Any definative answers would be appreciated (I cannot seem to find them anywhere):

• Can I initiate a long descent by pulling the throttle down to the locked position? Will it fall out of the sky like a brick?
• If I shut the motors off mid-flight using CSC will the phantom fall vertically in a controlled fashion (propellers catching the wind and turning the other direction to maintain stability)? Can I then flick to GPS to recover normal flight? What about if no GPS signal, will Atti recover normal flight?
• Is there a decent comparison video between 720/60p and 1080/30p?
• Is it true that a narrow FOV will just crop a wide FOV image? If so, what is the point of this feature?
• Is there any way to stop the phantom from automatically adjusting the video brightness during filming (or at least make it a smoother transition)? At the moment it jumps from dark to light in really obvious and ugly steps... is there software that can smoothen out this transition during post-production?
• I have heard that the "soft" sharpness setting is basically the pure video feed from the phantom without any additional sharpening added. However, I can't find a way to add sharpening in post-production that is better than what the phantom can do on "normal" mode. Is there a decent tutorial on this somewhere?
• Finally, is there any way to turn off the gimbal but keep the phantom on? I.e. when you are connected to the computer.
  

Thanks for any help you can offer

I can answer the first two,

•Can I initiate a long descent by pulling the throttle down to the locked position? Will it fall out of the sky like a brick?
Yes you can lock the throttle down for a long decent, no, it will not fall out of the sky like a brick.
However the phantom does not like coming straight down and it is far happier having some forward momentum to smooth out the decent.

•If I shut the motors off mid-flight using CSC will the phantom fall vertically in a controlled fashion (propellers catching the wind and turning the other direction to maintain stability)? Can I then flick to GPS to recover normal flight? What about if no GPS signal, will Atti recover normal flight?
If you do the CSC in flight the phantom will drop out of the sky like a brick, you will have no control over it whatsoever.

Not sure what you mean by a comparison between the video formats.  In most situations you can't really tell the difference.
In a sense, yes, one FOV is just the other cropped - it is to help eliminate the fish eye effect in the video.
To stop the brightness adjusting select a white balance setting other than AUTO.
What kind of software are you using - that will determine the process for sharpening in post processing.
Unplug the cable to the gimbal and it will not get power.

nrgwise Posted at 2015-4-7 19:59
Not sure what you mean by a comparison between the video formats.  In most situations you can't real ...

Setting the white balance does not stop the camera adjusting the brightness automatically, there is still a jumpy transition when moving from dark to light areas.

I am using sony vegas currently but would move to other software if it could make the video look better.

Unplugging the cable obviously stops the gimbal, but I was wondering if you can have the phantom attached to a computer and the gimbal off?

johnwarr@live.c Posted at 2015-4-7 18:11
I can answer the first two,

•Can I initiate a long descent by pulling the throttle down to the loc ...

Thanks, I tried the throttle lock and it works as intended. I make sure to move around to avoid the turbulence

It is a shame to not have a way to make these drones descend quickly

info@dronealps. Posted at 2015-4-8 00:12
Setting the white brightness does not stop the camera adjusting the brightness automatically, ther ...

Yes, unplug the gimbal and you can plug the Phantom to the computer if you want.

I am not familiar with that software, I use Final Cut Pro X and can sharpen as little or as much as I want.

Go onto youtube and type in "Vision video capture settings", there is a pretty good overview by a fellow that gives some good recommendations, he has done the same for photo's as well

nrgwise Posted at 2015-4-8 00:16
Yes, unplug the gimbal and you can plug the Phantom to the computer if you want.

I am not familia ...

You can't unplug the gimbal on P2V+...

I can sharpen as much as I want on sony vegas too but it doesn't look as good as the inbuilt sharpening.

info@dronealps. Posted at 2015-4-8 00:33
You can't unplug the gimbal on P2V+...

I can sharpen as much as I want on sony vegas too but it d ...

You can unplug it.  

If your sharpening isn't what you think it should be either:
1.  Your software isn't capable of producing results better than Phantom can record.
2.  The method you are using for sharpening isn't correct.  There are many methods to sharpen an image. Even the best method will produce less than great results if applied incorrectly.  Not being familiar with your software I cannot suggest a method for it that might give you the results you are looking for.  

nrgwise Posted at 2015-4-8 00:54
You can unplug it.  

If your sharpening isn't what you think it should be either:

How can you easily unplug the gimbal from the P2V+? I know you can pull the ribbon out but that is hardly a good idea to do regularly...

I have been wondering if it would be possible to use CSC to stop the motors at a high altitude and then use it again to restart them when the drone is much lower. This would allow new altitude records to be made without running out of battery power on the way down. Obviously this could only be done with special FAA clearance or in the middle of the ocean. It is a fun thought experiment though.

grangerfx@gmail Posted at 2015-4-8 03:51
I have been wondering if it would be possible to use CSC to stop the motors at a high altitude and t ...

I'm very tempted to try this to see what happens. It would make a great video either way.