DJI is showing the SDR Transmission 2 wireless video link to European film crews at IBC 2026 in Amsterdam, which opened Friday and runs through Monday, September 14, at the RAI convention center. DJI calls it the product’s international debut and says full product details and global availability will be announced by September 17, the date on a DJI event teaser that carries the tagline “Go Small, Connect All” and the silhouette of a small box with two antennas.
The radio itself has been on sale in China since September 1, at 1,999 yuan for a single transceiver, about $300, and 3,499 yuan for a pair, about $520. It sends DCI 4K at 60 frames per second in 10-bit HDR over a range DJI rates at 2.5 miles (4 kilometers), and one box now does the job of the separate transmitter and receiver DJI sold in 2024.
None of that reaches an American set. When DroneXL covered the launch date and the leaked box on August 18, the US status was already settled: the Federal Communications Commission put every piece of DJI communications equipment on its Covered List on December 22, 2025, and listed equipment cannot receive the authorization a new model needs to be imported or sold in the United States. The Amsterdam demo does not change that. The September 17 event will not either.
DJI Already Sells SDR Transmission 2 in China for 1,999 Yuan
DJI launched the SDR Transmission 2 in China on September 1 at 1,999 yuan for one transceiver and 3,499 yuan for the two-unit combo, plus a 999-yuan expansion kit that adds SDI. Sales opened the same day through DJI’s own store and JD.com.
Those prices, reported by IT之家 from DJI’s Chinese launch materials, convert to roughly $300 and $520 at the current rate of about 6.7 yuan to the dollar. The 2024 system sold in the US at $549 for a transmitter and receiver together and $309 for a standalone unit, so the Chinese sticker for the new pair sits below what Americans paid for the old one.
The spec sheet moves further than the price. DJI puts the range at 4 kilometers, up 60 percent from the first generation’s 2.5 kilometers, and quotes 35 milliseconds of latency at a 50 Mbps encode with H.265. The chassis weighs about 136 grams, down from 145, and carries one HDMI input and two USB-C ports on its own. The expansion board is where cinema crews will live: it passes SDI metadata from ARRI and RED cameras through to the monitor.
Hong Kong buyers can order it at HK$2,399. Europe is getting a demo. DJI’s IBC press release promises “product information and global availability” by September 17 and names no country. The event teaser says even less: a tagline, a date, and the outline of the radio.
One Transceiver Now Switches Between Sending and Receiving
Every SDR Transmission 2 unit transmits or receives. A physical switch on the body picks the role and triggers a reboot into it. A crew buys a count of units, not a ratio of transmitters to receivers, and a spare is never the wrong kind of spare.
That was the reading DroneXL took from the leaked packaging in August, when the box art said TX/RX SWITCHABLE and DJI had confirmed nothing. The shipping product goes further than a switch. One transmitter feeds up to eight receivers, and every receiver carries an uplink so a focus puller or camera operator can change settings from the monitor side. For larger sets, DJI’s multi-stream mode runs up to five transmitters and 40 receivers at once, with a channel-planning feature DJI calls Auto Channel 2.0 doing the frequency coordination that used to be a human job on a crowded stage.
The 2024 SDR Transmission topped out at 1080p60. DJI built it for the small crews that could not spend Teradek money on a monitor feed, and it cleared the FCC on an ordinary timeline: filed June 14, granted, launched July 17. DroneXL had the FCC identifier five days before DJI said a word.
The FCC Covered List Blocks Every New DJI Radio From US Sale
The FCC’s December 22, 2025 public notice added all foreign-produced drones and their critical components to the Covered List, and for DJI and Autel it added all communications and video surveillance equipment. Listed equipment gets no new equipment authorization, so a new radio cannot be imported or sold in the United States.
