Here are some of my thoughts on OpenIPC. I'm an FPV Racer and occasional Freestyler. I tried this system for the past two months, definitely not an expert yet, so just sharing from a first timer's perspective.
What platforms might it be good for?
- Low budget and doesn't care much about latencies
- Long range drones flying in large open area with autopilot mode (RTH at least)
- Freestyles (maybe, if the system doesn't stutter and instead gives gradually degraded videos)
What platforms is it not good for?
- Racing, latency is too high
- Close proximity freestyles, variable latency and stutters
This is definitely a fun project for folks into DIY and the devs have done a great job in supporting these cheap cameras.
You can get a working system with a very low budget if you don't care about performance. But if you do, you'll need an IMX415 with SSC338 processor, which plus shipping gets around $45, to get 120FPS decoding capability, you'll need an Orange Pi, which is not cheap. However, I do think this could be a good contender for the freestyle HD market if it can get the stuttering issue sorted out.
My setup in this video IMX415+SSC338Q (Air), NVR100 (Ground). Receiver is in the house, so the signal is not the best, I guess that contributed to a lot of the stutters.