All of the different models / packages are leaving me confused!

I’m not looking to become the next Spielberg. I have a good DSLR which, although takes brilliant videos, isn’t exactly helmet-mountable.

so, for vimeo / youtube / show off to my friends on my kit do I need?laptop, how much camera and how much kit do I need?

What do you have and wish you’d gone a level up or down?

Thanks

First, are you any good on a bike? do you ride anywhere interesting? and will anyone actually enjoy your films? Be honest now!
Personally I wish there was a riding skills/speed license to pass before mtbers were allowed to use a GoPro

Based on the amount of general video dross on you-tube, any POV video from a bike counts as interesting!

depends on your definition of “interesting” STATO. 😉 As you say, there’s certainly enough POV bike riding dross on there already..

I’ve got a Hero 3 Black as it was a great deal offer. Things to bear in mind-
Battery life isn’t fantastic,1 hr or so. So invest in 2-3 extras and a charger. Look for the Wasasbi ones on Amazon.
Editing video from the Go Pro is very time consuming! Get a fast Class 10 Micro SD card and card reader to import the video to your PC or Mac. A fast multi core CPU and lots of RAM for converting the video files.
The Go Pro software is necessary to decode the video, but it doesn’t let you join clips so you’ll need another program like iMovie or Final Cut for that.

Housings and attachments wise, the Black comes with a good selection, but may want a strap on type helmet mount or the chest one which you have to buy separately.
The WiFi remote (comes with the Black) would be handy to start and stop the camera while riding.

Thanks guys.

I’m moving to Thailand in a month so the scenery’ll be good. I’m not a great rider by any means but not bad. I’ve been mtb’ing for 20 years but had a break recently due to living abroad.

My PC’s got 8 cores (hyperthreaded), 16Gb RAM, an SSD etc. Is a fast SD card necessary for the Go Pro if you’re going to take the files and put them on a PC before doing anything with them?

Thanks

http://gopro.com/product-comparison-hero3-cameras
Comparison table
The silver would be where my money would go, the black is a pro bit of kit, unless your planning on buying TB’s of storage and projecting to IMAX then the silver does everything (unless 1080 isn’t good enough for you) In terms of uploading to the web you want to be keeping the settings right for quality vs size especially if your connection isn’t blindingly fast. Vimeo will stop you at 1080 which is sensible as other people don’t want to wait 3hrs for your 5min masterpiece to buffer.

Fast SD is good, I just picked up a class 10 16gb for peanuts – find the sweet spot and get a few. It reads to the PC much faster.

I found I use the Go Pro more than I used to use the camera so I get to capture more of whats going on without worrying about weather etc.

I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 for editing and there is a month free trial with the create cloud suite so when your ready give it a go. If you want to keep your raw footage then some external storage would be sensible. I have about 800GB from 2 1/2 years on a HD version.

Come join us in http://vimeo.com/groups/stwvideos when you get sorted.

Thanks again.

I’ll have a look in the airport next week and see what difference duty free makes.

I work with PCs so have all the storage / software I need. 1080p is certainly high enough (prob too much) quality.

Where are you heading from? Duty Free looks pants for choice and price normally.

Some people have trouble with the idea that other people’s videos weren’t made specifically for their amusement I guess…

Everything from the first HD model up takes decent footage. If you can afford it then the latest and shiniest is also the best, but it also depends what you’re doing with it- what software you’re using to edit, where you upload etc. Lots of people start out with immaculate footage off the camera then pretty much ruin it in processing and uploading.

I’m The Philippines > Abu Dhabi > Dublin. Got a month in The UK before flying Heathrow > KL > Bangkok > Phuket.

I’ll use Adobe Premiere for editing. I work with PS / DW professionally and kinda know my way around video editing, but it’s certainly not my forte. I’m sure I’ll mess up a lot of the editing to begin with. From what I’ve seen, the balance between speeding it up so you look better vs keeping it looking natural is where a few STW’ers fall down. Flowers and plants seem to vibrate in the breeze instead of slowly swaying 🙂

mikewsmith – it was looking at that page that got me thinking about making my own.

You might be best to pick the country with lowest import duty and get one shipped over!

Undo works well in Premiere which is good when you just dropped the wrong carefully cut clip…

again top tips of the camera can be put down, mix it up a bit and play round 🙂 Waiting to get the cash for a proper DSLR to compliment the gopro. Will be interested to see how the 2 compare in your vids.

The mrs just went into the lbs and asked for a discount, said she’d seen one on the interweb for 50 quid less so they matched it.

I have a Hero 2 which I’m pretty pleased with. I was gonna get a 3 but read that the 2 was pretty much as good if not better than the low end 3, so there was no point.

Oh and use protune then do your own grading/sharpening. It looks better.

I have the silver and it is really good, battery life and the firmware freezing are a pain though.

Ignore the naysayers, having an hour’s film of a week’s riding holiday for example is cracking to watch no matter how good a rider you are. The quality from the camera is just superb.

A rear facing seatpost mount is a good one, if you have people riding in close proximity behind. DX are doing go pro mounts now but not sure what the quality is like.