new gopro question

[EyeWingsuit]

GoPro, Inc. (GPRO) Stock Chart

Long term...not much of a drop. Drop occurs when the Session hit mass market, and everyone had been predicting from June forward that the Session would be a failure.

Analysts say "buy"


GoPro has serious cash in hand, and a huge market cap. They're not going anywhere. Will they recover? Certainly. Will they return to nearly 70.00 a share? Only if they have amazing products releasing in the next year, and it will still be a hard climb back to their high.
It's predicted they'll drop to $6.50 a share and likely level off. This echoes their share market Ambarella (Ambarella makes the processors in GoPro cameras, and roughly 70% of the rest of the market. The A7 and A9 chips had some huge issues, which didn't help GoPro, and caused competitors to look to Sony and Samsung for solutions.


The sky is not falling, GoPro is merely facing response to a failed product coupled with being the big kid/pioneer on the block. The market is settling out, as happens with any tech.

That said, I'm surely hopeful to see 3DR develop mounting systems and third-party control for other cameras. A partnership with Sony, for example, would be brilliant. Sony needs/wants it, and Sony won't ever be a competitor for consumer drones (although they do have a commercial drone already).

 

[Soloing]

What the heck do you want 8k for? Since you are a film maker, you do know about sensor size, right? 8k in a sensor that small is kinda stupid. But hey, what do I know? I am not a film maker. [emoji12]

 

[PdxSteve]

Personally I don't care about the 8k in the upcoming Hero 5. I do care about the 4k/60fps though, which that chip is capable of (since it CAN do 8k). I was also reading about the new Ambarella chip that the GP5 will use and it also has a cool feature that I hope GP implements, and that is realtime fish-eye correction at the hardware level.

 

[EyeWingsuit]

What the heck do you want 8k for? Since you are a film maker, you do know about sensor size, right? 8k in a sensor that small is kinda stupid. But hey, what do I know? I am not a film maker. [emoji12]

Read above;
A-I don't care about 8K in the GoPro for the most part. I'm not part of the marketing team that has determined its importance.
B-It's coming one way or another.
C-Sensor size doesn't matter as much today with applied technology. Sure, we'll lose light sensitivity, but cosited pixels allow for a LOT of information. So does binning, time-shifting, and other techno options. Who knows, GoPro might even pull a Panasonic HVX on the world (but if they do, their stock will take another huge hit).

The new Hero is rumored to do 3D, too. Again, not something most of this community would care about (useless at long distances), but for archiving, medical, documentation, education, it's very useful. It may be they're gambling on the enterprise come?

A lotta things have been called "kinda stupid." Sony once thought that 3D was stupid. Heck, once upon a time, it was said that using projection for major motion pictures would never work. There have been a lot of pontificated "stupid's" over the years.
"No computer will ever need more than 640k of memory, which isn't a lot of memory at all but there you go" (Bill Gates)
“What use could this company make of an electrical toy?" (telephone)
"There is no reason any person would want a computer in their home." (President of DEC computers)
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." (Steve Ballmer)
"There is a market for maybe five computers in the world, no more. Anything else is beyond stupid." (President of IBM)

I recall Panasonic telling the world that MPEG was "stupid." For years, it was part of their advertising campaign. They also said MFT was "stupid." Now, all but a limited few of their cameras are MPG, and at least half of what's new are MFT.

In short, I've learned that when I thought something was "stupid," usually I found my own words pointing back at me.

 

[Soloing]

Personally I don't care about the 8k in the upcoming Hero 5. I do care about the 4k/60fps though, which that chip is capable of (since it CAN do 8k). I was also reading about the new Ambarella chip that the GP5 will use and it also has a cool feature that I hope GP implements, and that is realtime fish-eye correction at the hardware level.

"Real-time fisheye correction at the hardware level"??? Why so complicated? Just use lens with no distortion, ha ha.

