The National Association of Broadcasters’ annual summit is underway in Las Vegas this week and like bees swarming towards honey, the entire populace of the film and television industry from sound engineers to editors to camera operators have flocked to it to see what new leaps and bounds the industry has taken. DJI, the drone company, was also there and with the help of Claudio Miranda, the Academy Award-winning director of photography on Life of Pi, they revealed the Matrice 600 (M600), DJI’s biggest drone yet.
Aimed at Hollywood heavy hitters this massive contraption is intended to get you great aerial shots and the like. The M600 has a new video downlink, LightBridge 2, which can stream in 1080p at 60 frames per second from a distance of up to 3 miles meaning you wouldn’t have to constantly keep up with the drone as you maneuvered it. Furthermore, with its SDI output, television broadcasters can broadcast 720p footage at 59 frames per second and 1080i at 50 FPS. It’s got a new flight controller called the A3, and is available with three GPS units and three IMUs, allowing it to precisely determine its position and repeat a flight path for a specific shot with centimeter precision; you can even program it to follow someone or patrol an area. DJI believes this level of control will attract customers who need to shoot difficult shots such as monitoring the status of icebergs, or even inspecting oil rigs. The M600 is available now.
Going with the M600 is the $1,599 Ronin-MX, the first universal aerial gimbal the company has made. It allows professionals to attach a wide range of compatible cameras from, Canon, Panasonic, Black Magic RED, Nikon, etc. The MX can fly for 15 minutes with a 13.2-pound payload. Like the Inspire 1, the MX allows the camera to rotate 360 degrees but unlike the Inspire 1, it can continue spinning indefinitely and will not have to be reset.
