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GoPro Hero3 , 4K is here in Baby Steps for $399.99!
  • 642 Replies sorted by
  • BlueBomberTurboBlueBomberTurbo

    Some Best Buys around me have them in stock. I'm in FL, so yeah, "around me" includes a 60mi radius. ;) I'll wait for them to get to the 2 closer stores in between before I pick up a 2nd. My first arrives tomorrow!!! :D

  • VajkVajk

    No luck in New York. Now I am trying San Diego. Anyone seen them there?

  • BlueBomberTurboBlueBomberTurbo

    Just tested mine a bit last night while driving home. First impressions: low light is significantly better, most likely due to (obviously) the better sensor, but also Protune. The GP2 had weird noise. It had the regular mushy chroma stuff, but also rectangular blocks, most likely caused by the sharpening of the standard profile. The noise on GP3 w/ Protune looks much more normal, and Neat Video has no problem reducing it. Rendering a (shaky) handheld test right now. :)

  • BlueBomberTurboBlueBomberTurbo

    Alright, it's ready!

  • BlueBomberTurboBlueBomberTurbo

    Just picked up "The Frame". Not as soft as it looks in the video. Only the top is soft, the rest is rigid. Gonna have to Dremel out an HDMI port hole.

    Also of note, it's changed a bit from what's shown on the site. It now has dense screens over the mic holes, and another screen on top that has a couple of angled pieces in front. Not a clue what that's for. Also has holes for the lights that it covers up.

  • BlueBomberTurboBlueBomberTurbo

    Some more good stuff. Just hooked my GP3 up to my Swivi monitor. On the live feed display, it shows the mode icon in the upper left, Protune (if on) below it, then the resolution, frame rate, and viewing angle below that. Recording time (current time/max available) is top center, battery meter in the upper right, and WiFi status in the lower right. This probably also means it's not worth it to record the HDMI feed, since there doesn't seem to be a a way to get rid of the icons.

    Now the big improvement: a setup menu GUI! :D I'm thinking it's the same as what you'd see on the LCD Touch BacPac, since it looks very similar. SOOOOO much easier to navigate than the front/remote LCD. Love it. :)

    Interestingly, you can't play back any videos on the monitor. I guess the LCD Touch BacPac adds either the required software or hardware, since it seems like the GP3 can't do it by itself.

    A final note: audio also comes through the HDMI feed. Not very useful since you can't control anything, but you could monitor what it's picking up if you have the right equipment.

  • BlueBomberTurboBlueBomberTurbo

    Continuing... ;)

    Playing around with 5DtoRGB. I had previously directly imported the MP4 file into After Effects. This time, I brought it into 5D first, then AE. What I found is that you get a much flatter image running it through 5D first, using 601. And it's not just a gamma shift, as I tried to bring the shadows back up in the original MP4, but all there was left was chunky noise. Here's a sample with Neat Video and slight color correction, same settings applied to both, with slightly tweaked NR for the 5D version's additional detail (tried not to blur it to death):

    GoPro MP4:

    http://www.personal-view.com/talks/uploads/FileUpload/6f/73e8300280e05b1ccec2569c29edfa.jpg

    5DtoRGB ProRes 422 HQ 601:

    http://www.personal-view.com/talks/uploads/FileUpload/40/f7b237ef2ee0cf0a7fbd2811686936.jpg

    You can easily see the separation of the trees from the sky now, and the center of the headlight beam isn't about to be blown out. For the other settings, 709 has very little effect beyond shifting colors a bit (reds look more accurate, insignificant mids boost), and Full/Broadcast Range has zero effect.

    MP4.jpg
    2704 x 1440 - 295K
    5D.jpg
    2704 x 1440 - 387K
  • trevmartrevmar

    My Hero3 has arrived. Been fiddling with it a few hours. First impressions are that there is something wrong with 4K, it gives far too much noise. The best resolution/noise/grading tradeoff appears to be 2.7K 24fps Protune, and I suspect the camera was tuned for this. Very low noise in my dimly lit test room, clear crisp video. Looks nice, 48Mbps

    I can't seem to get my android app to connect, this appears to be because the Hero3 firmware upgrade I received did not include 'tablet' support in the wifi menu.

    Will shoot an ISO test sheet for resolution and moire, and post it tomorrow. But I just wanted to report that the resolution seems to be sharp (at least when the lens is not inside the protective case). Will check the lens geometry later in the weekend..

    For testing I am using a variety of software, but VLC appears to handle the large screen sizes comfortable. The MediaInfo data is attached.

    2K7_24fps_Protune.txt
    2K
  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    Here is a guide to how I have my GoPro 3 setup and some tips on how to handle some of the issues with it.

  • trevmartrevmar

    @mpgxsvcd Very good video :) Thanks for the tip on the frame mount :) I also see the battery charging freeze problem in mine, from the latest batch shipped direct from GoPro.

    You might also mention that you will need a Class 10 card for Protune. If the camera runs for 5 seconds and stops, the card is probably too slow. I use a UHS-1 Sandisk 64G.

    I really, really, need the phone app before I start playing with the FOV options. They say 14 Dec. It will be interesting to see if they make that deadline...

  • filthyfilthy

    @trevmar - Are you saying that the phone app that's currently out isn't working with your new GP3?

  • trevmartrevmar

    @filthy The phone app does not work with the Black GP3. The Bk GP3 has an item removed from its WiFi menu. Some older models did have the "tablet" item included, but the upgrades have removed it.

