law that directed the FAA to implement Remote ID. The FAA had no choice in the matter – only the implementation.
The FAA’s original NPRM was ladled down with nonsense by the Department of Homeland Security which ran the original proposal off into nonsense.
Fortunately, the AMA, and many, many others vociferously argued against the original NPRM – and the FAA appears to have listened. In the end, the FAA implemented what Congress required it to do – Remote ID.
Don’t blame the AMA for this – the AMA helped make these regulations vastly more palatable to the R/C model community. Thank the AMA. I am thanking the AMA for the work they did on this with a positive outcome.
This review represents what I think of Topaz Labs Video Enhance AI, after using the product over a few weeks in quarantine with various video types.
Source: Topaz Video Enhance AI Review – Delphineous
I am working with the trial version currently. My thoughts based on my tests – so far:
For upscaling high quality HD video (shot on a Lumix GH-2 originally) to 4K, this works very well with a noticeable detail improvement. Looks more like 3K video than 4K, but it is a very nice improvement.
For upscaling old 640×480 video, the enhancements are very limited. Depending on the upscale model used, the enhancements could look a bit like over done noise reduction with sort of a cartoon quality to the final result. I did use it successfully on some old archival footage (from poor quality B&W film) and it did a subtle bit of noise reduction which was useful, but not super valuable for the effort it required. Better noise reduction would have also looked frame to frame to identify dust and scratch marks and eliminate them – but I did not see that happening.
Some reviewers (like the one reviewer above) say they have ripped high quality SD DVD content and gotten relatively good upscale results to an HD-like level.
My view is that Video Enhance AI has some value in noise reduction of old films, but didn’t remove dust and scratches. At $199, its fairly pricey and time consuming to process old films with only a small benefit. If instead, the goal is to upscale some old HD video – those results are quite noticeable and good. If you need that, it might be a handy tool to have available.
Another product Topaz Gigapixel AI provides upscaling of still images. Some people have output video to JPG images and the used Gigapixel to upscale all of the images. I found Gigapixel only works on relatively high quality images. In other words, don’t try to scale up a 640×480 image – its barely usable. However, you can upscale an HD still (1920×1080) to a pseudo 4K (3840×2160) image. The more detail you start with, the better the upscaling.
I took some 16 megapixel images and did a 2x upscale – and this did indeed produce generally nice, some what more detailed, high resolution photos.
My camera (Lumix G9) has a built in high resolution mode that uses the in body image stabilization to move the sensor in tiny increments, taking 8 photos in high speed succession, and then integrating them into a super high resolution photos. This works very well for stationary subjects. Some have instead shot a conventional photo (20 MP) and then used Gigapixel to create a pseudo high resolution photo – with surprisingly decent results.
I view Gigapixel as another tool to consider – but not a panacea.
I highly recommend Topaz Denoise AI, and Topaz Mask AI. I use both of those all the time. I also use Sharpen AI some of the time – but Mask AI has its own sharpening capabilities and much of the time, I prefer those results to those of Sharpen AI.
Sharpen AI does have two unique features – the ability to rescue a blurred photo (from camera shake) or one that is slightly out of focus. I have tested the blurred rescue and it works quite well!
Anyway, I definitely recommend Denoise AI and Mask AI. Hands down excellent products.
Video Enhance AI is fine if used primarily to upscale HD to higher resolution – and time is not a big deal as this can take quite a while.
Gigapixel AI works very well on clean input images of good resolution. But don’t expect it to upscale poor resolution images.
Sharpen AI works well too – but sharpening is perhaps not my thing. However, I have found it did an amazing job on some blurred photos taken slightly telephoto from a moving boat. That was pretty cool.
For most of us, drones are fun flying and a fun aerial camera for amazing video. But for others, toys and tools become weapons.
Using mid to high end consumer drones with attached explosives:
The tactic has become widespread on battlefields overseas and now appears to be proliferating to organized crime.
Source: Drug Cartel Now Assassinates Its Enemies With Bomb-Toting Drones – The Drive
We know what government will do, of course – an eventual ban on consumer radio controlled aircraft. Guns and vehicles, also used in their cartel terror campaigns, however, will not be banned.
The FAA has formerly proposed the eventual ban on home construction of all DIY model aircraft – and allow only commercially built, certified model aircraft that transmit their location in real time, via cellular networks, to government databases. The FAA also proposes to ban the indoor flight of quadcopters, even inside your own home by allowing flight only when a GPS signal is present. The FAA has no legal jurisdiction to regulate the airspace inside your home but they have proposed doing that; they already assert they own all the airspace in your backyard and on your patio, from the ground up.
Good insights in to the changing patterns of camera buyers, and why. I agree with every observation he made (I think I usually agree with everything Thomas posts!)
This article discusses camera industry factors and consumer behaviours that may be affecting buying criteria of cameras and lenses.
Source: Buying Criteria Changes – Small Sensor Photography by Thomas Stirr