GoPro to YouTube, a newbie guide?

[buksida]

Is there a newbie guide for getting footage off the GP, through the editing process and onto YT without too much hassle or losing too much quality?

I've just done my first one ...

This is what I did:
1) Copy videos (4 of them, almost 3GB) off the GP onto hard disk.
2) Edit using Windows Live Movie Maker - its very easy to crop, trim and add transitions and text - couldn't find how to do this in Cineform.
3) Export the file and open it in GP Cineform.
4) Turn on the Protune preset, tweak the WB and export as MP4.
5) Upload to Youtube - takes forever.

Observations:
1) Colour looks very over exposed - far too much green. The viz was crap but not that bad and I know I need a red filter!
2) Somehow the FPS has come down from the 120 that was shot to 30, I didn't adjust it.
3) It looks a lot shakier after editing.
4) Sharpness has all gone, the GP video is still quite sharp but the final one isnt. (Edit - just noticed that you can change quality settings during playback).
5) File size is still pretty big, 420 MB for 5 minutes.

And here it is:


Any thoughts, recommendations and suggestions welcome.

 

[fbk]

Get a decent editor, one that does colour correcting, sharpening, stabilisation, etc. There are plenty to try for fee, I use Powerdirector.

You can import the GoPro MP4 files direct, no need to use Cineform at all really. Edit, colour correct, etc then export to whatever format you want (MP4 usually). Upload your MP4 via Youtube, done. It takes a while, 420MB sounds about right.

Youtube automatically converts everything to 30fps so you are wasting your time exporting to anything higher. You can shoot in higher frame rates for smooth slo-mo but if you are putting it on youtube export to 30. You can make a 60fps version if your tv/pc will play it.

 

[reebok]

I used powerdirector and it was good, but I prefer sony movie studio platinum 12 for a few reasons. at any rate, I've been told that converting it to avi through cineform opens up a new color space and allows better color editing. I will try to find the post.

---------- Post added April 15th, 2013 at 10:01 AM ----------

ok here it is. I quoted dan's responses about why to convert to avi first below:

Cineform is the way to go to make the file from the go pro into somthing better for editing, with better saturation and color corections....for editing, I suggest Sony Vegas. There are several versions, all are operated about the same way, so if you begin on the most inexpensive and easist to edit with version-- Movie Studio 11, if you later go to Platinum or Vegas Pro, the controls are all of the same type, and the learning curve is very easy. Of all the editing software, I think Vegas is the most intuitive....I use Vegas Pro 11..... Adobe Premiere, which I also have, is amazingly convoluted and a pain to get up to speed with.


Vegas Product Family Overview


Sure. The value of the conversion is not the mov versus avi container--which has nothing itself to do with the video quality or eiditing quality--beyond that PC's like AVI wrappers, and Macs like MOV wrappers...
What you want is a much better codek for handling gradations in color correction--this is a huge value with 4-2-2 color cineform delivers to me when I convert my canon 5 D mark II footage from the h264 codec contained in the mov wrapper....the canon h264 file being 4-2-0 so poor for many gradations color correcting can create, and the codec cineform provides is a much less "lossy" codec as well....
Is this enough? I can go on ad nauseum about this stuff


The codek in the GoPro is certainly using the 4-2-0 color space -- the only camera( that I know of) that any divers use, that actually shoots in 4-2-2 color space, is the brand new Canon that is a 4K ( meaning twice 1080p in resolution) and the camera body without lens is close to $10,000.


The GoPro is going to have a lossier codec than the Canon 5d ( my expectation). In other words, the Go Pro will benefit even more from what Cineform can do, than will my Canon...but the differences for my Canon underwater videos have been dramatic. The only thing that is likely to offer more dramatic differences for your GoPro, would be if you began shooting with high end professional video lights, which also means your subjects( main subjects) are between one and 3 feet away from you, where the lights are most effective in creating spectacular underwater colors.....your background can obviously extend for 20 to 100 feet based on viz, but with lights, you are always very close to the main subject....
This is hard on the POV mentality of shooting with a GoPro, and it is hard for me, because I like to swim fast and catch stuff on video other shooters can't get. So for me, it means if something is moving, I need to keep up, and get very close to it for the video to have the colors in it I want. If you are in very bright sunlight, in water less than 10 feet deep, you can often color balance with Cineform, and not require lights....But on depths of 30 feet and deeper, the color balancing never seems to make up for the huge amount of light that has been filtered out by the depth of water. This is why most GoPro videos of normal dive sites are washed out, and look poorly saturated. It is not the fault of the camera, it is that most of the go pro shooters don't use lights....and if they do, they are shooting too far away

 

[buksida]

Not sure why the video embedding here doesn't work - here is the first one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJufpWZa0iQ

And I'll try to embed the second ...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQla5r-B81Q


So the way to go would be:

1) Copy off GP
2) Convert using Cineform
3) Edit/Cut using Powerdirector
4) Export and upload to YT.

