I installed my SmartOSD today on my MK-equipped CS8. First, I butchered the ribbon cable (RTFM: do'oh!), and had to MacGyver it together. Then, I got it working, but the video image is cut off pretty severely. For a video source, I'm using the composite output of the CX760V (which works fine plugged directly into my Itron Mondo Stinger. Tomorrow I'll try it with one of my little FPV-only cams. But why does it look like this? It looks the same in my Haier TV and my Fatshark Predators, too. Any ideas? Thanks!
It's a "feechur." (Remember those from your software days?) It happens on my setup too -- you just have to tweak'n'look iteratively gradually shrinking the icons down on the screen until everything is visible. It doesn't match what you see on the computer screen. You're getting a pretty nice sharp OSD image, though. I had lots of chroma bleed on mine so had to do beaucoup tweaking of the tiny little pots on the board. Check out the radar view -- you can enlarge the copter icon and use it to see the C8's heading -- which makes for a great orientation aid. I have a channel on a rotary control so that I can select all four screens, one of which I keep pretty clear in the center if I need to just fly visually on FPV. Andy.
Steve, when you use the SmartOSD Manager software you can drag the corners of any of the icons or screen items to adjust for size. As Andy mentioned hat you see in the software won't exactly match the layout you will see in the goggles or screen. Better to have the screen running as you make adjustments to fine tune. Also check on the global parameters tab that you are in NTSC mode and not PAL.
Thanks! Not at all intuitive, but not at all surprising, either. I learned long ago that excellent algorithmic guys (both hardware and software) rarely have any human interface design skills. They just assume that everybody is as smart as they are and knows how their code works. And if they don't, it's somebody else's problem. Grrr. On a related matter, do you guys run 352x240 or 320x240? I don't see a difference when I change that setting in the global parameters.
There is an argument for declaring software a profession and establishing training for human/machine interfaces! I don't remember which setting I'm using, Steve. I'll look it up next chance I have. The pisser is that I'm running a 700 line FPV camera, so the OSD appears to be dragging the resolution down.... I'm thinking of putting a three way video switch: 1) Forward looking camera, 2) downward looking camera and 3) direct video from forward looking, bypassing the OSD...just want to compare. Andy.
I don't know that any of the video tx will put out anything more than SD/480. That may be the bottle neck.