Hero8 Black Choppy Playback

[JamesBon92007]

I was shooting at 1280p, 60 fps mostly and no matter what I have tried I get choppy and fragmented playback that keeps freezing up. I got some improvement with a fresh reboot and nothing else open, but it still does it, just not quite as much. I have tried watching the videos on four different computers. It's a little better on the Windows 10 laptop with 8 GB RAM or on the iMac but it still does it. I tried the higher resolution and it wouldn't play back at all on my general-purpose, Win 7 desktop. I also tried copying the MP4 GoPro files onto a DVD and they are choppy on my Blu-Ray player. I made a movie with Windows Movie Maker, saved in High Resolution, and it's choppy on the Blu-Ray player, but seems OK on my desktop if it's a fresh re-boot. I made a movie with iMovie on the Mac and it's choppy. My files from my SJ7000 have never really been a problem, but do get a tiny bit choppy on my desktop if I have a bunch of other programs running. I'm using a SanDisk Ultra card in the GoPro and have tried a different Ultra 100MB/s card and got the same results. One thing I haven't tried yet is to download the GoPro Max Exporter for Windows 10. I don't have Windows 10 yet and would have to borrow the laptop and I'd be downloading new software onto someone else's computer, which may or may not be OK. This program says it converts the GoPro files into "spherical files that are compatible...." I would have thought that all MP4 files were alike. Does anyone know if this will even help? Basically, I have a cool camera that takes great video and has amazing video stabilization, the only problem is that I can't watch the videos except on the tiny screen on the camera. Any ideas? I'm liking my cheap SJ7000 more all the time. It would be fine except for the shakiness.

Also, can I somehow transfer the GoPro files to a computer via WiFi? This taking out the SD card to transfer files kinda stinks. I had to find my USB, SD card adaptor. My SJ7000 has WiFi but can't be used to transfer files, as far as I can tell. I tried the GoPro Android app and told it to make a video and it just kept going in circles and I gave up after serveral hours. Of course, I don't know what it was doing for sure anyway. Or what I was doing, for that matter.

Another issue is that it seems to be impossible to contact GoPro. Anyone know the magic phone number? Now it's past the 30 days to return it. I'm also wondering if their subscription is for real--how can you return a broken camera if you can't contact them? OTOH, they sent the camera right away when I ordered it, so at least the sales department is still functioning. And they came out with the Hero9 already. The Hero8 seems to be short-lived.

 

[ReefHound]

Make sure your computer has a good SSD drive not a HDD. And what is the CPU? You should have at least a 4th gen i7.

 

[JamesBon92007]

I think you may have islolated the problem--I don't know what a SSD is. I do know what a HDD is though As for the Apple, I clicked on the "About this Computer" and it didn't say anything about any i7 or other similar designation. What I don't know about Apple computers would fill a book. The one I used belongs to a friend and since I discovered the iMovie program I'm trying to talk them into not selling it. It has some nice features such as Stabilation and Roll and Shutter (?) correction. It may take a while to figure out just how to use those features for the results I want, but it breathes new life into my SJ7000 videos. All that's really wrong with them is the shakiness. All-in-all they have been damn good cameras for $42.

 

[ReefHound]

SSD = Solid State Drive. It's like a hard drive with the speed of RAM.
A typical SSD has access times that are about 100X faster than a standard 7200RPM hard drive.

Read more here:
SSD vs. HDD: What's the Difference?

Idk about Apple, on Windows the cpu type is under System. Found this article on how to check a Mac but I don't have one to test it.
How to find out what processor is inside your Mac and more

 

[GJC]

Looking at the Gopro forums, this happens to a significant number of other people too.

If your videos play back ok on the camera but not your computer, you have a bunch of things to look at on your computer to fix.

How to Correct Choppy or Broken Up Playback - GoPro Support Hub

Your GoPro Videos Are Lagging on Computer? Fix It Right Now

 

[JamesBon92007]

Looking at the Gopro forums, this happens to a significant number of other people too.