 

[PdxSteve]

Some people like having 180deg fov

 

[SurfnSkate81]

I've produced a couple of shorts, cut-ins, and and one commercial using this camera. I have quite a bit of experience with the BMD line of cameras; I'm teaching a class on BMD at NAB this year. I personally own an Ursa Mini, a Pocket Cinema, the MicroCinema both in 1080 and 4K models, and a 4K production camera. Note the 4K production camera wrist-mounted in this image from "Kingsmen."
@SurfnSkate81 , if you're in Melbourne or Sydney, I'm SURE there is a dealer there that could arrange a short-term loan of the BMD Micro. It's a very well-built camera. I'd recommend you try the HD vs the Micro, unless you have a Ninja or Odyssey with which to record the signal OTA with a Blade or Teradek wireless system.
View attachment 2387

My previous post does not suggest I'm an advocate for 8K right now, but to suggest it's a waste is to be an ostrich.
If getting hung up on frames per second is the focus, then sure...we're heading down that road too. Not for purposes of slow motion, but rather greater motion capture that looks terrific on high refresh-rate screens. FWIW, two things that scream "Amateur" are overly done slow motion and long crossfade transisitons in edits.
@indonesianpilot , you suggest that 4K currently has "very low framerates." What on earth are you talking about? "Very low" to anyone who has been in the industry for longer than 24 months means 12fps, 15fps. 24, 25, 30, 48fps have been standards for longer than you've been alive. 60fps will be the new standard, and most everything is now upgraded to edit it. But it still cannot be broadcast, nor can it be sent efficiently over pipes right now without a loss in resolution. So which is it? Great slow mo with a weak picture? Or great picture at framerates that echo the eye's ability to resolve?

<<i personally will choose a 120fps 4K over 30fps 8K in an action cam.>>
In the industry, we call this "Measurebating." Jerking off over numbers without experience or knowledge in what the numbers actually mean, or cost the user.

Bear in mind that certain codecs do better with high resolutions than others, and don't necessarily translate to lower resolutions very well. ProRes simply blows at 4K, and blows worse at 8K. HEVC is terrific with 4 and 8K but blows at 1080.
Glass, resolution, bitrate, DSP, and compression are the keys to a good image, and other than focal length, the size of the package merely gets smaller and smaller as more schemes for heat dissipation are discovered.
GoPro included.

@EyeWingsuit When you said you recommend I try the HD vs Micro, the Micro you are referring to Black Magic Micro Camera when you said HD what camera were you referring to? Are you meaning the HD version of the BMMC over the 4K version? And what the hell is a Ninja or Odyssey?

You mentioned that ProRes blows at 4K & 8K. I've been converting all my GoPro footage to CineForm. I use a Mac mini to do all my transcoding in GoPro studio to CineForm then use Resolve for editing and colour grading on a late 2011 MacBook Pro with 16GB ram and 512MB GPU (yep I know the GPU sucks). Would you recommend using a different codec?

I also keep forgetting about H.265, would be great if the new GoPro 5 uses this? And I see your point that it will obviously be the codec of choice used for 4K and 8K and that my point of more horsepower is probably ignorant given that H.265 will be more efficient over H.264. Maybe the same computer configuration might be close to equal in decoding these codecs, meaning 1080p @ 60fps H.264 would be equal to 4K @ 60fps H.265 or roughly in the same ball park?

 

[pyrate]

If you want to move the 5 forward do these things

• Global Shutter
• 4K 60
• Lens Options
• In camera stabilization

pick any 1 for your silver, 2 or 3 for your black all four for a pro version
then pay off the CEOs new Yacht

 

[SurfnSkate81]

If you want to move the 5 forward do these things

• Global Shutter
• 4K 60
• Lens Options
• In camera stabilization

pick any 1 for your silver, 2 or 3 for your black all four for a pro version
then pay off the CEOs new Yacht

Spot on Pyrate. Global shutter and optical image stabilisation, then the other two.

 

[EyeWingsuit]

@EyeWingsuit When you said you recommend I try the HD vs Micro, the Micro you are referring to Black Magic Micro Camera when you said HD what camera were you referring to? Are you meaning the HD version of the BMMC over the 4K version? And what the hell is a Ninja or Odyssey?

