Avid Newscutter/GoPro Question

[NoJobTog]

I recently picked up a gopro, it's the HD960. It shoots wvga 60fps, and also shoots 720p 60 fps, and 720 30 fps. I shot a 30 sec clip today and in the wvga 60fps mode. I imported and the video was letter boxed, and the image looked to be horizontally stretched. I tried to resize it to eliminate the letterbox, but couldn't get the video to look quite right.
Is anyone using the the GOPRO in an SD 30fps/Avid environment?

 

[eb]

You say you are working in a Standard Def project settings. Describe what editing system you are working in - what the project settings are.

 

[NoJobTog]

We edit on Avid Newscutter, it's a fairly old version probably 8+ years or so. As far as the project settings go, is there anything in particular I should look for?

 

[Land Rover]

I've got a Newscutter machine I used to test a GoPro camera. I don't think you're going to have much luck resizing the video. It usually looks pretty bad in Avid when I try to resize something. If it looks squeezed try changing your viewing windows from 4:3 to 16:9 and see it it looks better. As far as I know the GoPro only shoots 16:9 so if you're working in a 4:3 project you're going to have to resize it. You might try shooting it in HD then resizing that, export an SD quicktime and then import that into your 4:3 project. We shoot SD here but everything is in 16:9 so we don't have to worry about mixing two frame sizes. All this is of course assuming that you're editing a SD 4:3 project.

 

[zac love]

I haven't had much Avid time lately, so my best suggestion would be MPEG Stream Clip. If you'd doing SD, I'd suggest transcoding your Go Pro video to the same format you're editing in (or as close as possible.)

(MPEG Streamclip is such a good free media converter, that I once even had someone from Apple tech support tell me to use it since FCS didn't have any method of bringing in video off a DVD.)

As far as I know the GoPro only shoots 16:9 so if you're working in a 4:3 project you're going to have to resize it.

When it shoots in 720x960 it is 4:3. Everything else is 16:9
* 960p = 1280×960 pixels (4:3), 30 fps, 12 Mbit/s data rate
* 720p = 1280×720 pixels (16:9), 30 fps, 8 Mbit/s data rate
* WVGA = 848×480 pixels (16:9), 60 fps, 8 Mbit/s data rate

The HD Hero shoots in additional 2 modes over the 960.
* 1080p = 1920×1080 pixels (16:9), 30 fps, 15 Mbit/s data rate
* 720p = 1280×720 pixels (16:9), 60 fps, 15 Mbit/s data rate

I think when it takes still images it does it in a 4:3 aspect ratio. I did some time lapse with my HD Hero & then brought it into Compressor & used a custom ProRes Codec to make it more FCP friendly. But again, not too helpful if you're using an older Avid system.

 

[Land Rover]

I got some odd results when trying to transcode so I never did quite figure that out but then again our Avid system has always been odd. I only had part of a day to play with the GoPro but ended up not likeing it because it was too much of a wide angle.

We've got MPEG Streamclip as well and it does a pretty good job.

 

[NoJobTog]

One of the problems I am running into is not having enough time to mess with it. I've downloaded MPEG Stream Clip, but now I have to go through out IT person to get it installed on one of our computers.
As far as the wide angle goes, to me it looks more like a fish eye, then it is a super wide angle. I am going to try to play around with it more today, and I will post my results.

 

[Land Rover]

As far as the wide angle goes, to me it looks more like a fish eye, then it is a super wide angle. I am going to try to play around with it more today, and I will post my results.

At 170 degrees it was just too much for me and wouldn't cut into my regular video the way I wanted it to. I'm going to try the Contour and see how it does. Its set at 135 degrees.

 

[zac love]

As far as the wide angle goes, to me it looks more like a fish eye, then it is a super wide angle. I am going to try to play around with it more today, and I will post my results.

It is crazy at how wide it is. You'll definately see the "fish eye"-ness of the lens if you do any movement. Pretty much think that everything in front of the camera is being recorded.

I was messing around with it on a road trip & put it in the back window of my car & pointed it forward. Set it to do some time lapse as we were driving. When I go back, I was amazed that about 50% of the screen was the ceiling of the car. The driver & passenger seats were taking about 25% of the frame.

Think about that, a wide two shot from about 3-4 feet away. Most ENG lenses that is about the minimum focusing distance.

I read somewhere that when shooting with a Go Pro, get it close to your subject. Then get it even closer.