This GoPro was a complete waste of money. I need something else.

[Sarra]

I have a GoPro Hero 7 silver.

 

The quality is garbage.

 

The audio is even worse.

 

And the absolute worst part, it splits clips into 12 minute clips, and I don't really care what or how, these are impossible to sync with a second sound source, and are an absolute NIGHTMARE in post. I've literally just wasted 3 hours of my life trying to get Resolve to let me sync the secondary sound to the video, and every time I move ANYTHING, EVERYTHING desyncs. Even when only using the onboard sound, every time the clips are connected, there's a horrible sound artifact (click, buzz, both, or even just a flat sound drop out) that I cannot seem to figure how to fix. This is work that I seriously don't want to have to waste my time fighting.

 

So, I'm done with this thing. It's going in the garbage first thing tomorrow morning. It's not even worth keeping around for B roll.

 

I need a 1080p capable camera that isn't trash tier, that can record to a single, continuous file, and can easily be windshield mounted. I know my budget is insufficient, but... I've got $250 available for this.

 

And maybe I can keep myself from chucking this thing on the ground in my driveway and running it over with my truck. >_>

[emosun]

9 minutes ago, Sarra said:

And the absolute worst part, it splits clips into 12 minute clips, and I don't really care what or how, these are impossible to sync with a second sound source, and are an absolute NIGHTMARE in post. I've literally just wasted 3 hours of my life trying to get Resolve to let me sync the secondary sound to the video, and every time I move ANYTHING, EVERYTHING desyncs. Even when only using the onboard sound, every time the clips are connected, there's a horrible sound artifact (click, buzz, both, or even just a flat sound drop out) that I cannot seem to figure how to fix. This is work that I seriously don't want to have to waste my time fighting.

so just to clarify , your davinci resolve is having a problem and you want to buy a new camera in hopes that davinci resolve will fix itself in the meantime?

[Electronics Wizardy]

13 minutes ago, Sarra said:

And the absolute worst part, it splits clips into 12 minute clips,

that seems like. limit of fat32, a lot of cameras do this.

 

13 minutes ago, Sarra said:

I've literally just wasted 3 hours of my life trying to get Resolve to let me sync the secondary sound to the video, and every time I move ANYTHING, EVERYTHING desyncs.

You can put the clips timelines, and then those timelines into your main timeline. I did this a ton when editing, works well.

 

 

[kirashi]

21 minutes ago, Sarra said:

I have a GoPro Hero 7 silver.

• The quality is garbage.
• The audio is even worse.
• And the absolute worst part, it splits clips into 12-minute clips
• these are impossible to sync with a second sound source

--SNIP'd and reformatted for easier reading--

 

I need a 1080p capable camera that

• isn't trash tier,
• can record to a single, continuous file
• can easily be windshield mounted

--SNIP'd and reformatted for easier reading--

 

 

 

 

11 minutes ago, emosun said:

so just to clarify, your davinci resolve is having a problem and you want to buy a new camera in hopes that davinci resolve will fix itself in the meantime?

 

 

 

I'm not certain what you mean by garbage quality, but hopefully you're aware that newer GoPro cameras offer the ability to use a "flat" color profile when recording. This is super handy when it comes to color-grading in post, but if you're not familiar with this process or just want an action cam that doesn't require this extra post-production step, then you might need to play with the recording settings or replace the camera with something that's easier to use.

https://havecamerawilltravel.com/gopro/gopro-photos-protune-color-mode/

 

That being say, I'm with @emosun here - I don't understand how getting a new camera will magically fix you learning how to color correct and/or sync audio with an external source. To be clear, I do not mean to insult anyone's video editing skills - hell, my own video editing skills are garbage as I mostly do photography. However, even if you replace your camera you'll still need to practice using Resolve to sync external audio.

[Sarra]

Okay, to answer something here... The straight up image quality from this is awful. Straight off the camera, there's artifacting and aliasing problems galore. I tried recording in 4k and downsampling to 1080p in post, but it just doesn't make much difference. The light level performance is atrocious, driving through the shadow of a tree, the video flickers as the camera adjusts the light level, and it's super annoying.

 

Second, yes, it's a problem in Resolve to get the sync to work, but the problem of audio and even video glitching when stitching clips together is not Resolve's problem, because it did the EXACT same thing in other editors. It might not bother other people, but it sure as hell bothers me.

