No OSD display on board camera - reset copter and its back

[athertop]

Hi Tobi,

Wonder if you can help? I have had this issue since I first used PlayUAV board and it persists. I have 2 cameras connected - 1st is a Sony 600tvl board camera, and 2nd is a GoPro Hero 4 Silver. When the copter is powered, the feed from the Sony 600tvl board camera initially appears on my goggles - but no OSD overlay appears - just the clean video feed. I then flick the switch so the PlayUAV switches to the GoPro, and the OSD displays fine with this camera. I switch back to the board camera and no OSD again! I then re-power the hexacopter, and this time the OSD works fine on both cameras!

This seems to happen every time I go flying this copter. Could this perhaps be a video sync issue with the board camera??

[TobiasBales]

What Videomode is your board cam? Pal or Ntsc? And what frame rate are you using on the gopro? 50 or 60 fps? Because Pal is 50 fps and ntsc is 60fps. Both cameras need to match (this is the most often occurring issue that causes this).

[athertop]

The board cam is PAL, and I have the GoPro set to NTSC - I am using 1080p30 on the GoPro. If this mismatch is the cause, then why when I reset the copter does the issue resolve itself?

[athertop]

Another issue I spotted - the offset x and y values have no effect on the OSD position. I find that the overlay on the right side of the screen, although it displays fine in the simulated display in your config tool, on the actual screen (using PAL on both cameras) there is a much larger space on the right side of the right-most text compared to the left side of the left-most text on the OSD. This is what I see: Whilst the config utility suggests it should be evenly spaced horizontally like this:

Second (or is it third) issue: the arc at the top of the artificial horizon is off the top of the screen, even with the scale set at 1 - you can see this in the two images above also.

One last thing - I find the radar display very confusing to use. I was out doing some FPV flying earlier, and yawing the copter so that the arrow pointed to H on the radar, the copter was not facing the home position it was at least 90deg ccw in reality. Would it be possible to simply get a home arrow like on MinimOSD, AlceOSD etc?

[TobiasBales]

The code is not setup to handle switching between both video modes and I think it is pure luck that it works after resetting. Curious - does the osd switch to the other camera on startup after reset? But if it works it is pure luck and nothing you should count on. The correct thing would be to use either pal or ntsc on both cameras, not sure if mixed is possible but I don't have that much knowledge or time to spend on that issue, sorry.

What setting are you running on the osd? pal or ntsc? Pal is wider than ntsc so that could explain the incorrect positioning you are experiencing.

Regarding the offsets not doing anything, I will open an issue and take a look at some point (soonish, probably, but a couple things are more important ;))

Regarding the arc, I will make open an issue too, no clue since I don't use it. You are running windows I suppose? If so I can run a new build of the tool and upload it since it is rather old. I added a simple ahi (you can switch the artificial horizont mode in the current builds) so it looks a lot like the minimosd-extra one.

The radar - two things. a) I find it confusing as hell too, that's why I don't use it and there is a simple one (again, minimosd-extra style) but you need an up to date configurator to use it. b) there seem to be erratic issues with home distance/direction, we are still trying to figure out what it is. If you would like to help (you need a new build, will let you know when I got around to building it, or maybe you could give building it a try? It is not that much of a pain if you can get nodejs/ndenv setup) To help we could use a dvr recording with gps 1 lat and long and home lat and long (new feature too) on screen together with home distance and the new home direction arrow. If you could afterwards point out the correct home direction in the video that would be most helpful.

[TobiasBales]

Re arc - when changing the scaling, did you reset the board? All things that get scaled/rotated just initialize once on boot time and if you change them while running don't update (expect for positioning)

[athertop]

Tobi, Regarding the offsets not doing anything, I noticed that after adjusting these values I need to also reset the copter power, and then I see a change in the offsets, although to centre the screen I had to set x = 16 and y = 8. I also moved the items at each side of the screen as far as they would go. So on left, the left aligned items are at x = 0 and on the right side of the screen I have the items right aligned with x = 359. This is the widest I can get it without clipping of graphics. I have attached my config file for info on my best layout on the PAL screen. (I added .txt so I could upload here) plauuavosd_configuration.conf.txt

You are correct about the arc - this resets after re-powering.

I had 0.1.0 configurator. Just updated to latest version (0.2.0) and I now see the new options. I like the home arrow a lot. I also like the simple artificial horizon. Nice work! I am running MacBook BTW :-) It would be great if it was possible to click an item on the simulated screen and for it to jump to the config box for that item. I find it tough sometimes to remember where each item is.

I will do some testing maybe at the weekend and upload a video as you suggest. Thanks again for all your efforts - this project is finally going somewhere! Thanks again

[TobiasBales]

Thanks and good to hear :D Regarding the clipping some (aka a lot) of devices do not display 100% of all available information but clip some of it. That might be the issue you are seeing - do you have any other display to give it a try on?

And it is good if you feel like it is moving forward :D

[athertop]

I was out flying today and the home arrow worked perfectly. I did DVR the flight with home and current GPS coordinates, and home arrow, but forgot to include the home distance info on the screen config, so that is missing. I can post this vid or do another flight with the home distance info included if you prefer that?

[athertop]

Just for info Tobi - I am also testing another graphical OSD called AlceOSD - have you seen that project (also on github)? It uses a Pix chip instead of ARM. The dev is planning a video switcher on his next hardware design also, so will be even closer to the PlayUAV OSD. It is very similar to the PlayUAV. Its a pity you guys can't work as a team rather than taking different tracks. I jumped on that project when I saw this one originally go stale, but now you are developing this, its hugely improved. I picked up on another bug though:

As you know, under both the 'video switch channel' and 'Page switch channel' options, you can choose between the modes 'switch' and 'cycle'. For the 'page' switching, both options works fine, but for the 'video' switching, regardless of which option is chosen, operation works in the 'cycle' mode, even when the 'switch' mode is selected.