Bitrate on the new DJI Air 3S, Air 3, and Mini 4 Pro… is this an issue?

For anyone who’s not sure, bitrate is about the amount of data processed each second in a video or audio file, usually in Mbps (megabits per second). Higher bitrate generally means more detail and better quality. Lower bitrate can sometimes lead to problems like pixelation or other visual glitches. What do you all think of the bitrate changes on these new drones?
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You should add the iPhone 16 Pro bitrate for comparison… it’s even lower, but the video quality still looks great.

Misha said:
You should add the iPhone 16 Pro bitrate for comparison… it’s even lower, but the video quality still looks great.

That’s fine for a phone that does a bunch of other stuff. But these drones are all about filming, and the bitrate is worse than the last model.

@Sky
Doesn’t matter, it’s still a fair comparison.

@Sky
Bitrate isn’t the only thing that affects quality. The encoding algorithm plays a big role too. If you can get the same quality with a lower bitrate, wouldn’t that be a good thing? The iPhone example shows you can still get amazing results even with a lower bitrate.

Bitrate is just one factor. It matters if all other things are equal, but often they’re not. There are many ways to tweak compression within H265 that can change quality.

Marlo said:
Bitrate is just one factor. It matters if all other things are equal, but often they’re not. There are many ways to tweak compression within H265 that can change quality.

Are you sure about that? The person who posted this made a colorful spreadsheet.

@Sage
A colorful spreadsheet always wins… everyone knows that.

Marlo said:
@Sage
A colorful spreadsheet always wins… everyone knows that.

Cols + Rows + Colors = Truth :joy:

@Sage
If you’re colorblind, red and green look the same… not sure how useful that spreadsheet really is.

Ray said:
@Sage
If you’re colorblind, red and green look the same… not sure how useful that spreadsheet really is.

Good point… maybe they should add some patterns or gradients to make it more readable.

Marlo said:
Bitrate is just one factor. It matters if all other things are equal, but often they’re not. There are many ways to tweak compression within H265 that can change quality.

Tweaking is fine, but are you saying it can improve quality by 60-70%? That seems like a stretch. Why is DJI making such a big deal out of this?

@Valen
How exactly are you measuring a 60-70% improvement? Optimization can make a big difference, but we don’t know if DJI did anything specific to improve it. We need more info before saying lower bitrate is a problem. It’s likely the newer hardware has better compression tech, but we can’t be sure.

Marlo said:
Bitrate is just one factor. It matters if all other things are equal, but often they’re not. There are many ways to tweak compression within H265 that can change quality.

Has anyone sent footage to a professional for color grading or editing? Curious if the quality is noticeably different.

Marlo said:
Bitrate is just one factor. It matters if all other things are equal, but often they’re not. There are many ways to tweak compression within H265 that can change quality.

That’s why the bitrate on the Osmo Action 5 Pro looks so good, right? :thinking:

Just to clear things up… the DJI Air 3S uses a new encoding algorithm that optimizes bitrate by more than 30% while keeping high video quality. This helps save storage without losing visual quality. Hope this helps!

@Sky
Just like the Action 5 Pro, right? :joy: Quality definitely took a hit.

First the Osmo Action 5, and now this with lower bitrates. I’m not saying it’s a dealbreaker, but it’s interesting to see them doing this on newer models. Wonder if there’s more going on behind the scenes?

DJI claims they’ve made big improvements in how they reduce bitrate. What really matters is how the video looks in the end. If lower bitrates are causing issues like pixelation, show us the results.

From what I’ve read, DJI updated the compression tech, making the files smaller without losing quality. So, bitrate alone isn’t a good way to judge what’s ‘good.’ It’s just one part of the picture, especially when comparing devices from different years.