How to How to GoPro.... Bible

Tubbsy

Packin' a small bird
Staff member
General observations:

First of all, remember that terms like 4K and 24megapixels don't mean anything other than the size/depth of the frame you are filling with information. Just like you could have a 4000 word essay full of shit and a 1000 word essay that's riveting and insightful. If your footage is rubbish, having the latest go pro isn't going to make your youtube videos look better. As mentioned above, learn your camera settings and try different things.

Secondly, video compression varies a lot based on the nature of the footage. If you have a person talking to camera in front of a static background, not a lot of pixels are changing compared to an action clip of mtb in forest full of leaves. Two videos of the same duration pose very different challenges if you want a video to look good online. As a general rule, the more movement and the more detail, the bigger your file is going to be.

More specifically:

Exporting to youtube and other online platforms can seem like a bit of a dark art. The way you see footage at your end should be reasonably closely repeatable online (otherwise you wouldn't see all the high-end content available on there). Trial and error may surprise you, so have a go at uploading the same thing a few different ways.

There are far too many settings and variables to cover in a post on here, but I'd suggest having a read of what kind of settings youtube would like and trying to replicate those when you export your edit.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en

Depending on your software, you should have quite a lot of control over your final output. If you don't do it at your end, youtube will automatically give it a massive quality hair cut to get the bit rate down to what they want. Try exporting at 1440p at 40mbps. Youtube hits you harder with their compression if you upload at 1080p.

Have a look at a program like handbrake (it's free):

https://handbrake.fr

Or Compressor on Apple, or Adobe Media Encoder to help with this stage of the process.


If you're super keen, learn to use your edit software as the professionals do. Transcode your 4k rushes to a proxy resolution (smaller file, less quality but perfectly watchable) and do your editing. When you're 100% happy, make a copy of that edit and your edit software will let you 'relink' to the high quality footage you shot originally. At this point you export to the desired and format and get top quality without the hassles....


TL;DR.... I don't have a shortcut for you, trial and error, more reading and less TL;DR basically.
 

ozzybmx

taking a shit with my boobs out
The big issue going from any GoPro Hero 5 and older to the Hero 6 or newer is the video format.
This page explains it well https://gopro.com/help/articles/block/hevc
Up to Hero5 used H.264, Hero6 and above uses HEVC.265 (Though I have read with Hero7 you can chose between the two)

So say you had an older video editing program, if this program cannot be updated to use HEVC.265, it is basically obsolete once you make the Jump to Hero6 or Hero7.

So I had to buy a new video editing program... bought CyberLink Power Director Ultimate for $49 on special, its $99 at the min but goes on special price quite often.
This program is very easy to use and very similar to my old Sony Vegas Pro, though much simpler to render videos with, a few clicks and a 4K vid renders out and ready for YouTube upload.

I have also found that using the video stabilization on the Hero6 black massively reduces the video quality, so I dont use it.

Make sure you update your GoPro firmware and it has fixes for camera issues, the last update fixed the dark footage in low light situations.

Have a look at this vid from 3-4 months ago, this was the Aloha 'Hawaii themed' Melrose 18hr (my kids racing the 6 hour team) and it was a very overcast day, some of the footage looks dark. This is 4K 50fps shot on the Hero6 Black with a cheap $100 Hohem iSteady gimbal. I have updated the firmware and hopefully this fixes the low light issue.

 

Minlak

custom titis
The big issue going from any GoPro Hero 5 and older to the Hero 6 or newer is the video format.
This page explains it well https://gopro.com/help/articles/block/hevc
Up to Hero5 used H.264, Hero6 and above uses HEVC.265 (Though I have read with Hero7 you can chose between the two)
All good points but specifically the codec you mention is no longer already in Windows 10 is why some people have more trouble than others using it. A lot of people also don't know they need the codec for correct playback. There is a download in the Windows Store for it but make sure you get the free one not the one Microsoft tries to charge you for. They are the same by the way not sure why they charge for one and not the other.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/p/hevc-video-extensions-from-device-manufacturer/9n4wgh0z6vhq?irgwc=1&OCID=AID681541_aff_7593_159229&tduid=(ir__vgbowjshqckfrh1o0h0nh3m2kv2xhmtses066suj00)(7593)(159229)()(UUwpUdUnU56397)&irclickid=_vgbowjshqckfrh1o0h0nh3m2kv2xhmtses066suj00&activetab=pivot:regionofsystemrequirementstab
 

Tubbsy

Packin' a small bird
Staff member
Television productions with budgets in the tens of millions don't edit their go pro footage in the native codec; it's just too demanding for the post production phase which equals wasted time/money.

