New Years 2011

[tvann]

Here is how I brought in the New Year. It's not class IV/V so it may be boring to some of you but everybody else...Hope you enjoy. Stout footage will come when we start getting some steady rain down in Alabama.

http://vimeo.com/19058085

[Shep]

I THOUGHT that was the put-in for the upper at the beginning, but I thought "That wouldn't be running in the middle of winter..."

Than, there you go, it's the Olympic center. How would one know if the Upper or Middle are running any given day? Do you know what level it was releasing at on New Years day? I think I have seen reference to a gauge number on the TVA website, but I've never been able to find anything than the official recreation release schedule.

Shep

[tvann]

The level was around 500 cfs. Not sure about where to check it at though. It has been running quite a bit this winter. It will probably continue to run more often as long as they are working on the flume. I just call one of the GDI guys when I want to know the level. That was the only time I have been on the Ocoee this winter so far. hopefully the last until the summer if we can get some rain.

[Riverken]

That is just about the best helmet cam video quality I have ever seen; truly awesome.

What kind of camera is it?

[tvann]

Thanks. It is a GoPro HD. It was filmed in 1080p.

[Shep]

I played around with my GoPro HD on a ski trip after Christmas. (Since we've got no water! ). I found that for snowboarding, it really does help to use the fish-eye setting instead of the 1080p widescreen. I have seen some video from a camera mounted on a riser on the stern of the boat that also used the fish-eye setting to great effect, but Riverken is right, that is some great footage.

Two questions for you, tvann... What encoding settings do you like to use for uploading to Vimeo? ( I tried to create a 6 minute HD video yesterday, and the output file was nearly 900 mb) Second, how do you have it mounted on your helmet? I have some curved adhesive mounts on order, but I haven't seen the mount that will hold the camera in front of the helmet instead of on top.

Thanks,
Shep

[bcmcmillan]

You can call the TVA at 865 632 six zero six five. When you call this number it will take you to a real person that you just have to tell what river section you want to know the release schedual for. This is a very nice service that they offer, please dont abuse it.

[Paddle Power]

Great footage, nice river run, excellent filming.

[tvann]

Shep, I downloaded the Vimeo desktop uploader. It is the fastest way to upload vieos to your Vimeo account. It still takes a while though. I have my camera mounted on the top of my helmet with the curved adhesive mounts. They work great so far. I have a piece of para cord tied to my camera and helmet for extra security. Hope this helps.

[Shep]

Thanks! I managed to get my vid up after I looked at the instructions on the vimeo website (nothing fun comes with instructions!) I should have my crved helmet mounts next week.

[Riverken]

Can I ask a couple of questions about the GoPro camera? I was so impressed I might buy one. I looked at the web site; it has some amazing video, too, but left me with these questions.

I only have Windows 7. Is the camera compatible?

From the web site I gather that it does not come with a SD card. Am I right that you need the card to operate the camera, so it is an additional expense I need to figure in?

It has no viewer, or if it does it costs extra. How hard is it to get what you want if you can't see it on a viewer?

Thanks very much.

Ken

[Shep]

Hi Ken,
Some answers to your questions:

The camera puts out MPEG4 files. There are lots of software packages that can play these files, but if you want to do a significant amount of editing, you will want to convert them to a format that is less compressed. MPEG Streamclip is a commonly-recommended free program to convert files among formats and resolutions. The format and you choose depends on what software you will use to edit video. On Apple, you have iMovie, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premier, and several others. On PC, you have the new Windows Movie Maker, Adobe Premier, and others (I purchased Quicktime Pro and regretted it, very little functionality).

You are correct, it does not come with an SD card. I was able to find a Sandisk 16gb card at Radioshack on Sunday after Christmas, so I was able to play with my new toy pretty quickly. GoPro says you need an SD Car rated at speed 4 or higher, so you are looking at $2-$8 per gigabyte for 16 and 32gb cards. Video files end up being at least 100 mb per minute on the camera, so I think 8gb is a reasonable minimum sized card.

The camera has no viewer, and no zoom. The more expensive Cameras (the ones with a 1080p and 60fps modes) have a connector on the back that will allow you to connect a viewfinder which is now available for pre-order. For positioning the camera, I played around with it on my boat mount and then looked at the output on my camera so I knew how to position it when we go to the river. The more you use it, the easier it is to predict where to aim it for best video.

If you want to make professional-looking movies, I think the POV cameras are a condiment, not a main ingredient. However, I think the GoPro is probably one of the best POV cameras out there. I am not sure I have the interest to get a separate camera, and I know I don't have the cash (well, I guess I'd rather spend it on boats!) Maybe as I keep playing around with this, that will change.

Hope this helps,
Shep

[dafriend]

Shep,

There is no benefit in converting the camera's native file format to something less compressed. You won't achieve any improvement in quality by up-converting and you might even achieve less picture quality in the long run. Only if the computer being used simply cannot handle working with the mp4 files directly does it make sense to convert the native files to something else.

Dave

[Riverken]

I can see that you folks are miles ahead of me, but I'll study up. I'd love to be able to creat some video of this quality.


Before I go out and buy a card and maybe some new software, will the camera work with Windows 7? I ask because the documentation that came with the camera implies that it will not. BTW, these people don't seem to answer their phone or respond to emails.

Thanks for the advice and the quick response. I hope I'm not being a pain; I just don't know what I am doing (you probably noticed that already).

[Shep]

I probably didn't make clear that the goal of conversion is for the sake of editing, not quality. H.264 (MP4) uses only a few key frames, making it extremely computationally intensive to use any nonlinear editing software. The value of converting to something like Apple ProRes is the fact that you won't require a (possibly hours) long re-render of the video every time you do a single editing operation.

When I use MPEG Streamclip to convert resolutions, it is always to go down in resolution, not up. It's nice to be able to convert a 1080p file from the GoPro to 720p 16x9 before I edit it so things run faster, but to still have the original 1080p source video in case I want to use it later.

Shep,

There is no benefit in converting the camera's native file format to something less compressed. You won't achieve any improvement in quality by up-converting and you might even achieve less picture quality in the long run. Only if the computer being used simply cannot handle working with the mp4 files directly does it make sense to convert the native files to something else.

Dave