GoPro?

[syko89]

Anyone on here using a GoPro camera for their rides?

Getting a HD Hero 3 black edition for xmas and wanting to start making and editing videos for mountain biking, motocross, time lapse, snorkling etc...

Would be good to see other peoples videos for ideas and tips when filming so if you are into this please post up some of your video's

ETA: Here's the promotional video for the hero 3 if you've not seen them before, i don't expect ill be upto these standards anytime soon though!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3PDXmYoF5U

Edited by syko89 on Monday 3rd December 14:11

[Watchman]

I really want one but I have already a sizeable Christmas prez en route (Nexus 7). Maybe next year.

They haven't yet made the smartphone app work for the Hero 3 Black but I'd say you *really* want that when it's released. Looks fabulous.

[syko89]

I was a bit gutted when i found out the app doesn't work with the black edition yet! Hopefully it does by early next year.

I went for the black mainly because it works better in low light conditions where sometimes the others can be a bit 'grainy'. The higher resolution is good but i don't think its possible to edit video's with this detail yet.

I have just bought a macbook pro so really looking forward to having a play at editing when it arrives

[Watchman]

The justification for the "black" seems easy to me - the fact that you can have a broadcast quality camera at your disposal for £350 is just nuts. I paid £200 for my crappy digital Fuji "stills" camera about 10 years ago, and probably the same again for our Canon digital-tape video camera, about the same time.

... and the "black" has all the speed, low light, massive resolution to make it worthwhile in nearly every circumstance. Gotta be worth it..!!

Damn the internet - I want so many fine things at the moment.

[vwsurfbum]

I have the Silver, its awesome, especially with the app, the only thing i would like to be able to do is watch things back
So as the black is better than the silver, its gonna be ace!

[syko89]

I bought mine from here, using the discount code 'HO-HO-HO' it came to £323 delivered (was £359.99) for the black edition, very happy! (They offer discount on the silver and white too).

http://www.absolute-snow.co.uk/V/GoPro_HERO_3_Blac...

They have no stock until 20th Dec so chances are it won't be here for xmas.

[mrmr96]

vwsurfbum said:

I have the Silver, its awesome, especially with the app, the only thing i would like to be able to do is watch things back

Gopro man at Gadget show Live (2 days ago) said playback is coming to the app next year.

[Watchman]

mrmr96 said:

vwsurfbum said:

I have the Silver, its awesome, especially with the app, the only thing i would like to be able to do is watch things back

Gopro man at Gadget show Live (2 days ago) said playback is coming to the app next year.

I hadn't twigged this - so you can monitor but not playback on your phone's screen?

I also *think* I understood that you can't even monitor while it's actually recording, or have I got that wrong?

[-C-]

I don't use a GoPro, but I do use a Contour for bike video's.

I think it comes down to personal preference between the two. I found sticking the GoPro on my fullface tended to flatten the terrain out a huge amount, so everthing looked boring (MTB video's are hardly amazing viewing anyway!). I tried one of the chest mount things, which was a much better perspective, but it had to be done up so bloody tight to make it viewable on rough terrain, it wasn't the most comfortable.

The Contour is a lot more low profile on the side of the helmet, which is why I went for it.

Video quality wise, it's the basic HD one. Which as a raw feed plays good quality footage on my 42" telly at home. Bear in mind a lot of the marketing/promo stuff you see is done by people who spend an awful long time editing & tweaking to make it look amazing, who have no concerns about upload rates, compression etc. By the time most are on YouTube/Vimeo etc the quality is lost anyway.

If you're interested/bored, I used mine at the Megavalanche this year. My qualifier video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT50cQnMJ84 Be warned though, it's nearly 30 minutes long. Because i'm a luddite, I did nothing to the video, just uploaded it straight from the memory card to YouTube. I tried to mess around editing stuff etc, but got bored after about half an hour

[syko89]

Looks great that -C-, would love to have a go at that in the future!

[mrmr96]

Watchman said:

mrmr96 said:

vwsurfbum said:

I have the Silver, its awesome, especially with the app, the only thing i would like to be able to do is watch things back

Gopro man at Gadget show Live (2 days ago) said playback is coming to the app next year.

I hadn't twigged this - so you can monitor but not playback on your phone's screen?

I also *think* I understood that you can't even monitor while it's actually recording, or have I got that wrong?

Yes, there was about a 3 sec lag from live to the image on the app. This was whilst setting up. I think it was in "on" mode but not recording, so I don't know if you can view on the app whilst recording - don't see why not. But yes, there's no playback from the app yet, but it's coming. When it's here you'll be able to play back previous recordings onto the app screen.

I told the guy I had a GoPro Hero HD (original HD) and asked him to "sell me" the HD Hero 3. The image quality is better, plus you get the higher resolution and greater frame rates, but also the colours are better and low light is better too. It's also smaller.

I then moaned that I wouldn't be able to use all my accesories, and he shot that down! He accepted that the memory cards were different, and the front housing, but all the mounts still work, plus all the back doors still work, and the back-pacs still work. So if you've got a screen bac pack for an old Hero, it will still fit and work with the new one. I also have a load of batteries for the old one, and he said that the original battery back-pac will accept those batteries of course, AND it will fit on the back of the Hero 3.

He then showed me the app - and TBH I think that was the best bit. Basically there's a new button on the Hero to turn the wifi on, then it will sit in a kind of standby mode (camera is off, but wifi function is on, sort of semi-sleep). It broadcasts a normal wifi network which you pickup and connect to using the wifi manager function of your phone. Then you fire up the app which can then talk to the camera. You can turn the camera on and off with the app ('off' is that standby mode, with wifi still on) and also start and stop recording of course. You can also monitor the camera to see what it's seeing, which is handy for checking the alignment if it's in a hard to reach place (where you'd find it hard to see the LCD back pac - like when I mount mine in front of my radiator grill - can't see the screen so have to guess if it's pointed at the horizon or not.)