I'd really urge everybody to look at what format your edit system prefers, and transcode to that before editing. Doesn't matter if the files balloon in size during this process, they will still be easier to work with.

You only need to worry about the file size when you export your final for youtube.
 

Warp

Likes Dirt
Great idea for a thread!

Love Resolve, wasted many hours and dollars on premiere pro to no avail. Videos are still shit but at least I can actually get something cohesive together now.

I invested a lot of time in Android video editing, the reality is you're never going to get a great product. The processing power just isn't there, your battery will die very quickly any time you try to do anything, and you are super limited with what you can do. Something like GoPros Quik is about as complicated as you can get, and even that isn't great.

I'm still running a hero5 session. I'd love a gimbal, but TBH it's hard to spring that coin when a hero7 can get close through software and be an all in one solution. The gimbal would be one extra thing to stuff around with, and nobody really watches my videos anyway apart from me so the extra snazzy footage ain't worth it in my opinion. YMMV
This sounds pretty much like me.
My videos' content sucks to start with, so investing a lot on that regard is hard to justify. I still have a Sony Action Cam HDR-AS15 which I'm thinking on replacing as it's got a weird form factor and different mount to most GoPro compatible stuff.
 

BT180

Max Pfaff
I never upload to YouTube, only Insta, but it has the same compression issues. Insta resolves everything to 30fps, so I only record in that. other settings are 2.7k in 4:3. Low light setting off. After a bit of experimenting, i find that's the best. This is straight off the camera of course. No PP, only clipping of vids. I'm using the Hero 5 Session with inbuilt stabiliser.
 

poita

Likes Dirt
This sounds pretty much like me.
My videos' content sucks to start with, so investing a lot on that regard is hard to justify. I still have a Sony Action Cam HDR-AS15 which I'm thinking on replacing as it's got a weird form factor and different mount to most GoPro compatible stuff.
Funny story about other cameras. I had a Garmin Virb, the original one. Unfortunately it had issues from the start with not charging correctly and had it replaced. Problem was it charging issues were a known fault in the circuit that they couldn't fix. Anyway there was a hokey work around that basically involved watching the damn thing charge. Only slightly more interesting than watching grass grow, but only because there was a blinky light. Anyway, had all these mounts for the damn thing, proprietary of course, so persisted for quite a while. For comedy value I sent an email to Garmin asking for another replacement, plenty of backwards and forwards asking for serial numbers etc. By this time this camera was superseded TWICE by Garmin's own product, let alone 3 generations of GoPro. Push came to shove and I said, "I either need a replacement or I'm buying a GoPro". They offered me a discounted, refurbished model that isn't even supported anymore by Garmin themselves! (A Virb XE, which was widely regarded as a piece of shite by pretty much everyone). And now I have a GoPro that I have abused the shit out of and just plug in when it runs out of battery or storage.

TL;DR Moral of the story: don't keep suffering through something else, just buy a damn GoPro and be done with it
 

Warp

Likes Dirt
TL;DR Moral of the story: don't keep suffering through something else, just buy a damn GoPro and be done with it
Hahaha... mine works. It does everything I could ask for, except gps perhaps. It's just the mounts that are rather "hard" to get along as it has a camera 1/4" mount.
 

ttnguyen133

Likes Bikes
I have the Hero 7 and mostly post on IG and have been pretty happy with the output from just the Quik app, quality seems to be better when viewed from phone for some reason.
http://instagr.am/p/BsOygwEhzMZ/ I only record in 1080 30fps and with all the standard protune settings you see recommended on YouTube.
I did post a run down Mystic park on YouTube here:
.
It's not super great but I think it's decent (in 1080p quality). Note that it was rendered at 1080 at only 14mbps.
I might try upscale it next time with a higher bitrate. Only thing is Aussie internet is such a pain to upload with and I've got a slow computer!
 
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EsPeGe

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Yep great idea for a thread. I do a fair bit of video using multiple platforms, drones, gopro's, DSLR's and pro level video cameras. From what I see there are a number of things that folks (including myself) cock up so I'll run em down.

