Intova Sport Pro

[Insta-Gator]

Sorry to hear that HYC. According to FedEx my camera was delivered to Intova on 10/29. I have not heard back from them. I just sent an email to Kevin requesting an update. I hope the firmware fix works for you. It locked up my camera. But it may have been because the battery was low when I tried to do the upgrade, I don't know. To be on the safe side, be sure your camera is fully charged prior to performing the firmware upgrade. Good luck. I'll post when I have a resolution to my camera issue.

 

[hyc]

Thanks Gary, I have my fingers crossed. I posted on the Intova forum and email their tech-support, hopefully can get help soon.

BTW, wishing all the other east coasters who were hit by hurricane Sandy a quick recovery, hopefully everyone is safe and the damage was not too substantial.

 

[Rderige]

Hi, just want to share my experience with my Intova Sport Pro HD for the folks who havent made up their minds whether to buy it or not.

I purchased Intova through Amazon a couple of months ago and was blown away by the design. You get value for money as you get a camera that shoots 1080p30fps, with a case that is suitable underwater, that includes an lcd to boot for the price way less than the gopro hd hero 2.

I bought the red filter and started using it to document my dives. With no basis for comparison I felt that this product is superior to GoPro in terms of quality and value, nevermind the lack of a user replaceable battery and the buttons which are very hard to press.

However, i started having problems with it just a few dives after. It started dying in the middle of my dives. I would use it on my first dive and by the time I get back to the boat the camera becomes unresponsive and cannot be turned on, rendering it useless for the second dive. At first I attributed the fault to a weak battery and just accepted it as part of the design of the unit. However, whenever i charge it after my dives it showed that the battery is still full. I found it weird but let it go. Then after a few more dives the intova camera died on me and refused to be turned on even after charging the unit and while charging the unit.

At this point i emailed intova support and a guy named Kevin assisted me. They were very helpful and efficient and they covered the shipping of the faulty unit back to their hong kong office and covered the shipping of a brand new, fully boxed unit back to me.
I was very grateful. The replacement unit no longer had these hard buttons that are difficult to press and after some testing i have observed that the battery lasts a lot longer than the old one. Now this is THE camera that i would love to bring to all my dives...

Recently though, my wife gave me a gopro hd hero 2 for our anniversary and we immediately tried it out during our wreck diving in inchcape 10 off the coast of fujairah (shout out to DiversDown for the enjoyable experience). Comparing the footage of the two cameras (goprohd and intovasportprohd), there is a noticeable difference in terms of quality of video between the two.

While my gopro captured really blue footage (i dont have a filter for it yet), the colors seem more vibrant and movement a lot more smooth than my intova. I know that my observation is really different from the other divers here, but im trying to be as objective as i can. The movement i can attribute to the 60fps720p setting of the go pro (intova was set at 30fps1080p), but im not sure why i felt colors are much better in the gopro.

Dont get me wrong though, i love my intova and will use it side by side with the go pro for my future dives. Just trying to contribute something to the discussion.

Oh, and by the way, just in case you are interested in seeing some footage, check out the (amateurish) documentation of our dive to the daymaniyat islands in Oman, vis wasnt generally at best but you can get an idea of the quality of the intova.

http://youtu.be/ZXqCEimx9xo

The boat and dive footage was captured using the sport pro hd, as well as the time lapse of the road trip. The rest were taken using a nikon d40 and an olympus mu. Watch in its highest res if you can.

Thanks!

 

[Insta-Gator]

Good input. I knew going in that the Sport Pro HD was a "vacation memories" camera. I'm good with that considering the price. It fulfills it's intended purpose (or will when the replacement camera arrives)

Using old fumble thumbs via Tapatalk 2

 

[radar_vibe]

Hi Gary and fallow divers,

I have been out of the water these last days – change of activity, hiking in the mountains (at lower pressures). Still got wet though :depressed:

Now that I am back at sea level and trying to catch up on the latest posts.

Ok, here's the deal. Intova sent me the updated firmware and very simple installation instructions. Upon installation of new firmware the camera locked up and suggestions from Intova did not help. Intova suggested they replace the camera, sent me an RMA and their FedEx account number. I don't think they could have been more helpful and supportive.

Insta-Gator – Really sorry to hear that the firmware update killed your camera.

Can you imagine the situation if I had have sent you the file (as I initially wanted to do). Thank goodness I refrained and recommended you dealt directly with Intova.

On the other hand, the upgrade went fine for me and I am at least reassured to read that Intova are taking care of you under the circumstances and hope they come through.

When you get your replacement, please let us know what Firmware version it has.

Cheers,

Terence

---------- Post Merged at 01:47 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 12:11 PM ----------

Hi undrwater,

Perhaps you can post your firmware version number?

Sure: Camera was delivered with the v2012061919 firmware (needed a magnifying glass to read it) and I upgraded it to v201208132
It would be good if others could also post their Firmware version along with any weird problems they may have observed.

