UKC

I am looking at buying a GoPro 3. Mostly for skiing but maybe a bit of climbing and mountain biking. I was wondering if anyone has used the new model? I was thinking about getting the basic model, the white. Has anyone used this model? Is it any good or should I fork out another £100 and get the black? Any help would be much appreciated!

Jim

In reply to jimhall:

Taken with a GoPro 3 Black Edition on Christmas Eve

http://www.flickr.com/photos/83246699@N00/8305433584/in/set-721576323369522...

In reply to jimhall: I'm considering one too for running / cycling / climbing. Any advice appreciated. Good to see you can also take some really good stills with them and not just sports footage.

In reply to jimhall: Looks an amazing picture. Has anyone got any footage taken on the white edition? I want to avoid spending all that money on the black if the white is good enough.

In reply to jimhall: From what I understand, the sensor in the HD Hero and the White HERO 3 are the same, and the sensor in the HD Hero 2 and the Silver Hero 3 are the same. So you should be able to just look up some footage from the older GoPro cameras on Youtube / Flickr for a comparison. The black model is the only one which has the latest and best lens/sensor etc I believe.

In reply to jimhall: http://gopro.com/hd-hero3-cameras

In reply to jimhall: I got the silver for christmas and used it out skiing for the first time today, the weather was pretty crap but until the lens was completely coated in ice it worked really well, hopefully the conditions will be better tomorrow and I can see what it can really do.

In reply to jimhall: The white is good enough but the black is massively better in terms of quality, frames per second and higher resolution. The white seems to be like the gopro 2 in terms of quality but smaller and wifi built in. Tho once the gopro wifi app is working on your smartphone you might as well just sell the remote.

In reply to jimhall:

I've had the HD Hero, Hero2 and now got the Hero3-Black.

I would say for the Hero3 Black hands down. Mainly for 1080p at 60fps and the low light performance.

The smartphone app is also very useful for setting it up rather than fighting with the on-camera menu system.

(Or you could buy my Hero2.....)

In reply to jimhall:

From a kayaking site but everything is relevnt here

http://www.unsponsored.co.uk/press/?p=4480

the guy definately knows his stuff as well

BLACK is the way forward. There are many reviews on them but the BLACK is the only one if you are looking to upgrade from GP2

Here is out first flight with ours


vimeo.com/55633647

If anyone want more details on Video out adaptors ect give me a shout

Dave

In reply to ChrisJD:
>

Chris, how are you finding the editing of this footage? I've been putting off getting a GoPro as my 5yo Macbook is slowly dying and even regular video editing is too slow. I heard the GoPro footage was pretty heavy to process.

Aye Up Damo.. with a MBP of that age you will need to give it a spring clean and up the RAM or reduce the quality you are recoding at. 1080 @ 24fps may help and certainly dont turn on ProRes!

Dave

In reply to jimhall:
I got a contour Roam 2 for crimbo, footage seems pretty good, records in 1080p at 30fps or 720 at 60 fps has a better shape and is waterproof without a case, also very very easy to operate. All I had to do was plug in a usb cable and the footage is drag and drop like a normal camera. As a added bonus it's the same memory card as my phone so I can view the footage on there whilst out 'in the field' haha

In reply to Damo:

Yep, the files are big and editing & rendering 1080p:50fps (PAL) or 2.k footage (which looks pretty cool on a big screen) will kill slower/older machines.

For example, 10.5 mins of rendered finished MP4 1080P:50 at c. 32MBps gives a file >2GB

And Windows Media Player can't yet deal with 2.7K footage, VLC can.

I got a good 64 bit Win7 PC with 32GB of RAM built up in the summer aimed at fast rendering/precessing RAW files in LR and for video editing/rendering, so thankfully I'm not noticing much difference between Hero2 and Hero3 processing - even at 2.7k Protune .... the water cooler fans just kick in as the hex core processor chunks away.

If anyone is interested in optimising a new PC machine for video, I used suggestions from these guys to get the right balance of price/speed (and then got SCAN.co.uk to build it):

http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Videoguys+DIY9+Sneak+Peek+Its+Time+for+San...

In reply to ChrisJD:

Cheezus!

I need a new computer...

In reply to Damo:

or

just be patient with what you have

that said

anyone editing video on a 5 year old machine of any kind is making things difficult for themselves

it's the "hidden cost" of video cameras. the cameras themselves are the cheap part

In reply to ChrisJD: Based on what you have written, would it be fair to say the difference between Go Pro 2 and 3 is limited to the ability of your computer's ability to render those files? i.e. there's no point buying
GP3 if you cannot process what it produces?

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

I'm talking about at the editing stage - rendering the edits clips into the final video. You'll need computer power: essentially fast processing chip speed (quad/hex cores), RAM) else it will take forever, or your machine may just fall over and give up.

Most PC should be able to playback the final videos or original clips: some may not and will stall or playback will be choppy. That will also depend on the bitrate & compression of the final video or clips.


Only get the GP3 if you can actually (easily) edit the bigger files.

In reply to jimhall: Slight hijack but does anyone know any shops in the south west region (Bristol-Exeter) that would have gopro 3 blacks in stock? or any ideas of places i could phone to see if they had them?

In reply to jimhall:
its all about the silver edition lads! All my vids are done with that https://vimeo.com/user12338475/videos

In reply to jimhall:
I have the silver, it's awesome for everything except super slow motion, but I think that the computer you use to edit it and the software both count towards the final footage.

In reply to ChrisJD:
Hi Chris
Does the micro card make a difference? In your estimation what would be the min storage and class rating be for a Hero 3 silver edition? Thanks

In reply to sean1:

For the Black, they say Class 10. Not sure about the Silver.

Was thinking that having the Micro was going to be a pain, but just plug the camera in (instead of using USB-3 card reader like I do with SD) and file transfer speed seems OK.

Got a Sandisk 32GB Class 10, 30MB/s for £23 on Amazon.