Advantages/Disadvantages to different video settings on go pro?

[krukster86]

Marty, those stills are amazing! What program did you use to extract them?

I tried out 1080p30 vs 720p60 just walking around my apartment and moving the camera around and I can definitely tell a difference and see what people mean by "drunk camera" effect. I am considering making the jump and purchasing a Cyan filter for the Eye of Mine housing. Note: there really isn't one dedicated to that housing, but TSwain tells me that Ikelite filter for a jvc picsio wp-10 ikelite housing (item number - 6441.31) will pop right on.

 

[Marty Cerven]

Thanks, I got those screen grabs from Adobe premiere pro cs5.5 which I use for most of my editing. The grabs look much better then all the videos look after being re encoded by youtube or even vimeo. I have never been very happy with final youtube quality when I compare it to the original videos I encode that would look much closer to all those screen grabs.

Testing in the apartment is ok but you will get much better results outside on a bright day or even underwater with good amounts of sunlight using a gopro. They don't work anywhere near as well indoors in lower light or artificial lighting as they do in good natural light where the action cams are at their best.

Walking with the headband is also much less stable then when diving with it as the head doesn't move up and down much when underwater compared to the jolt you get with every step on land. Still best method is a tray setup but headband can be pretty good for the odd dive and is much better then just camera in hand for stability.

Also take note that the water has a strong magnification effect on FOV which I think is around 25-30% so even though 170 FOV looks rather weird at times on land there is very little image distortion underwater in comparison. When using the wides modes though you do have to get very close to your subjects like in my shark video or else everything will look rather small. If you cant get close enough the 1080 medium is a better option and in very good light you may get away with some 1080 narrow shots.

Wide mode uses the most of the sensor so it gets more light then medium mode and the narrow mode uses the smallest sensor area of all the modes, with a fairly small sensor to start with this shows why this mode struggles as much as it does in anything other then very bright lighting.

 

[RockyHeap]

I've got almost 20 dives on my gopro2 and red filter.

720x60fps on wide angle mode is all I shoot in, for all the above mentioned reasons. SMOOTH video, not herky jerky stutter frames, even with a twin grip tray or pole cam.


I've tried the 1080x30 fps, and just don't like the stutter, even when holding camera dead still as many fish don't hold still, so you're in constant pan mode.


I like it for the 16:9 viewing format too.

 

[irishtn]

I like the video quality of the wide angle better but just can't get used to the distance/size caviat. 2 weeks ago on my first dive of the trip, I mistakenly had it in Wide and the sharks look so small. I can't go home and tell my 5 year old son that I saw a 15 foot reef shark and then he sees the video and it looks like a 3 foot tarpon.

 

[Brules]

Thnaks for posting that, will save me some trial and error!

Does the 720/60 work as well above water?

 

[Marty Cerven]

720/60 is the best method for any fast action video above water too, most of the GoPro official stuff will be shot in 720/60 if the camera is mounted to the person or bike etc. even though they tend to upscale all their videos to 1080p for yt as they will mix modes in most of their production. The 30P modes need very slow panning and minimal movement, the soon to be released 35mb/s protune may help a bit with high motion videos in 30p but the slower shutter speeds will still tend to give more motion blur then the higher frame rate modes and more rolling shutter effect. Things like rolling shutter where the image gets the wobbles in some mounting situations is improved only by higher shutter speeds which are forced in the higher FPS modes

I tend to use this mode quite a bit but since getting the tray underwater I have been getting pretty good results using the 1080/30 modes thanks to the added stability this gives me with most of my earlier mounts needing 60p for decent footage.

Here is a little video I made showing all the modes relative FOV's, GoPro liked the video going by their comment but its a little polarizing going by the likes/dislikes as it is my only video with a high number of both lol.

[video=youtube;veBVyFhElY0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veBVyFhElY0[/video]

The above video is using a standard round lens housing so the FOV (fisheye) effect will not be as high on land as that of the GoPro dive housing, which doesn't use this round lens so it has a higher FOV and more fisheye image warping.

 

[Brules]

JUst curious why no one uses the 960/50 mode then? Shouldn't it be better resolution and almost as fast frame rates?

 

[Marty Cerven]

That's not too bad an option as it can be cropped to 720p easily, but the central part of the frame will give the least amount of distortion compared to the top and bottom of the frame which will be more warped. I however prefer the 16:9 playback so its full screen on a widescreen TV and as I use the LCD for most shots framing isn't too much of an issue for me.

If I shoot 960p I will most likely crop to 1280x720 rather then leave it at 1280x960 so for that purpose 60p works better for me. This is easy to drop to 30p where 960p would need the final output at either 25p or 24p and it wouldn't mix that great with 30p footage which I like to output to rather then 25p.

For head mounted shots or where you wear it in any other way that may be a good option to help ensure you get what you want in the shot and you can simply move the image up or down in post to help with framing. I know many people do use the 960p modes for diving and its definitely one of the modes worth trying out.

 

[Brules]

Interesting, I think I may just pick up an LCD pack and use the 720 and use the LCD to properly frame close ups of stuff with my handle set up.

I asked the mods to pull out your video post above and make it its own thread to be stickied. It is incredibly useful and sure would be a great sticky post to help people coming here to ask the same questions!

AWESOME JOB on the video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Marty Cerven]

Thanks Brules, glad you liked the little video.

I just noticed GoPro posted it on their twitter account so they seem to find it useful too.

When I use a tray or monopod I find the LCD very usefull, the negative is that I end up seeing most of the dive through the tiny LCD and only experience the dive properly once I put it on the big screen TV