A cinema video link is a radio. That is the whole legal question, and DroneXL walked through it when the Covered List expansion landed. DJI’s petition for reconsideration, filed January 21 and docketed by the Commission as ET Docket 26-22, argues the listing cannot reach products outside the statutory definition of equipment essential to advanced communications service, a category DJI says covers most of its catalog. Oppositions closed April 6, replies May 11, and the Commission has not ruled. DJI’s parallel Ninth Circuit petition, case 26-1029, sits in abeyance with an opening brief due November 2, and DJI told that court in April that $1.56 billion in 2026 revenue rides on the outcome.
American crews keep what they own. The 2024 SDR Transmission was authorized before the listing, so remaining stock stays legal to sell and use, and the FCC has waived the firmware cutoff for pre-listing equipment through at least January 1, 2029. The new model is the casualty. A determined buyer can import one from Hong Kong on a personal order, with no US warranty and no legal path to resale.
DJI’s Amsterdam Booth Shows a Pattern, Not a One-Off
The SDR Transmission 2 is the latest DJI launch this summer to skip the United States, and the reasons split two ways. The Osmo Pocket 4P and Mic Mini 2S skipped it because they legally had to. The Osmo 360 II skipped it with a valid FCC authorization in hand.
The new radio is back on the legal side of that line. DroneXL covered the Osmo 360 II’s global launch from IFA Berlin on September 3, where DJI priced it at €589 in the eurozone and £509 in the UK for a September 15 release and named no American market. That camera holds FCC ID 2ANDR-OQ0022512, granted December 21, one day before the cutoff. DJI could sell it in America tomorrow and has not said why it won’t. The same week, DJI showed a Power 2000 balcony-solar kit in Berlin with no US plan, and the Section 232 drone tariffs took effect on September 3.
Amsterdam is the second European trade show in a little over a week where DJI has put new hardware in front of buyers who can order it, days or weeks after Chinese buyers already had. Shenzhen ships first and Europe follows. The US gets either a legal wall or a silence DJI has not explained. The Osmo 360 II sits in the DJI booth at Hall 12.G75 alongside the SDR Transmission 2, and DJI scheduled a workshop on it for Saturday afternoon. Both products are on sale in Europe within the week. Neither has a US date.
DroneXL’s Take
A 136-gram box that moves a picture from a camera to a director’s monitor is the clearest case yet for what the Covered List does. It does not fly, it does not map, it does not carry a camera of its own. DJI made it, so it is banned.
The statute the FCC leaned on names the company rather than the risk. The people it removes from the market are the small American crews the first SDR Transmission was priced for, the ones who bought a $549 combo in 2024 because the Teradek-class alternatives cost thousands.
Anyone who has run a two-camera shoot knows why the switchable body matters. The old system forced you to guess the transmitter-to-receiver ratio before the job, and the wrong guess meant a unit sitting in a case doing nothing. DJI solved a real problem, priced the fix below the old one, and the FCC has arranged for Americans to read about it. A cinematographer in Rotterdam or Hong Kong pays $520 for the pair this week. A cinematographer in Atlanta pays nothing and gets nothing, or pays a grey-market importer and forfeits the warranty.
DroneXL has argued since the December listing that the DJI ban hurts the American operators who depend on the hardware more than it hurts DJI, and this product is the proof in miniature. DJI put 1,999-yuan radios on sale in China on day one and is demoing them at IBC ten days later. Its revenue on this line is intact. The loss lands on the American freelancer who needed a cheap monitor feed, and nothing in the December notice distinguishes a 4K monitor link from the 1080p one the same Commission authorized in 2024.
September 17 is the date on DJI’s own teaser. The event will list the countries that get the SDR Transmission 2 and the prices they pay, and the United States will not be on it, because it cannot be. What that list will show is how DJI now sells: a global launch that treats the United States as a country it reports to, not a country it ships to. The Ninth Circuit brief on November 2 is the next point at which anyone with the authority to change that has to put an argument on paper.
Sources: DJI via PR Newswire, IT之家, FCC Public Notice DA 25-1086, FCC Public Notice DA 26-223
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