 

And third, I have to sync up two separate sources for video and audio. If I had a single, continuous AV file, and the second one was broken into clips, this would be fine. But that's not the case. I have to sync up 12 minute Video clips with 30 minute audio clips, and when a clip doesn't match up, it's impossible to sync, no matter what I tried. I spent 2 hours trying to get the audio to line up again, and when I did get the audio to line up, something else on the timeline went out of sync, and I literally had to start the project over again. I have no ****ing clue why moving a file at the end of my timeline would cause a video clip an hour and 40 minutes before it to resize itself, but that breaks the entire sync AGAIN, and quite honestly, my skill isn't up to this. I want to do this as a hobby, and I've already spent a fuckton of money on this, and as of now, none of it seems to have been worth it.

 

This camera is making more work for me, and it's giving me problems that just aren't easy to solve, and wasting my time with something like this is making me want to actually give up on this and do something else entirely. I've spent 3 days recording, which cost me nearly $100 in gas, plus 12 hours of editing, this is time I could spend doing other things.

 

The bottom line is that I hate the GoPro, and quite honestly, I wish I hadn't wasted my money on it. I wish I hadn't wasted the money on the windshield mount, and if I wasn't trying to make this easier, I wouldn't have wasted my money on a 3900x to edit videos with, and I would have grabbed a 3600 instead. So yeah, I'm pretty pissed at this thing, and if everyone just wants to tell me to 'get better scrub', then fine, I'll just ditch this project and do something else with my time.

[Sarra]

I'm going to throw the gopro in a closet, and just use my old Nexus 6 for this instead. Willing to bet that the image quality will be better, I'll require way less editing, and the audio quality will be reasonably, compared to the gopro.

[GDRRiley]

You need to link the new audio track  that will make it follow the video.

Go pro will look better than your phone but yeah they look bad compared to a real camera

[Sarra]

Just now, GDRRiley said:

You need to link the new audio track  that will make it follow the video.

Go pro will look better than your phone but yeah they look bad compared to a real camera

My Nexus 6 has Optical Image Stabilization, and I can actually set the phone to record at 8Mbit bitrate. The GoPro has digital image stabilization, and records at whatever bitrate it wants, resulting in huge files. The Nexus 6 will get better audio, and it should be able to record the entire video in a single, solid file, making editing easier.

 

I think.

 

I'm going to toss the old phone up in my window tomorrow next to the GoPro and do a head to head comparison, including post, and a YT quality test.

[GDRRiley]

6 minutes ago, Sarra said:

My Nexus 6 has Optical Image Stabilization, and I can actually set the phone to record at 8Mbit bitrate. The GoPro has digital image stabilization, and records at whatever bitrate it wants, resulting in huge files. The Nexus 6 will get better audio, and it should be able to record the entire video in a single, solid file, making editing easier.

 

I think.

 

I'm going to toss the old phone up in my window tomorrow next to the GoPro and do a head to head comparison, including post, and a YT quality test.

its not whatever bitrate. its trying to keep a constant quality

if you need better audio then I believe the go pro has a mic in

[Sarra]

Just now, GDRRiley said:

its not whatever bitrate. its trying to keep a constant quality

if you need better audio then I believe the go pro has a mic in

The Black edition has Mic In and swap-able batteries, the Silver edition has neither. I either have to get a Black edition, and use a USB mic, or use an external recording source.

 

And yes, it's constant bitrate, but it's also much higher than I actually need. I only can use 8Mbps, but the source files I'm getting are 29Mbps.

[GDRRiley]

1 hour ago, Sarra said:

And yes, it's constant bitrate, but it's also much higher than I actually need. I only can use 8Mbps, but the source files I'm getting are 29Mbps.

why do you only need 8mps? are you trying to base that off youtube?

 

[Sarra]

11 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

why do you only need 8mps? are you trying to base that off youtube?

 

Well, that's the bitrate that youtube uses for 1080p video. I could easily set it higher in my phone's camera app, and I actually will be, since it doesn't hurt to have a higher quality source, but 29Mbps is more than I need for the source files. >_<

[GDRRiley]

1 hour ago, Sarra said:

Well, that's the bitrate that youtube uses for 1080p video. I could easily set it higher in my phone's camera app, and I actually will be, since it doesn't hurt to have a higher quality source, but 29Mbps is more than I need for the source files. >_<

it really isn't you want to give youtube 2-4x the final bitrate as they transcode it 10 times

[Sarra]

9 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

it really isn't you want to give youtube 2-4x the final bitrate as they transcode it 10 times

Yeah, I've been doing searches, and the most common recommendation I've seen is for h.264 set to a 15Mbps bitrate for uploads. I transcoded a project using handbrake with recommended settings, and a 2 hour 15 minute video is 13GB, vs 100GB for a project completed at 2 hours 10 minutes with an 80Mbps bitrate. Source files are 90Mbps on average, and take up a lot of space. If I could cut my source video files from 90Mbps down to 45Mbps (which my phone will actually allow me to select), then I end up having to invest less over time in storage, and might actually allow me to go for redundant storage faster.