GoPro Hero3 , 4K is here in Baby Steps for $399.99!

KrisCanonizado

does anyone know how to remove the fisheye look using finalcutpro?

trevmar

@konjow I always 'develop' everything. The Cineform codec has been the foundation of my post-processing for many years. It has never let me down, incidentally...

GoPro's software can be used in a convert-only mode, that is how I use it. It also has a module which manipulates the metadata. Since you understand Cineform, you will love Protune. But it can be switched off, if you want a processing flow similar to your Hero 1.

I have been removing the fisheye lens artifacts with Sony Vegas, especially handy if cropping from the 2K7 mode.

konjow

@trevmar " I am guessing you are using the Protune clip from the camera, and not reconstructing the saturation and grading by 'developing' the 'camera-raw' video footage in Cinema Studio. When CS converts the footage to normal AVI-cineform, it takes the metadata stored in the Protune camera-raw clip, and uses it to restore the original densities in the 10-bit 4:2:2 AVI-cineform container. This is necessary because Protune uses a logarithmic density profile, not a gamma-based profile."

Im missing something here.. I know I should probably read more first...but tell me in two words please. I have Hero1 and now waiting on Black one. Is the Protune optional in gopro as a profile. and then have to be use with CS. Will I loose something now if use Protune straight into Premiere? Is Cineform Studio Gopros editing soft for people which has no other NLE soft or it does same magic? thank you

trevmar

@joeschmoe Many of the modes seem 'unfinished' to me. The two modes I showed above in my resolution charts were the only two I was really impressed with for Protune. The 1080p_60 non-protune mode seems OK for sharpness, although I much prefer the protune density grading to the harsh contrast of the non-protune modes.

'Narrow' and 'Medium' modes didn't impress me, I felt I would be better cropping the wide modes. All in all I felt that they had a lot of work to do optimizing image quality in many of the available combinations.

It is possible they will get better quality out of the 720p modes with a firmware upgrade, and it is also possible that the sensor just doesn't scale well to 1280x720 as an exact fraction of the original sensor pixels.

I will connect up an HDMI 1080p TV this week and try to get a better feel for each mode. There are so many of them it is tough to keep track of the non-performers by recording individual clips...

joeschmoe

Hmm, I see what you mean. Is it only 720p 120fps protune, or is all 720p like that? I would likely shoot in 1080p or 2.7K and downrez in post if I needed 720p, but that 120fps can certainly be exciting at times...

BlueBomberTurbo

@joeschmoe If you have any well defined lines in the scene, you'll have lots of issues:

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/uploads/FileUpload/e1/3644bd09630d15c093bf30d270af6a.jpg

And when you go to sharpen, it only gets worse.

joeschmoe

How bad is 720p in protune? I've heard that the 120fps mode is not so great, but I'm wondering just how bad it really is... I've seen some slomo footage that didn't look too bad overall.

trevmar

Interesting to note that the vertical field of view is the same for the 2.7K Cine and 1080p shots above. This apparently scales more cleanly than other resolutions, as even the standard 16:9 2.7K was giving subjectively lower resolution than the 2.7K Cine. The extra 17:9 cine perspective is achieved by increasing the width of the image to 2704 pixels, interestingly NOT the 2716 pixels in the HD3 PDF manual. I am wondering if the sensor really is 12M pixels...

I found they have more work to do getting Protune working properly with the other resolutions. These two resolutions work well at 24p...

trevmar

Hyperfocal distance? What are the Hero cameras set up to focus at? What is the useful range of focal distance?

The tests above were at a distance between the 36 x 24 inches test chart and the lens of only 17 inches. Clearly these cameras are set to focus at a distance much closer to the lens than the 100ft (or whatever) hyperfocal distance (which would give focus to infinity). Does any body know how the lenses are set up?

trevmar

Here are the ISO resolution Test Chart images from my Black HD3. Both are taken in what I have figured out to be the optimum resolution modes of the HD3.

All I can say is WOW !! The 1080p 24T crop is first, followed by the 2.7K cine 24T crop, then the full images for closer perusal. They were taken in 630 Lux of soft evening outdoors light. No white balance adjustment, no noise filtering. The Protune camera output was converted in GoPro Cineform Studio to Cineform AVI, with default sharpening filter applied in Virtualdub (which I used to make the screenshots). The 2.7K 24T has 50 points of sharpening applied, the 1080p has 32 points. No other processing.

** No Moire to speak of ** WOW !! **Higher res than my FZ200 and Canon M41 ** WOW!

For comparison I have added the same chart shot with my Canon M41.

Protune is amazing. That's all I can say...

BlueBomberTurbo

Well, I did it. I cut a bigger hole in "The Frame" for an HDMI cable. ;) Had to go so far up that I even cut into the mic hole a bit, but it fits perfectly.

BTW, "The Frame" comes with both regular and BacPac size frames. So if you want to shoot 3D with a BacPac on just one camera, you only have to buy it once! :D Though you do need 2x tripod mounts. :p Picked up a macro rail slider to mount both cameras at once, so I can easily adjust intraoccular on the fly. Should arrive the middle of next week, and I've got a right angle micro HDMI adapter that'll arrive... whenever (China).

trevmar

There is something wrong with Protune in 720p 120fps -- it gives me chunky noise, excessive sharpening, and artifacts.

I do really like the resolution, lack of moire, low noise and excellent editing capabilities of the 24T Protune. It is a real 'indoors camera.' Not as low noise as my Canon M41, but only a stop or two off that (very high) standard.