You mentioned that ProRes blows at 4K & 8K. I've been converting all my GoPro footage to CineForm. I use a Mac mini to do all my transcoding in GoPro studio to CineForm then use Resolve for editing and colour grading on a late 2011 MacBook Pro with 16GB ram and 512MB GPU (yep I know the GPU sucks). Would you recommend using a different codec?

I also keep forgetting about H.265, would be great if the new GoPro 5 uses this? And I see your point that it will obviously be the codec of choice used for 4K and 8K and that my point of more horsepower is probably ignorant given that H.265 will be more efficient over H.264. Maybe the same computer configuration might be close to equal in decoding these codecs, meaning 1080p @ 60fps H.264 would be equal to 4K @ 60fps H.265 or roughly in the same ball park?

@SurfnSkate81:
There are two new bodies from BMD.
Blackmagic Design: Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera Tech Specs is the 1080 version that records in-body, to SD cards using ProRes.

Blackmagic Design: Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K Tech Specs is the 4K version that requires an external recording device. The two most popular are the Convergent Design Odyssey, and the Atomos Ninja. With this unit, you're going to have to get the video from the camera to the recorder via HDMI. There are two ways to do this;
-Fly the recorder with the drone (Ninja is small enough, there are others, too).
-Send video from camera to recorder via broadcast using a device such as the Teradek Bolt.

I'd be stunned silly if GoPro shifts to h.265. Knowing Dave Taylor (creator of Cineform), he'll likely find methods to tweak the Cineform codec to competing with HEVC/.265 reasonably well. He's a genius of another order.
Regardless, the load you're currently seeing for 4K will grow smaller, not larger, as .265 and unlicensed derivatives become available over the next few months.

[edit] I won't be too surprised if we see global shutter @30 but we'll not see stabilization (the internal chipset, unless they completely re-tool, won't allow for it), and 4Kp60 will happen, but at what compromise to bandwidth?[/edit]

HTH?

 

[SurfnSkate81]

@EyeWingsuit Thanks for you info you really know you stuff and its great that your willing to share your knowledge Sorry for all the questions...

What about the BlackMagic Video Assist as the external recording device? And should I keep my workflow using CineForm? Also checked out Mercalli, pity its on Windows although I do have Bootcamp. I've been looking for a Mac OS compatible stabiliser, then taking the footage through Neat Video to give it a clean.

Raw footage GoPro Studio transcode to CineForm > Resolve rough edit, then take those clips to > Stabiliser > Neat Video > Resolve Edit > Resolve Colour then output.

@erikgraham could you please chime in with your GoPro workflow?

 

[SurfnSkate81]

What kind of stabilization do you want? EIS or OIS? Why do you need a better mic on an "action cam?"
As far as your conversation about what you "don't like about 8K," how can you dislike something with which you have zero experience or access to?

Is this an "action cam?"

Is this?

What about this?

What is the camera in the centre photo?

 

[pyrate]

the center camera is the E1 by Zcamera I think
great option but not enough in the wild yet to know if they are the gopro killer they claim it to be
one downside is i hear the bitrates are not all that good

 

[Maddog]

"Most GoPro users" are all about the best image of themselves possible. A year ago everyone said 4K was a waste. Now, they're saying something entirely different. 8K will be the same soon enough.
"Action Cam" merely means small, waterproof/resistant, shock-resistant, etc. "ActionCam has no relationship to quality.
GoPro is FAR from "almost broke." I nearly spit coffee all over my monitor just reading that. They missed forecast. That's all. They made a stumble, but they'll recover very, very nicely.

I am the clown that tests these products for motion picture. I also do product evaluation for many of the manufacturers of POV cameras, including GoPro. The manufacturers are all pretty smart, and they all have an eye for the future. Ambarella and Samsung are running neck and neck to build the best 100Mbps image processor out there with 8K resolution. Everyone will soon enough, have 8K in a small package using the HEVC codec, and some will sample 4:2:2. You're invited to attend one of my lectures on Codecs and POV cameras at NAB if you're on this side of the pond this April.

It has *nothing* to do with targeting cinema or not. It's about understanding that the "heroes" of the world want the latest, greatest, best footage of themselves with their dog, kite, skateboard, surfboard, whatever sport or fun they participate in, and they're willing to pay for it. It's about recording a memory, as pristinely as possible.

