Just got a GoPro camera, but I’m off on a riding holiday at the weekend so don’t have a lot of time to experiment with settings before I go. Not going to be using the helmet mount as I’ll be wearing a borrowed full face for a few days, but I did buy the chest mount and the bike mount. Have read the manual for their recommended settings for different mounts but wondered what the stw masses found best.
Quite like the idea of 720 60fps, but they recommend 960 for the chest mount. Got a few 16gb cards so storage space isn’t a problem.
Also what is it like as a stills camera? I have the lcd back pack but will I still need my usual camera to get decent photo’s.
Sorry if this subject has been done to death before.
Steven.

I tend to use mine in 1080 when it’s in the chest mount, because it has a narrower field of vision (127 rather than 170 degrees) which means that my arms don’t look quite as odd as they do with the full fish-eye effect. FOV still plenty wide enough for capturing the trail though.

Oh, also, to get the best view when using the chest mount, someone recommended to me that you put the camera in upside down so you can tilt it forward a little for the best view, and record in UPd mode so you don’t have to flip the footage yourself afterwards.

Haven’t used it much for stills, other than making a few timelapse things for which it works quite well – i would suspect that if you like fish-eye photograpy, it’ll work pretty well!

I use it on my chest mount but it has to go upside down.
I have it on full HD setting for this. I think it looks fine.
The camera needs to point upwards at around 45 degrees from the chest plate.
In the settings you have to set it to upside down mode. (UPd)
My favourite mount is on the head tube though using the roll bar mount.
It makes a cracking angle but retains good detail of the trail which you miss out on with the chest mount.

[img]http://www.rotorburn.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=197308&d=1301254972[/img]

I’ve only posted one vid and its a bit lame cause I’m following my GF but to get an idea of what thee viewing angle looks like from the head tube try this:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeJEPJUvub0&feature=channel_video_title[/video]

I am loving that view. Did you do any editing or was it that steady. I thought it would have looked a lot more bumpy attached to the bike. What setting was this recorded in.

Cheers

Cheers mate.
No fancy software. I use Windows Live Movie maker for editing.
I recorded this in the R4 setting. I have started playing with the R3 setting recently.

i got the 960 hd also had the standard one before and i would say to get it flipped upside down to film.

Hugor, you’ve got the wrong setting for the software you’re using. It should come out in 16:9 widescreen, not 4:3 as you have it. Which is why it’s all squashed.

I don’t use Live Movie, but in Premiere when you start the project you have to set the right format (i.e. HD). Or it could be when you save/publish the movie you haven’t selected an HD format.

Any photos of this on the bike?

I don’t use Live Movie, but in Premiere when you start the project you have to set the right format

Thanks for that I’ll check it out.
I did try premier but got lost right from the outset. It seems a way more than I want. Do you have any other suggestions for user friendly software?

Any photos of this on the bike?

There are pics above of the setup on the bike. Do they not appear for you?

imo most of the time you want a feeling of speed with a chest/bike mount, so you’re probably not going to use the half-speed option of shooting at 60fps very often. if you’re also using it on a pole or whatever for off-bike shooting of other people however, that’s when it comes into its own.

having said that, if you shoot at 1080p, that’s a narrower angle, i.e. more “zoomed”, so you’ll get less of the bike/your arms in. 720p is wider. 960p is the same wide angle but at 4:3 rather than 16:9, and so probably less desirable aesthetically for most people. also won’t mix well with 16:9 footage shot on a dslr or whatever.

the other consideration is that 720p is a lot less painful to edit with, if your computer is slightly older. it’s also less detailed but depends what you want to do with it, and tbh while a gopro is great quality for what it is, it probably doesn’t benefit hugely from the extra detail of 1080p when bombing through a dark forest.

I almost always use mine at 720p, 60fps.

I did try premier but got lost right from the outset. It seems a way more than I want. Do you have any other suggestions for user friendly software?

I’m sure Movie maker will do fine. Do some googling around HD movies and I’m sure you’ll find the settings.

imo most of the time you want a feeling of speed with a chest/bike mount, so you’re probably not going to use the half-speed option of shooting at 60fps very often.

I’m no expert on this but surely 60 fps will give you better video quality than 30 fps particularly if your recording fast footage.
Is this correct?
I would imagine most of us playing with this gadget are recording the downhill singletrack sections of trail centres.
The forest road climbs are pretty dull to look at at any resolution.

It gives you more flexibility in editing but not necessarily any benefit at playback – for example Youtube plays back at 24fps.

it’s capable of shooting 60fps at 720p, the other 30fps 720p setting is doing the same, just saving every second frame (basically) – the video will most likely be edited and exported at 30fps anyway.

the only advantage is that you can then slow down that 60fps to 30 without any visible transition between frames (in fact if you’re editing at 25fps or 24, you can slow it more than half speed with no problems, and those 60fps help if you want to slow it further and blend frames with twixtor or whatever..)

Any photos of this on the bike?

[img]http://www.rotorburn.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=203527&d=1308083794[/img]

hah, eep! lucky they’re sturdy little buggers.

i’m impressed you’ve got it so steady with zip ties, good work. worth it for the wheel in shot. you could maybe take it from the bars down.. then it would turn with them though of course.

wonder if you can do shock-mounted really low down..

Hugor, you have inspired me!

I’ve been using it from that spot for about 30 rides now and the middle link finally failed the other day due to fatigue.
It would be better to have a shorter lever but the cables hit the case and cause too much noise.
The cable ties are those thick bastards you get from Halfords – took a lot of faff but there’s very little play between the bracket and the bike. There’s a more play in the joins and brackets.
You probably could mount it onto the forks but I think the vibration would be a problem.
Backwards on the seatpost is a good option that I’ve seen but I’ve not tried it myself yet.

I really like the chest mount but as above, upside down and 45 degrees out. You might have to get a firmware update to make this work, I did.

I’ve noticed that the chest mount does shake around a lot over properly rocky ground.
[video]http://www.vimeo.com/25004252[/video]

Oh, and that little extension dibber you get with the bar/frame mount? Mine broke within two weeks of commuting on a cyclocross bike, not impressed.

And finally, VideoPad works very nicely I find but be careful, installing it can drop a whole load of crap onto your PC from the same manufacturers.