If your videos play back ok on the camera but not your computer, you have a bunch of things to look at on your computer to fix.

How to Correct Choppy or Broken Up Playback - GoPro Support Hub

Your GoPro Videos Are Lagging on Computer? Fix It Right Now

Thanks. I'm not sure if I read those particular threads but I'll take a look and hope there's something new I didn't try. I can understand how computer issues such as low RAM or a slow processor could cause my issues, but I don't see how that would effect playing back a DVD on a Blu-Ray player. I didn't see any place to update the firmware on the Blu-Ray and it's pretty old so I guess that could be a separate problem. I updated the GoPro firmware and it didn't make any difference, but at least now it can be used as a web cam I really expected the finished Movie Maker files to play back smoothly since everything is being converted and processed and all. Heck, it took over two hours to process about 32 minutes of video files so it must be doing something.

For some reason I hadn't tried playing back the videos on the phone app but they don't play back very smoothly on the phone either. They look like maybe 5-10 fps instead of 60 but at least I didn't see any fragmentation or "choppyness."

This may be a little off-topic, but with this new super-stabilization and all it occured to me that back in 1988 none of that seemed to be necessary with my Sony 8mm camcorder. If it had produced jerky videos I'm sure I would have noticed. Could the problem be the short focal length of the action cameras? Now I have to go look at my old home videos

 

[JamesBon92007]

SSD = Solid State Drive. It's like a hard drive with the speed of RAM.
A typical SSD has access times that are about 100X faster than a standard 7200RPM hard drive.

Read more here:
SSD vs. HDD: What's the Difference?

Idk about Apple, on Windows the cpu type is under System. Found this article on how to check a Mac but I don't have one to test it.
How to find out what processor is inside your Mac and more

I've always been amazed how long hard drives last considering they are spinning most the time. No moving parts sounds much more reliable. I had a DVD recorder and I think the only time the hard drive stopped was when you unplugged it.

Any thoughts on what's going to (or already has) replaced the DVD? Is there going to be a portable format or is everything supposed to be on the cloud or somewhere?

 

[GJC]

If your computer can't play the file correctly, it's not going to process and record to a DVD drive correctly.

Replacement for DVDs is streaming from your choice of direct streaming vendors.

 

[ReefHound]

Any thoughts on what's going to (or already has) replaced the DVD? Is there going to be a portable format or is everything supposed to be on the cloud or somewhere?

DVD is dead. What's the point? You can get a USB stick with much higher capacity and speed. Most smart TVs take USB input now.

 

[JamesBon92007]

DVD is dead. What's the point? You can get a USB stick with much higher capacity and speed. Most smart TVs take USB input now.

Yes, but you have to write really, really small to get 10 or 20 movie titles on a USB stick

So, are you saying that if I get a new Smart TV and put the GoPro files on a USB stick they should play back smoothly? Maybe Walmart Spark will send me one to review The TV we have isn't very smart--there isn't a USB port and the stuff like VUDU and Netflix are all on the Blu-Ray player. We don't even have YouTube unless we hook up the laptop.

I suppose a SSD could be used to store all of my movies in alphabetical order. I guess I'd better get busy. Kinda like the proverbial egg basket though. I have enough movies to last me the rest of my life plus one good thing about getting old--if I watched a movie over 3 months ago it's just like watching a new movie!

I printed out the System Summary for the laptop with 8GB RAM but it doesn't say what kind of storage it has, but the processor is: Intel Core i5-62000 2.3 GHZ, 24000 Mhz, 2 Core, 4 logical processors. That looks like the "i7" you mentioned only it's two models earlier. From what I understand so far it sounds like this one isn't good enough. I'll look at the Apple when I get the chance. I know it cost a lot of money and isn't very old so maybe it's up to snuff.

Nobody mentioned the GoPro MAX Exporter for Windows 10 yet so maybe there's still a possibility without buying a whole bunch of new electronics. I'll try to get ahold of that laptop again in a couple of days and see what happens.