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zkeys
04-29-2014, 11:48 AM
All,

Looking for some feedback on my GoPro filming and/or editing. My videos always seem to be somewhat choppy, and hard to watch. I try to be very still when I am filming, and not make any fast motions while I film. But things do not seem to be getting better.

Here is a recent video from an ATV trip to Kentucky. I find it very difficult to watch. The GoPro was mounted on my helmet, and video is very wavy, pixelated, and blurry at times. The terrain we are on is very bumpy.

GoPro Hero 3 White. 1080p X 30fps setting. Edited with Windows Live Movie Maker and saved on a custom setting. 1920X1080. Bit Rate 8000, 30fps.

Let me know if you have any additional tips or tricks.

Thanks,

Zack


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX9cP2nq15o

Sombeech
04-29-2014, 06:15 PM
Glad to give advice.

I've learned to stop wearing the camera on my helmet years ago, the footage is rarely stable. The Chesty harness adds some great stability to your footage, while giving you the freedom to turn your head about and look around.

I'm also a huge fan of multiple angles to mix it up a bit. I love to clamp or mount to the frame or body of the object. When you have a solid unmoving object in the frame, it adds so much stability to the footage, and also gives a better concept of sizing and speed.

From my recent Moab trip: http://www.bogley.com/forum/showthread.php?71765-Moab-RZR-Weekend

This video came from 12 hours of footage and 4 different GoPro cameras, but I tried very hard to cut it down to the 3 minute range because I know the audience is mostly watching at work or on their mobile devices, and any longer, your view rate starts to decrease heavily. Talk about cutting a lot of great footage out of the final draft, but it just has to be done in order to make a decent final product.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTwRSVMvL68

I also like to bump the bitrate up just a bit, maybe around 15000.

I like to keep each of my "segments" averaging 15 seconds. This can be tricky but i really does make the footage more quick, intense, interesting..... less is more. When you show them the "whole scene", they get the whole picture of what's going on there. You want to give them less, which in turn gives the illusion that maybe it was a little more fast paced. It sounds weird but if you watch a lot of the popular clips and compilations, it's really fast paced, 2 second clips of high action sequences. But if you watched the whole 1 minute scene all the way through, you'd probably think, oh I guess it wasn't as cool as I originally thought.

This clamp is great because it's very quick to release and get a new point of view, but for ATV you might get a little too much vibration

http://cbcdn1.gp-static.com/uploads/product_photo/image/80403/pdp_image_Jaws_1.jpg

But overall for the majority of your footage on an ATV, I would suggest the Chesty mount.

Good luck!

zkeys
04-29-2014, 07:03 PM
Good advice. I will give the chesty a try.

I am experimenting with how I upload to youtube as well. I had it uploading directly from the Movie Maker program. I am going to try to save the video, then upload the video file the normal way.

Thanks,

Zack

Sombeech
04-30-2014, 06:23 AM
Good advice. I will give the chesty a try.

I am experimenting with how I upload to youtube as well. I had it uploading directly from the Movie Maker program. I am going to try to save the video, then upload the video file the normal way.

Thanks,

Zack

The main reason I save first then upload, is depending on your computer setup, sometimes the saving process can crash if it's taking too much memory/RAM, or if you've got other things going on at the time. I just like to get that step done, then set the upload in motion and walk away.

louckser87
04-30-2014, 08:20 AM
Sombeech hit the nail on the head. My rules and advice for editing footage are very similar to his.

Make sure you change up the angles (viewers get VERY easily bored watching the same angle for more than 10-15 seconds).
Add some music and make sure the footage is following the mood of the tune. If there's a big bass drop in the song for example, that is when you want to put the most exciting part of your video so that viewers get hit with the awesomeness both visually and aurally.

Also, if you're using Movie Maker, I'd recommend using the GoPro Studio software.

And I just wanted to add, I actually love mounting the camera to my helmet. I get some pretty awesome shots when I go downhill mountain biking and skiing. Was your helmet strap actually tight? There was quite a bit of movement..

Other suggestions include using the rollbar mount and mounting it to something tubular on your ATV. Depending on the surface of your ATV, you could also use the suction cup mount. All of those mounts will give you a few different angles to play around with when you go to edit your footage.