I have a light on order from eBay and will add the filter by the time I go diving next.

 

[fbk]

For sure Cineform offers some extra control of the colour space but adds extra steps, and the OP asked specifically about getting stuff onto Youtube as easily as possible. I find that my editor does just as good a job at adjusting the colours and skips the MP4-AVI conversion which takes foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrr in Cineform, and I have a fast pc.

 

[James Robertson]

For sure Cineform offers some extra control of the colour space but adds extra steps, and the OP asked specifically about getting stuff onto Youtube as easily as possible. I find that my editor does just as good a job at adjusting the colours and skips the MP4-AVI conversion which takes foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrr in Cineform, and I have a fast pc.

im lousy at editing. i bought the camera adapter for my ipad. i connect the SD card into it. and import the videos. Then i use the imovie software to string something together and then i press the upload to youtube button. easy as can be. youtube.com/taz55 if you want to see how they turned out.

 

[yarik83]

One of the most overlooked aspects of video editing is people assuming that what settings they film with will be the output. In reality that is not the case.

4K and 2.7K are not supported by youtube. Anything that is over 29.95 frames per second is not supported by youtube. More importantly dvds do not read 60fps either nor most tvs capable of handling anything over 1080.

Whenever you export (even in cineform) you need to be VERY careful with what settings you pick. By default cineform assigns a framerate that was last used. You can also export with native settings but just because you now have a fancy shamncy copy does not mean that any other software or website will honor it.

When people upload to vimeo, youtube and all sorts of other websites those guys have to optimize it for viewing and as such they butcher the video and sound quality.

.AVI suffers from some quality degradation (hence sharpness gone). You need to stick to .mov and .mp4 which will produce huge file sizes but preserve more quality. Goal is to put best product through youtube meat grinder so that when its done processing your video will still be of decent quality.

Also when you upload to youtube it takes a few hours for it to finish processing during which time video quality will be degraded. As an addition to that right after you load the video there is a little thing in upload interface that prompts you to "apply youtube antishake filter" and your should NEVER use it.

For green water you do not need a red filter, you need appropriate magenta-ish filter. If your raw footage appears cyan then you need a red/orange filter.

Lastly it is important to point out video resolutions. If you go from 120fps (which means you were using 720p) and export it as 1080, video quality will be degraded because computer is effectively multiplying and stretching pixels. Considering distortions, no wonder your footage is coming out a little shaky. Computer tries to rubber sheet your smaller video into a bigger frame. Be sure to export with equal or lesser settings. (ie 720p 30fps)

Edit:

Also youtube plays back videos in lowest setting (unless you specified highest settings in your youtube account profile). It defaults to 360p so be sure to click on gear and select 720p. You can change that default under your user name->profile settings.

 

[buksida]

Thanks for that explanation yarik83, it clears a few things up.

Will do the next one in Powerdirector and see how it turns out.

Edit: any idea why I can't embed the vids on this forum?

 

[Interceptor121]

The whole cineform story is just for people that know what they are doing
To be honest if you are not skilled enough the best thing to do is to shoot as close as possible to the format you will use to watch the videos
So with a good filter and lighting shoot in 1080p30 for NTSC or 1080p25 for PAL or the universal 1080p24 in normal, don't bother with protune and cineform at all and the procedure will be much quicker
If you can hold the camera steady and you get the colors right from the beginning the edit is just the selection of the video you want to use

 

[just4steven]

New to the forum, but I spent about a year researching how in the heck to get my videos to look good on YouTube. I FINALLY found the simple answer! As mentioned above, take the simple step and run them through Cineform and you can do all the color correction junk, or you can simply just hit the "Pro Tune" preset. While my videos still suck, they used to REALLY REALLY suck before I ran them through Cineform. Also, the program you use or computer you use will not matter and there will be a huge difference. Here is a quick example. I was on vacation, only had my sucky 3 year old laptop and only used Windows Movie Maker, but I did run the files through Cineform first and used the preset option of Pro Tune. Considering the program I used and how old the laptop was it did not turn out bad at all......... now all I wish is that I would have waited until I got home to put it all together on my "super computer", lol. https://vimeo.com/62723449

[video=vimeo;62723449]https://vimeo.com/62723449[/video]