Most of the world is now a disposable economy; consumers buy new products every two years. GoPro missed a consumer buy-cycle. It's not the end of the world for them, not by _any_ stretch. Professionals will continue to buy crates of cameras and destroy them per-project (Iron Man 3 destroyed more than 100 GoPros). Consumers are barely half of GoPro's success. They are used in research, medicine, security, education, sports, zoos, documentary, narrative, dashcams, law enforcement, firefighting, hunting, forestry, and so many other industrial and enterprise uses... a short quarter isn't remotely close to "hurtful." Heck, they have over 300M cash on hand at the end of the year. Not too bad, given their market.

My one fear is that Apple will absorb/acquire them.

When desktop PC's first came out, I couldn't imagine needing a hard drive bigger than 40 MB! Now we're into terabytes.

 

[SurfnSkate81]

the center camera is the E1 by Zcamera I think
great option but not enough in the wild yet to know if they are the gopro killer they claim it to be
one downside is i hear the bitrates are not all that good

I will check it out

 

[pyrate]

not a bad little camera 699 and it will take any M43 lens, and there are a lot of good ones

 

[erikgraham]

@EyeWingsuit

@erikgraham could you please chime in with your GoPro workflow?

Well of course it depends on the project. How much work so the clips need (stabilization, etc). What's the delivery resolution, etc.

Anyway, the general workflow is:

1. Import from GoPro directly to FinalCut. Do NOT optimize (transcode) or create proxies.
2. Rough cut.
3. Remove noise (Neat Video) if needed.
4. Render noise cleaned clips to ProRes 422, which is high enough quality for 4K GoPro footage.
5. Replace clips in timeline with new noise free 422 renders. Now every time I make a little tweak to those clips, I don't have to wait for them to re-render (Neat is processor intensive).
6. Stabalize all clips
7. Remove fisheye if desired (I shoot with a rectilinear lens, so don't need to do this much).
8. Render complete timeline out as seperate ProRes 422 clips and open in Resolve 12 (resolve not good with h.264 files). You can also import the XML into Resolve, but I just do each clip individually because personal preference (would take too many words to discuss here).
9. Color correct in resolve.
10. Color grade in resolve.
11. Export all clips from resolve (still ProRes 422)
12. Back in Final Cut, replace all clips in timeline with color corrected/graded clips from resolve.
13. Tighten up the edit: trim clips to taste, add effects, add titles, add transitions
14. Export Master File in full 4K ProRes 422 for archival purposes.
15. Export to 1080P for web delivery.

That's most common for me. If editing to music, then you really have to tighten up the edit right away. This usually involves rendering lots of test clips and round tripping to resolve to see if they will work. Basically there ends up being a lot of round tripping between final cut and resolve. For personal stuff I may not use resolve at all - final cut's color boards are fine (or I use the Color Finale plugin).

Hope that helps.

 

[Soloing]

Read above;
A-I don't care about 8K in the GoPro for the most part. I'm not part of the marketing team that has determined its importance.
B-It's coming one way or another.
C-Sensor size doesn't matter as much today with applied technology. Sure, we'll lose light sensitivity, but cosited pixels allow for a LOT of information. So does binning, time-shifting, and other techno options. Who knows, GoPro might even pull a Panasonic HVX on the world (but if they do, their stock will take another huge hit).

The new Hero is rumored to do 3D, too. Again, not something most of this community would care about (useless at long distances), but for archiving, medical, documentation, education, it's very useful. It may be they're gambling on the enterprise come?

A lotta things have been called "kinda stupid." Sony once thought that 3D was stupid. Heck, once upon a time, it was said that using projection for major motion pictures would never work. There have been a lot of pontificated "stupid's" over the years.
"No computer will ever need more than 640k of memory, which isn't a lot of memory at all but there you go" (Bill Gates)
“What use could this company make of an electrical toy?" (telephone)
"There is no reason any person would want a computer in their home." (President of DEC computers)
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." (Steve Ballmer)
"There is a market for maybe five computers in the world, no more. Anything else is beyond stupid." (President of IBM)

I recall Panasonic telling the world that MPEG was "stupid." For years, it was part of their advertising campaign. They also said MFT was "stupid." Now, all but a limited few of their cameras are MPG, and at least half of what's new are MFT.