But one of the best things about the APP IMO is that you can set the camera settings on it. At present you have to use the two-button system on the camera. One to cycle through the settings, and the other to amend the value of the current setting. Takes ages. The App is just a menu where you click on a setting, then choose the value of the setting. Very quick and easy by comparison. Will be good for choosing different frame rates when you want to do slowmo etc.

Another cool thing for me, using it on trackdays, is that I can mount the camera and then only start recording as I head onto track. Whereas currently I have to start it off recording, then climb in the car, strap in and then head to the pitlane queue. Same on the way in, it keeps rolling until I climb out and shut it off in the garage. This means I waste battery as the camera is on when it doesn't need to be, plus it wastes memory on my card as it's recording boring stuff, plus it wastes my time when it comes to edit as there's a load of boring stuff at the start and end of the clip (going out, coming into pits). With the app I'll be able to leave it in standby until I'm near the front on the queue, then turn on and start recording. Then I'll be able to shut it off when I start my cooldown lap, saving battery and memory and keeping the clips punchy.

So yeah, I wasn't planning on being "sold" on it enough to want to get a HD Hero 3, but actually there's enough improvements over the Hero 1 that I do actually plan to get one now! Reckon I'll keep the original Hero as well, will just mount it facing rearwards or something for an additional option when I come to edit later. Shame as that'll still have extra long clips etc etc. Would be good to have two Hero 3's. The guy even said that another feature coming on the App will be the ability to control a number of cameras at the same time - up to 50! So you could have 2 or 3 in the car and then start and stop them recording simultaneously! Would make picture in picture editing much easier as the clips would be synced by default as they start simultaneously.

HTH

[rhinochopig]

-C- said:

I don't use a GoPro, but I do use a Contour for bike video's.

I think it comes down to personal preference between the two. I found sticking the GoPro on my fullface tended to flatten the terrain out a huge amount, so everthing looked boring (MTB video's are hardly amazing viewing anyway!). I tried one of the chest mount things, which was a much better perspective, but it had to be done up so bloody tight to make it viewable on rough terrain, it wasn't the most comfortable.

The Contour is a lot more low profile on the side of the helmet, which is why I went for it.

Video quality wise, it's the basic HD one. Which as a raw feed plays good quality footage on my 42" telly at home. Bear in mind a lot of the marketing/promo stuff you see is done by people who spend an awful long time editing & tweaking to make it look amazing, who have no concerns about upload rates, compression etc. By the time most are on YouTube/Vimeo etc the quality is lost anyway.

If you're interested/bored, I used mine at the Megavalanche this year. My qualifier video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT50cQnMJ84 Be warned though, it's nearly 30 minutes long. Because i'm a luddite, I did nothing to the video, just uploaded it straight from the memory card to YouTube. I tried to mess around editing stuff etc, but got bored after about half an hour

I enjoyed that. Looked like fun, and some nice lines used to pass.

Where did you qualify in the end?

[-C-]

Cheers. Thankfully it's taped fairly open, so there are chances to be creative if you are stuck behind someone. Sadly I was stuck for too long & missed a load of chances. Hindsight as ever is great.

I qualified 20th out of ~200. Not bad as I was a 4th row start & had some impressively damaged ribs from a crash earlier in the week, which made breathing amazingly painfull on the pedalling sections. Depressing as I got rinsed by 5 or 6 people in about 15 seconds on the fire road

Same again next year!

[The Flying Ox]

Watchman said:

the fact that you can have a broadcast quality camera at your disposal for £350 is just nuts.

Video quality maybe, but they sound like they record audio from inside a crisp packet. I'd factor in a decent microphone too.

[otolith]

syko89 said:

Anyone on here using a GoPro camera for their rides?

Getting a HD Hero 3 black edition for xmas and wanting to start making and editing videos for mountain biking, motocross, time lapse, snorkling etc...

Would be good to see other peoples videos for ideas and tips when filming so if you are into this please post up some of your video's

Official bullet cam thread here:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=111...

My videos here

http://www.youtube.com/user/steveotolith/feed

(All recent stuff is gopro)

[Watchman]

-C- said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT50cQnMJ84

That was aces - I really enjoyed that. Some of it seemed seriously fast - was that the camera or was it genuinely quick?

Thanks.

[-C-]

Not the camera (well, I don't think so anyway?)

Looking on my Garmin trace for it, 58kph max, average of 31.1kph.

Just under 25 mins, Av HR 179bpm, peak 206

Got the main race as well, but at an hour long, it's not exactly exciting viewing!

Decent footage here: http://mpora.com/videos/d85nnndv2i

[vwsurfbum]

mrmr96 said:

Watchman said:

mrmr96 said:

vwsurfbum said:

I have the Silver, its awesome, especially with the app, the only thing i would like to be able to do is watch things back

Gopro man at Gadget show Live (2 days ago) said playback is coming to the app next year.

I hadn't twigged this - so you can monitor but not playback on your phone's screen?

I also *think* I understood that you can't even monitor while it's actually recording, or have I got that wrong?

Yes, there was about a 3 sec lag from live to the image on the app. This was whilst setting up. I think it was in "on" mode but not recording, so I don't know if you can view on the app whilst recording

Yes you can, i was sad enough to record myself recording the app and ended up with a Bohemian Rhapsody moment.