DJI Inspire 1 / Lightbridge / Atomos testing: I did some tests this morning with a production DJI Inspire 1 recording to an Atomos Ninja Blade via the HDMI output on the remote control. Inspire 1 has built-in Lightbridge, so it can output 720/60p to a local display or recorder over HDMI.

HDMI cables are really important for reliable recording from Inspire 1 to Atomos Ninja Blade. I’ve had 2 HDMI cables not work reliably, so far, including Monoprice HDMI cables and Monster mini-HDMI to HDMI cables. The cable I’ve used that definitely works (in my testing, anyway) is the 16’ PNY Smart Active High Speed HDMI cable (nice and long, and super thin) combined with the Cable Matters gold-plated mini HDMI to HDMI adapter.

When I say, “work,” I mean that the video is stable over the course of many minutes. The cables that didn’t “work” showed a picture, but the picture dropped out constantly, and the signal was not stable enough to view nor record.

Of course, other cables than the one I listed are likely to work, but the PNY worked reliably during my initial tests. I’ll do more testing in the coming days.

Yesterday, we tried the Inspire’s HDMI output on a Blackmagic Design UltraStudio Thunderbolt Mini Recorder, and were unable to get a picture at all. This wasn’t surprising for me, since I’ve had problems getting all sorts of HDMI signals to work with Blackmagic products. We then connected the Blackmagic recorder via an Aja bridge, which worked fine.