As soon as my 'frame' arrives (tomorrow?) I will dig out the tripod, and my ISO resolution chart, and make some more accurate resolution comparisons...

trevmar

Battery life on the Black Hero3 -- running protune 2.7K 24p (the highest res mode, IMO), my battery lasts 1hr 17 minutes on a full charge. Adding the Touch Video BacPac reduces that to 1hr 8 minutes, not a crippling reduction.

Have already decided to use external 5V USB batteries for the Hero3 on longer shoots. It operates while charging the battery, and the internal one is really very weak (see paragraph 1) :)

stoney

For those eagerly waiting for Hero3, don't miss out this deal.

https://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/98377#Comment_98377

Already backordered to 12/11.

trevmar

I have started to get some 4K video now. My Black used to freeze every time I tried to stop recording at 4K. The screen would show the total recording time and freeze, no files on the SD card.

Initially fixed by switching the camera to PAL rather than NTSC. Recorded nicely in 4K and 2K7 until the camera got hot. Sigh...

mpgxsvcd

@trevmar

You are right I just didn't have enough time to do those clips justice. You can get the idea of how nice it is to have wide and tight simultaneously though. I will try to do full processing on the next go round.

trevmar

@mpgxsvcd By looking at your HERO3 clips I am guessing you are using the Protune clip from the camera, and not reconstructing the saturation and grading by 'developing' the 'camera-raw' video footage in Cinema Studio. When CS converts the footage to normal AVI-cineform, it takes the metadata stored in the Protune camera-raw clip, and uses it to restore the original densities in the 10-bit 4:2:2 AVI-cineform container. This is necessary because Protune uses a logarithmic density profile, not a gamma-based profile.

mpgxsvcd

Check out this climbing video shot with the GoPro 3 Black mounted on a Panasonic GH2. Wide angle and closeup filmed simultaneously. The second half of the video has the GoPro shots. All of them were 2.7K @ 30 FPS. The 1080p @ 60 FPS and 720p @ 120 FPS did not work at all in this low light gym.

I had to throw away about half of my GoPro footage because I shot it in 720p @ 120 FPS mode. However, I am still investigating whether the most recent firmware update has resolved the low light issues I am having with 720p @ 120 FPS.

Can you tell which are the GoPro shots without looking at the ultra wide angle. Neither the GoPro or GH2 footage is graded. These clips were simply put together with the music. I love having the GoPro as a backup camera though. If I messed up the clip with the GH2 because of focus issues or too much shaking I could always go back to the GoPro footage.

The GH2 used Standard color mode with 0,0,0,-2. I was trying out some new things and I really did not want to have to grade that many clips. I also wanted the colors to stand out since it was a fun kids comp.

trevmar

@mpgxsvcd With mine, the front light sometimes doesn't turn on, and the back light is on, after plugging in the USB power cable (1 Amp adapter). I have upgraded twice to HD3.03.01.09.

Jake, from Cineform support, pointed out a new Cineform Studio version to me: http://software.gopro.com/PC/GoProCineFormStudioPC-1.3.2.169.zip

It does a good job of converting Protune to nice, clean, cineform-avi.

mpgxsvcd

UPDATE

My battery issues were resolved by updating my GoPro 3 Black firmware from version HD3.03.01.05 to HD3.03.01.09. Now the front light illuminates while charging and turns off when complete. The back light never turns on during charging now.

BlueBomberTurbo

The only real issue I've had is that sometimes with a newly formatted card, it'll record for 5 secs, then stop. All recordings after that aren't a problem. It also likes to lock up when connected to a TV via HDMI for playback. But the icons on the screen don't make playback very fun either way. :p

mpgxsvcd

@trevmar

I haven't been having as much trouble with it locking up as you. However, I just switched to the firmware that might be causing that. I will test it out and see what happens.

trevmar

@mpgxsvcd Have been using HD3.03.01.09 for several days. It is very picky about SDXC cards, and I haven't found one which will film 4K protune without locking up when I terminate the video. So I have been mainly playing with 2K7 Cine Protune 24P and SanDisk UHS-1 64GB SDXC cards. I tried FAT32 format, same speed problems as exFAT.

The potential of the product is limitless, but there are a lot of rough edges right now. I am waiting for a cable to come so I can try external microphones and video feed to a composite monitor to assist with framing. Once I can frame, I will be able to shoot the ISO test cards and take a closer look at resolution.

I am impressed with Protune files converted to AVI through Cineform Studio, using the embedded metadata. This software is slow, but since I use Cineform codecs in all my post workflow, I guess I can put up with the conversion speed. The preservation of color and grading is excellent with Protune. That has been truly impressive. A big problem is that my Neoscene Cineform-codec tools won't allow me to process an image above 1080p, however, so I have to crop the 2K7 image as soon as I start playing with it in Virtualdub. Sigh...

Oh - and my unit still locks up -- frequently... I have been leaving the battery flap off the unit, to save time when pulling the battery :(

mpgxsvcd

I just updated my GoPro 3 black from version HD3.03.01.05 to HD3.03.01.09. At first glance the 720p @ 120 FPS with Pro-Tune looks much better. However, I haven't tried any scientific tests yet.

I am going to see if it fixes the battery issue as well. It definitely did not fix the date being off by most of a day though.

joeschmoe

Thanks guys for taking the time to post the video samples and reviews. I've been watching them with great interest, they've been very informative! If they ever arrive in Canada, I'll be grabbing one. Thanks!

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