Firstly understand your equipment. Yes the Gopro is pretty impressive out of the box on auto settings but if you want to get the best out of it then you need to know the different settings and how they work. I suggest going to Abe Kislevitz page. This guy is THE gopro guru. He does a fair chunk of the promo video you see for Gopro and has a heap of good information in regards your camera. Some of the stuff is old and refers to earlier models but most of it is still very valid.

Know what you want at the back end i.e.what you want the finished product to look like. This doesn't mean you have to script and story board the whole production but if you have an idea of the story you are trying to tell then you'll have a better idea of what to shoot. This includes B roll. What is B Roll? B roll is SOOOOO under rated and under used. It is the stuff you put in between the main shots to give context. You can use it at the start and finish as well as in between.

Lets say you are shooting a race. If you shot the race on it's own it kind of lacks context. Where is the race, who is racing, what sort of race is it? B-roll can give you this. You could open with shots of a sign at the start of the race or riders getting their bikes ready. During the race footage you could include the scenery where the race is held, even wildlife nearby, shots of the pits area and don't forget the crowd. At the end of the race you could get footage of the podium, then bikes going into the back of the ute and people getting into the car and driving off. These are all basic examples and super easy to do but they give your video a much better feel and help tell the story. B-Roll is important and you should get absolute shitloads of it. You don't need to use it all, far from it but the more footage you have to work with the better chance you'll get something that will work.

The next one is probably the biggest mistake Gopro users make in my opinion and is actually a post production error. Filming the whole run and then just banging on some music and uploading it. BOOOOOORRRRRIIIIINNNNNNGGGG. Watch any action sports video and you'll notice that generally 3-5 seconds is the longest shot you see accept for the slowmo stuff, even then they generally are still only short punchy clips. Don't get me wrong there are times when longer shots are called for but generally keep your clips short and to the point. It's easy to fall in love with your footage but you need to be merciless and chop it. Then when you think you've clipped it enough go back and do it again. You'll be surprised how much this can make your edit pop. Especially if you can sequence some of the clips to the music. Which leads me to the next issue.

Music is super critical. You need to choose the right music for the action and try to edit to the music as much as you can. Change clips on a hi note or a beat, use slowmo in slow sections of the song, speed up again as the song kicks back in. This takes an ordinary video to the next level. Downhillers are the worst for this. They bang on some insanely fast death metal and it just doesn't generally suit the action. I like a bit of that music so it's not a taste thing here it just doesn't fit unless you can edit to it which is hard. Find something a little slower but still heavy if that's your flavour and edit the clip to the music. It will look waaaaaay better.

As for gimbals, I use a Feiyu Tech WGS gimbal with my Session 5 on a chesty mount. This works really well and gives very smooth footage even on big hits. I also suggest using the gopro stabilization as well and you'll have a really good chance of getting silky smooth footage. My favourite trick at the moment is to put it on my back and film riders in close behind me doing big jumps. This looks amazing and is really under used in my opinion. Gopro's looking forward are ok but when you look back at someone you can really see what they are doing and it really pops. Give it a crack.

Anyway that's my 2C worth I hope it helps.

Cheers Scott.
 

binner

Hath shat hymself
So I have been bitten by the GoPro bug again and I thought it would be nice to have a section that we can chat all things GoPro. Somewhere that we can share and guide each other on what has been working and what hasn't. Two of the biggest issues to resolve with your GoPro footage is the compression ratio YouTube applies to your videos. This is what leaves you scratching your head as to why your shiny 4k video you took hours to upload still looks grainy and pixelated. The second is the horrible wind noise.

The first thing is ditch the wind noise so you can hear your video. I actually use a fake moustache cut into pieces and stuck over the microphone holes. i am in the process of making a better cover from fluffy material. Ultimately they suggest using an external mic but I like this idea so far and the audio isn't terrible.
View attachment 349976

The second thing to know is that YouTube has preferred settings for you to upload with. however these settings may not be in the best interest of you just Youtube. I found this guy Loam Ranger and found his information the easiest to follow in getting a good video uploaded. it turns out one of the biggest mistakes you can make is letting your GoPro decide what settings to use. you get a far better video result by post editing your footage then uploading to combat some of the YouTube bastardisation of your footage.