SDcard classes are not always printed on any of the materials that come with the card. A casual buyer won't know what to look for, and perhaps not even care. FWIW, higher class cards have an increased transfer rate for larger files. I would bet that a Class 6 or above card (10 is the highest AFAIK) should work well.

Indeed - I had contacted Intova on this and they have recommend using a class 6 or 10, especially if recording long footage at 1080p. I now use an 8GB class 10 card and the results seem to be better (i.e. more stable).

I will be purchasing mine sometime within the next couple of months. I look forward to any info related. Thank you!

It is up to you, but if you can hold on long enough, Intova have announced a new version of their SP1. I received a news letter from them, where they speak of a number of improvements!

 

[hyc]

Hey, so I received the firmware upgrade from Intova and it seems to address the problem. Want to thanks Joe and William for their quick responses, 2 thumbs up for their excellent customer service!!

 

[Insta-Gator]

Good customer service "ROCKS"

Anything can break or go wrong, we get that. But good customer service is priceless. Glad you're up and running. Still waiting on my replacement. Maybe I'll get an early 'new release' but I'd settle for the current release with good firmware. I'm still on the positive side with Intova.

 

[radar_vibe]

Hi, just want to share my experience with my Intova Sport Pro HD for the folks who havent made up their minds whether to buy it or not.

I guess the stakes have change slightly in that the new GOPro 3 series is now being released (which now has a suitable underwater lens casing and price range)! Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, Intova have announced an improved version of their SP1

However, i started having problems with it just a few dives after. It started dying in the middle of my dives. I would use it on my first dive and by the time I get back to the boat the camera becomes unresponsive and cannot be turned on, rendering it useless for the second dive. At first I attributed the fault to a weak battery and just accepted it as part of the design of the unit. However, whenever i charge it after my dives it showed that the battery is still full. I found it weird but let it go. Then after a few more dives the intova camera died on me and refused to be turned on even after charging the unit and while charging the unit.

Rderige, this is not the first time I read such a comment where someone has reported this type of behaviour.

• How long ago did you buy your original SP1?
• What is the firmware version on your new replacement SP1?

I wonder if there was an earlier batch of faulty cameras! I had a slightly different experience where mine switched off during a dive after round 15mins of recording. When I noticed, I switched it back on and happily when on to record for a further 47mins without issues. That was the only time I had such a problem. However, I have not had it long, so decided to do an experiment to retest things (and I got a weird result)!

I fully charged the camera. Using an empty SDcard of 8GB class 10, I left the camera recording overnight to presumably give a footage of around 2+ hours (i.e. until the battery ran flat or the cards was full)

In the morning when I checked the results, there were several clips.

• 59:00 mins
• 31:26
• 22:55
• 16:27
• 11:40
• 08:10
• 05:11

Totalling 2h:34m:49s

It seems that the camera stopped recording and then restarted again automatically (several times) or simply spilt the total footage into separate files/clips – each time with the next sequence/clip being shorter than the previous.

As it was during the night, it was dark :dunce: and I could check for discontinuities in the sequences of the clips – so I will redo the test again, only this time I will set the time stamp option.

Now, I realise that this is rather academic :dozingoff: and that when diving I will not be recording a continuous clip for hours on end. Nevertheless this should not be a limitation (provided the camera is fully charged and card capacity permits) and my concern would be more when wearing the camera somewhere (e.g. attached to the tank), where you cannot see if it has switched off (not until the end of the dive, that is)!

• What has been the experiences others – has anyone else had a similar problem of the camera switching off by itself for no apparent reason?
• Have you all just been taking short clips or has someone succeeded in recording lengthy footages time after time?
• Are you generally recording at 1080p or lower?

Otherwise, as for the quality and functionality of the camera, its a gem:goingdown:

---------- Post Merged at 03:51 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 03:42 PM ----------

Hey, so I received the firmware upgrade from Intova and it seems to address the problem. Want to thanks Joe and William for their quick responses, 2 thumbs up for their excellent customer service!!

Cool,

So what version are you at now?

 

[hyc]

My upgraded firmware is: V2012081321

Wow, Hero 3 is only $199. If I'm in the market for a UW camera now, I will seriously consider Hero3 too. But I still don't see LCD screen on Hero3. I can share one of my experience when I see the usefulness of the LCD.

Few weeks ago, I setup my SP1 on my kayak to record our kayaking outing. I put it on a Gorilla tripod thingy, pointed straight ahead, looks good and all. But once I turned on the power, through the LCD I can see I pointed too far down and almost half the screen is my kayak. May be because Hero3 has a wider angle lens, that matter less? I don't know. I'm just used to preview what I capture. So to me, the LCD display is very good to have.

 

[TONY CHANEY]

While my gopro captured really blue footage (i dont have a filter for it yet), the colors seem more vibrant and movement a lot more smooth than my intova. I know that my observation is really different from the other divers here, but im trying to be as objective as i can. The movement i can attribute to the 60fps720p setting of the go pro (intova was set at 30fps1080p), but im not sure why i felt colors are much better in the gopro.

Why did you not just set both of them to the same pixels and FPS to get a true side by side compairsion to include removing the red filter from the Intova?