DJI Mini 3 Pro Starts Shooting 10-Bit D‑Cinelike Video With New Firmware

New firmware brings 10-bit D‑Cinelike video

In the process of col­lect­ing infor­ma­tion for the upcom­ing review of the lat­est light­weight DJI Mini 3 Pro drone, we came across one infor­ma­tive and objec­tive video review of the new prod­uct from a cer­tain Philip Bloom, or rather its addi­tion­al part, which, accord­ing to him, he was forced to shoot after the release of the next new firmware v01.00.0100 dat­ed May 17, 2022. We strong­ly rec­om­mend view­ing both reviews to any­one con­sid­er­ing buy­ing this drone to be aware of all the nuances before pur­chas­ing.

For those who are not in the know, we note that in the face of fierce com­pe­ti­tion and the rapid devel­op­ment of high-tech devices, the “soft­ware damp­ness” of new­ly mint­ed prod­ucts today is the norm, which lat­er the devel­op­ers of these prod­ucts cor­rect with soft­ware updates. And that is why we rec­om­mend begin­ners with a frag­ile psy­che to refrain from per­ma­nent­ly buy­ing new prod­ucts imme­di­ate­ly after the announce­ment and wait for the arrival of more sta­ble and effi­cient firmware.

So, back to Philip Bloom. The thing is that in the list of improve­ments of the new Mini 3 Pro firmware v01.00.0100, pub­lished on May 17, 2022, as Philip found out, an impor­tant aspect is not men­tioned! This is the addi­tion of a 10-bit mode for video record­ed in the D‑Cinelike col­or pro­file (pre­vi­ous­ly only 8 bit was avail­able). This mode becomes rel­e­vant if you plan to post-process the record­ed video using spe­cial­ized soft­ware, as this pro­file pro­vides greater col­or free­dom in post-pro­duc­tion. For ease of under­stand­ing, 8‑bit gives 16.7 mil­lion col­ors, and 10-bit gives 1.07 bil­lion col­ors! If that does­n’t tell you any­thing, then you should know that this much larg­er col­or space allows (among oth­er things) to reduce so-called solar­iza­tion. These are unsight­ly effects that can some­times be seen in images with col­or gra­da­tion, such as at sun­set or in the day­time sky that changes from white to dark blue.

The 8‑bit image of the Mini 3 Pro on the left (with a lit­tle solar­iza­tion — the col­or band). On the right is a sim­u­la­tion of solar­iza­tion to under­stand the defect.

Higher bitrate

Also, sev­er­al users noticed that dur­ing test­ing with the pre­vi­ous firmware, the bitrate nev­er reached the 150 Mbps stat­ed in the data sheet. After upgrad­ing to 4K at 60 fps in D‑Cinelike col­or pro­file with 10-bit mem­o­ry, this speed was up to a whop­ping 153 Mbps!

This 10-bit mode is great news for those who care about the qual­i­ty of their images and work on them in post-pro­duc­tion. For the rest (shoot­ing in Nor­mal mode), this will not change any­thing. By the way, it is not­ed that you will have to mon­i­tor the heat­ing of the Mini 3 Pro in 10-bit mode, since the graph­ics com­po­nents oper­ate at max­i­mum modes, and the sys­tem does not pro­vide active cool­ing.

Video

Reviews from Philip Bloom

The same video in which Philip Bloom talks about the incon­spic­u­ous upgrade that came with the new firmware.

His first review of the qual­i­ty of shoot­ing drone DJI Mini 3 Pro.