This is part 1 that sets up the settings. he talks about gimbals and stuff and I am not using one but still using the same settings on my GoPro Hero 7 Black. My footage has improved 10 fold on what lands on my chanell now.


This is part 2 he talks editing. The principals are the same no matter what software you use but I am really liking resolve and its free https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/au/products/davinciresolve


So let me know tips tricks hints ideas. feel free to post your channel we should all subscribe to each other it costs nothing and only helps ourselves out.

Loam ranger is cool, seems to know his shit. I have learnt a few things watching his vids , just gotta sort out editing now. I just purchased Pinnacle studio 22 editing software and converted to a PC from 8 yrs on MACS. This was probably a big mistake as I'm relearning a lot now.....
I was using a gimble but now just have a GoPro 7 which is awesome for stability but my GoPro 3 still shits over the 7 and 5
 

Minlak

custom titis
Loam ranger is cool, seems to know his shit. I have learnt a few things watching his vids , just gotta sort out editing now. I just purchased Pinnacle studio 22 editing software and converted to a PC from 8 yrs on MACS. This was probably a big mistake as I'm relearning a lot now.....
I was using a gimble but now just have a GoPro 7 which is awesome for stability but my GoPro 3 still shits over the 7 and 5
Seriously the more I learn about using Davinci Resolve the more I like it. I had Pinnacle studio 14 back in the day it was cool and I did just purchase Premiere Elements before I found out my issues were my shit computer not the photo editing software.
 

binner

Hath shat hymself

the 7 has a nice internal stabilizer and I do a few mods to my chest mount, then in editing I also stabilize the footage. Seems to come out almost as smooth as using a gimble, I still like a bit of rough in videos. Its nice not wearing a gimble. I also slit a hole in my riding jersey and attach the gopro to chesty after I put my jerseyon so you aren't wearing the chesty on the outside. Looks a lot cleaner and your jersey is free to move around.
This trip to Derby I used a rear facing helmet mount to get the guys riding behind me and also used a reverse mounted handle bar set up to see the riders facial reactions to trails and body movement. Its all still raw footage so I am slowly editing now.... i'll let you know when its up on my channel.....
 

Dales Cannon

lightbrain about 4pm
Staff member
This trip to Derby I used a rear facing helmet mount to get the guys riding behind me and also used a reverse mounted handle bar set up to see the riders facial reactions to trails and body movement. Its all still raw footage so I am slowly editing now.... i'll let you know when its up on my channel.....
If I did that it would be a constant stream of passing and riders yelling get out of the fucking way.
 

Minlak

custom titis
So I just put a video together of today's activity and it got me thinking more critically about the structure of the video. I went with the after video first explaining the situation then to the video that created the situation. I think maybe I could have gone the more dramatic way and shown the crash then cut to the monologue then go back to the crash footage. I kind of recorded the into video on the spur of the moment thinking I would play the crash after. But then am I trying to hard instead of just vlogging.... mmmm what am I a creator or a vlogger? That is the question. Mmm not going to link the video now as I think I just convinced myself to do it the other way? lol thanks guys
 

Tubbsy

Packin' a small bird
Staff member
So I just put a video together of today's activity and it got me thinking more critically about the structure of the video. I went with the after video first explaining the situation then to the video that created the situation. I think maybe I could have gone the more dramatic way and shown the crash then cut to the monologue then go back to the crash footage. I kind of recorded the into video on the spur of the moment thinking I would play the crash after. But then am I trying to hard instead of just vlogging.... mmmm what am I a creator or a vlogger? That is the question. Mmm not going to link the video now as I think I just convinced myself to do it the other way? lol thanks guys
Good that you’re thinking about the structure, and your first instinct isn’t a bad way to go.

You could try a slow motion opening clip with some dramatic music of the moments leading right up to the crash. Try and get the crescendo of the music to coincide with the most dramatic point. Then just as we’re about to see the crash, cut to black and have the title of the video on black.

Alternately if the aftermath of the crash is funny you can start with that and make a little opening scene out of that.

Then you can start the main body of the story starting from the beginning. Maybe start with some bright, happy music and text saying “2 hours earlier” and lead us through the story.


The advantage of this structure is drawing the audience in early; they know something good is coming up and will then stick around to see how it happened. If you just run it from the beginning people may lose interest and click off before the good bit.
 
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