In short, I've learned that when I thought something was "stupid," usually I found my own words pointing back at me.

I hear where you are coming from, and I agree to a certain point. However, you are forgetting an important aspect of your examples. At the time some of those statements were made, they were clearly based on how things "are" at the moment, and not how they will be in the future.

Do you have a computer the size of a tankers diesel engine in your house!? No. So I guess the statement of the IBM guy wasn't that off!? Right!?

If you would run the same software they did back then, 640k would be totally fine, ha ha.

A GoPro that does 8k, based on today's technology, is pretty stupid. A GoPro in 5 years doing 8k, totally different story.

What if I say that everyone should have a nuclear power plant at home? You wouldn't call that stupid? I would... Based on how things are today. But who knows how thinks will be in 50 years!?

Thanks.

Btw, many of the examples you gave were made by very powerful men. It was more their ego speaking, than reality. [emoji3]

 

[Jubalr]

I hear where you are coming from, and I agree to a certain point. However, you are forgetting an important aspect of your examples. At the time some of those statements were made, they were clearly based on how things "are" at the moment, and not how they will be in the future.

Do you have a computer the size of a tankers diesel engine in your house!? No. So I guess the statement of the IBM guy wasn't that off!? Right!?

If you would run the same software they did back then, 640k would be totally fine, ha ha.

A GoPro that does 8k, based on today's technology, is pretty stupid. A GoPro in 5 years doing 8k, totally different story.

What if I say that everyone should have a nuclear power plant at home? You wouldn't call that stupid? I would... Based on how things are today. But who knows how thinks will be in 50 years!?

Thanks.

Btw, many of the examples you gave were made by very powerful men. It was more their ego speaking, than reality. [emoji3]

Just my opinion. but the statement "8k in a sensor that small is kinda stupid" invokes a lot of negative reaction. I think a better statement might have been "Personally, 8k in a sensor that small wouldn't be of much use today, in my opinion". Instead, you posted it more of a fact. Just my opinion. YMMV

 

[Maddog]

Well of course it depends on the project. How much work so the clips need (stabilization, etc). What's the delivery resolution, etc.

Anyway, the general workflow is:

1. Import from GoPro directly to FinalCut. Do NOT optimize (transcode) or create proxies.
2. Rough cut.
3. Remove noise (Neat Video) if needed.
4. Render noise cleaned clips to ProRes 422, which is high enough quality for 4K GoPro footage.
5. Replace clips in timeline with new noise free 422 renders. Now every time I make a little tweak to those clips, I don't have to wait for them to re-render (Neat is processor intensive).
6. Stabalize all clips
7. Remove fisheye if desired (I shoot with a rectilinear lens, so don't need to do this much).
8. Render complete timeline out as seperate ProRes 422 clips and open in Resolve 12 (resolve not good with h.264 files). You can also import the XML into Resolve, but I just do each clip individually because personal preference (would take too many words to discuss here).
9. Color correct in resolve.
10. Color grade in resolve.
11. Export all clips from resolve (still ProRes 422)
12. Back in Final Cut, replace all clips in timeline with color corrected/graded clips from resolve.
13. Tighten up the edit: trim clips to taste, add effects, add titles, add transitions
14. Export Master File in full 4K ProRes 422 for archival purposes.
15. Export to 1080P for web delivery.

That's most common for me. If editing to music, then you really have to tighten up the edit right away. This usually involves rendering lots of test clips and round tripping to resolve to see if they will work. Basically there ends up being a lot of round tripping between final cut and resolve. For personal stuff I may not use resolve at all - final cut's color boards are fine (or I use the Color Finale plugin).

Hope that helps.

Wow- all that for a YouTube video! Do you think most people can tell the difference?

I'm not "dissing" you, I'm sure your videos are awesome! It just sounds like like a lot of work for a web video.

My head is spinning..