Some HD HERO3 Black photos and videos!

[sparkfly88]

My friend and I bought some HERO cameras, and we have been testing em out.

I took some photos out of a video or two, and I'm posting them.

Video links will be up shortly

[WMarshy]

Cool, cant wait. I just acquired one as well for Fathers Day. My lap top I have is junk and wont play the files because it cannot process the file size but I will see if I can upload them to youtube anyways and then try to post them. I did hook it to my 60" TV and watched them, felt like I was on the bike, just missing the wind effects.

[sparkfly88]

yeah, a laptop that supports blu-ray or HDMI output will usually be able to handle the huge videos this thing takes.

I'm loading a highway video, and a video of the bike in less than ideal conditions...mud, flooded grass, and shell....that was fun to ride on

[sparkfly88]

Riding on a flooded property

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKNFX...zOL6egmr2cHQOR

Riding on the highway

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ensk2...zOL6egmr2cHQOR

[3Phase]

Those were fun videos! Just remember those things are also called "petard cams."

It's kind of neat how the camera moves though, or doesn't move. It makes it look like you're being stalked by a drone or something!

[sparkfly88]

Petard cam?

[3Phase]

Yes -- Petard Cam!

Petard cam?

It's a line from a tragedy, "Hoist with his own petard."

People sometimes make videos when they really shouldn't and it's spawned the term, "petard cam." For example, that guy in the video licking a stack of taco shells because... because... I have no clue why but it probably seemed like a good idea at the time!

Hamlet Act 3, scene 4, 202–209

"Hoist with his own petard" literally means "blown up with his own mine." More generally, a "petard" is a hat-shaped device which can be be charged with gunpowder."

[jjz28]

I have a xtc200 that I bought from walmartfor $89. It works really well. I know that if you use the memory card directly in your computer, the files (videos) load in a couple of seconds. If I use the usb and download from the camera, it takes forever. When I loaded a video to youtube it was all grainy, do you know why? It looks awesome on my computer but on you tube looks like crap.

[3Phase]

I have a xtc200 that I bought from walmartfor $89. It works really well. I know that if you use the memory card directly in your computer, the files (videos) load in a couple of seconds. If I use the usb and download from the camera, it takes forever. When I loaded a video to youtube it was all grainy, do you know why? It looks awesome on my computer but on you tube looks like crap.

Jeff,

Your computer treats the memory card as a flash drive so it's reasonably fast. It treats the camera as, erm, a camera and goes through the camera to read the memory card. Did you install any software that came with the camera?

Do you use any video editing software or just upload the files to YouTube "as-is" and let YouTube gnaw on them for a while? I don't mean to be flippant but rendering problems depend on lot of things!

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hd+video+youtube+bad+rendering

[jjz28]

The camera didn't come with software. I've been trying to find an editing program that is free so I can cut the video and only put the good parts in. What is a good free editing program? I have no clue how to edit stuff either. I can build a computer but don't know how to use them. Only to surf the net or play a game, that is the extent of my computing.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Jeff,

What version of Windows are you running?? IIRC Windows started providing a simple video editting program called Windows Movie Maker since Win. Xp, or at least since Vista, as well as Win7. Many/most of the Freeware / opensource programs are Linux based! I haven't used any of the other Windows programs like Avidemux, Blender, Virtualdub.

I've been doing video editting for many years but I got a basic commercial program with my video capture video card and have stayed with it over the years,(Ulead VideoStudio) upgrading from version 4 to version 10....but the company has since sold/got bought by Corel!

Video consumes a lot of data bandwidth.....and depending on the format can be rediculous in it's data amount. That's why it would be best for you to perform the editting and conversion first before trying to upload to Youtube.
It's been a while since I tried to upload any video to my youtube account so I can't remember what Youtube stated was their perferred format and video size and such.

T.C.

[3Phase]

The camera didn't come with software.

That's fine, it means that your computer can talk to your camera without special software drivers, or application software that fires up every time you get anywhere near it with your camera. A CD with an simple editor/organizer tossed in would have been nice though.




Sparkfly88, this should also work for editing your GoPro Hero videos. I know, you didn't ask....

Alrighty then! Google says the XTC 200 and Hero cameras create MP4 files with H264 video compression and AAC audio. That's loosely Apple... ish, so QuickTime Pro might work but it's not free.
QuickTime Pro

If QuickTime Pro doesn't like your cameras' particular video file (everyone seems to have their own 'flavor' of flexible industry standards) it'll holler for its mama with error messages or make a brand new file with mangled audio and video.

You can try the free Windows Movie Maker but you'll have to convert the MP4 to WMV or AVI, and the same if not more caveats that applied to Apple's QuickTime will also apply to (whomever's) file conversion utility and Microsoft's Movie Maker.
Windows Movie Maker

"The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from!"


Here's VideoPad, a free trialware editor:-
VideoPad Video Editor

After installing VideoPad you can downgrade it to the free version. The free version doesn't have a commercial video license and only saves files in AVI, ASF, WMV, and DVD format.

The licensed version can save/convert to a variety of YouTube and other A/V formats but you'll most likely be working with the free version so you'll be working with AVI files. Keep in mind that an AVI video can be huge and an HD MP4 video converted to AVI can be spectacularly humongous.


Here's a free MP4 to AVI converter. This utility may work for your cameras' files:-
MP4Cam2AVI Easy Converter

A sometimes handy and sometimes vexing video pre and post processor that can clean, resize, change frame rates, bitrates, codes, codecs, massage, tweak, deshake and do other miraculous things to your video is VirtualDub. VirtualDub is not an editor:-
VirtualDub v1.9.11 (stable)



And there are more; many, many, many more. Some are only useful for one particular feature that you need and some are just so totally cool that even if you never actually use them you keep them. Eventually you'll wind up with a collection that resembles a Swiss Army Knife, including those weird accessories that you don't know/remember what they're supposed to do or why you have them in the first place.

Hopefully, when you finish editing your video and upload it to YouTube it'll render correctly instead of making a hash out of it!

[jjz28]

Thanks a lot 3phase. I have windows 7 and I did download a free one a while back but couldn't figure it out, it is videopad video editor. I probably need to learn to use it cause it probably works good.

[Courtney]

Sj1000

Has anyone tried the SJ1000? Price is very good, and the there are some youtube vids of it that look amazing.

[trbig]

I've got the Hero 2, but my son has this same camera as you do. Mine has that fish-eye view really bad from the lense. I see yours has it also, though not as severe. Member Larrym on here is amazing with video programs, editting, removing that fish-eye, and fixing over-all any problems like this. He may shoot me... but I throw his name in the ring as the go-to guy to help with this. He's even made me "Video editting for dummies" videos... only I'm too computer illiterate and my Windows XP is getting too old.