DJI Phantom Demo...

I went to watch the demo put on today by a local Camera store. It covered the DJI Phantom ($679.00) and the GoPro Hero3 Camera ($399).
DJI Home Page
The DJI North America Account Manager and an assistant were there providing information and the flights. Also present was an Austin PD veteran of 17 years (ex-National Guard/Bomb Disposal). He had several of his own Phantom units and even had his own multi-camera setups where you could monitor the flight real-time from a remote viewer. He had volunteered his time and equipment to perform flights over the fertilizer plant explosion in the town of West, TX.
I thought the demo was interesting and informative. The Phantom would run up to about 15 minutes before a battery swap was necessary. In that time span, you can cover quite a bit of ground. It has a built-in GPS receiver which allows it to perform station-keeping, and even return back to the take-off location if it loses communication lock with the controller. The current camera mount (for the GoPro Hero3) is included but was forward looking. It would be possible to remount the camera using a little red-neck engineering (zip-tie or rubber band). A 2-axis, stabilized gimble mount for the GoPro camera will come out shortly-perhaps a month. Cost not fixed at this time, but possibly around 7 bills, maybe a little more. It will include an isolation damper to reduce vibration in the camera video and its controller will mount on the RC controller and be manipulated by your extra digits (fingers). This device is ready to fly out of the box. If you are new to RC, as I am, a little review for software/firmware would be wise. I recommend the wiki below for DJI:
DJI Wiki
They cover the different auto-pilot flight systems (Ace, Nava, WooKong), the 2 Multi-Rotor copters (Phantom & S800), camera mounts, etc.

In my not so humble opinion, the Phantom setup would/could work for me for what I have in mind. Another option, by this manufacturer, would be the S800 (6 blades) which skyrockets the investment to begin upward of $3000. But you can pre-program the the flights with routes and waypoints if you opt for this version and upgrade the ground control package.

There is way too much info to post concerning this technology than to crowd Wendell's forum here.

I was following the Gatewing X100, until Big Yellow purchased it. That is one reason why TBC 3.0 came out. It is to enable the processing (with the extra cost module) of the Gatewing photo models.