  • trevmartrevmar

    I have been using the AVIsynth Defish filter to correct for lens distortions. I don't have the optimum values yet, but this looks pretty good with 2.7K Cinema:

    Defish(a=0.00173, b=-0.000032, c=-0.2004, aspect=1.886)

    It seems the lens is standard rectilinear geometry.

    The Dynamic Noise Reduction filter for Virtualdub gets rid of GP3 noise very well indeed, but increases motion blur. The standard sharpener, set between 32 and 64, crisps the Protune images up quite nicely.

    All in all, a nice video camera added to my arsenal, and one which fits easily into my camera case...

  • tinbeotinbeo

    Gp Pro Siver is $100 less at best buy. Look the same to me , just lack of wifi remote

  • RamboRambo

    Nope, black has new sensor/ lens and many more shooting modes. Silver has the sensor and electronics from the superseded HD2 model.

    image.jpg
    857 x 1860 - 329K
  • trevmartrevmar

    @tinbeo: The key mode (for me) of the HD3 Black is 2K7cine 24p Protune, 45Mbps. Gives me the ability to video a wide area (eg a room) and then extract footage from a small region, retaining adequate resolution for YouTube (etc). Protune allows for nice color and density grading in pp, along with fast, clean, removal of sensor noise with DNR in virtualdub or Vegas.

  • trevmartrevmar

    @tinbeo: Here is a YouTube with an excellent comparison of the Hero2 and the Black. Note particularly the lack of moire and amazing resolution in the ISO charts at 1080p :)

    . www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZvPBBHAuiI

  • joeschmoejoeschmoe

    Thanks guys for taking the time to post the video samples and reviews. I've been watching them with great interest, they've been very informative! If they ever arrive in Canada, I'll be grabbing one. Thanks!

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    I just updated my GoPro 3 black from version HD3.03.01.05 to HD3.03.01.09. At first glance the 720p @ 120 FPS with Pro-Tune looks much better. However, I haven't tried any scientific tests yet.

    I am going to see if it fixes the battery issue as well. It definitely did not fix the date being off by most of a day though.

  • trevmartrevmar

    @mpgxsvcd Have been using HD3.03.01.09 for several days. It is very picky about SDXC cards, and I haven't found one which will film 4K protune without locking up when I terminate the video. So I have been mainly playing with 2K7 Cine Protune 24P and SanDisk UHS-1 64GB SDXC cards. I tried FAT32 format, same speed problems as exFAT.

    The potential of the product is limitless, but there are a lot of rough edges right now. I am waiting for a cable to come so I can try external microphones and video feed to a composite monitor to assist with framing. Once I can frame, I will be able to shoot the ISO test cards and take a closer look at resolution.

    I am impressed with Protune files converted to AVI through Cineform Studio, using the embedded metadata. This software is slow, but since I use Cineform codecs in all my post workflow, I guess I can put up with the conversion speed. The preservation of color and grading is excellent with Protune. That has been truly impressive. A big problem is that my Neoscene Cineform-codec tools won't allow me to process an image above 1080p, however, so I have to crop the 2K7 image as soon as I start playing with it in Virtualdub. Sigh...

    Oh - and my unit still locks up -- frequently... I have been leaving the battery flap off the unit, to save time when pulling the battery :(

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    @trevmar

    I haven't been having as much trouble with it locking up as you. However, I just switched to the firmware that might be causing that. I will test it out and see what happens.

  • BlueBomberTurboBlueBomberTurbo

    The only real issue I've had is that sometimes with a newly formatted card, it'll record for 5 secs, then stop. All recordings after that aren't a problem. It also likes to lock up when connected to a TV via HDMI for playback. But the icons on the screen don't make playback very fun either way. :p

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    UPDATE

    My battery issues were resolved by updating my GoPro 3 Black firmware from version HD3.03.01.05 to HD3.03.01.09. Now the front light illuminates while charging and turns off when complete. The back light never turns on during charging now.

  • trevmartrevmar

    @mpgxsvcd With mine, the front light sometimes doesn't turn on, and the back light is on, after plugging in the USB power cable (1 Amp adapter). I have upgraded twice to HD3.03.01.09.

    Jake, from Cineform support, pointed out a new Cineform Studio version to me: http://software.gopro.com/PC/GoProCineFormStudioPC-1.3.2.169.zip

    It does a good job of converting Protune to nice, clean, cineform-avi.

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    Check out this climbing video shot with the GoPro 3 Black mounted on a Panasonic GH2. Wide angle and closeup filmed simultaneously. The second half of the video has the GoPro shots. All of them were 2.7K @ 30 FPS. The 1080p @ 60 FPS and 720p @ 120 FPS did not work at all in this low light gym.

    I had to throw away about half of my GoPro footage because I shot it in 720p @ 120 FPS mode. However, I am still investigating whether the most recent firmware update has resolved the low light issues I am having with 720p @ 120 FPS.

    Can you tell which are the GoPro shots without looking at the ultra wide angle. Neither the GoPro or GH2 footage is graded. These clips were simply put together with the music. I love having the GoPro as a backup camera though. If I messed up the clip with the GH2 because of focus issues or too much shaking I could always go back to the GoPro footage.

    The GH2 used Standard color mode with 0,0,0,-2. I was trying out some new things and I really did not want to have to grade that many clips. I also wanted the colors to stand out since it was a fun kids comp.

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