Check out the new GOPROCAMERA

GoPro’s HD Surf HERO is the world’s only 1080p HD on-board video and still photo camera. Professional quality 1080p / 960p / 720p HD resolutions record at 30 and 60 frames per second (60 fps in 720p). Easily mounts to any surfboard in seconds. So light, even top pros claim they don’t notice the camera on their boards.

 

The HD Surf HERO can also shoot 5MP photos automatically every 2 seconds while you surf. With the simple press of the shutter button on the paddle out you can capture photos during your entire surf. Other photo modes include 5 / 10 / 30 / and 60 second time lapse as well as single shot, triple shot, and self timer modes.

 

The batteries last for over 2.5 hours of HD video or automatic photo taking, so you can document your entire surf with a single push of the shutter button on the paddle out.

 

The included adhesive base mounts in seconds and is proven in heavy surf from Hawaii to Tahiti, Southern Mexico to Northern California. Or you can install an FCS™ fin plug into the deck of your board and then use our patent pending camera mounting plug to allen key your HD Surf HERO into the FCS™ plug.

 

Lighten your load on your next trip and use the HD Surf HERO for your non-surf related photos and videos, too. Optional accessories make it easy to mount the camera on your wrist, bike, scooter, jet ski or helmet. Tow surfing? A chest harness is available for that, too.

 

Waterproof to 180’ / 60m and protected from rocks and other hazards thanks to its removable polycarbonate housing. Replacement housings and lens kits are available, making repairs or refurbishing your HD HERO camera affordable and convenient. It’s a GoPro…go for it.™

 

 

What’s Included:

• 1 HD HERO Camera (5 megapixel)
• 1 Rechargeable 1100 mAh Lithium-Ion Battery
• 1 Waterproof Quick-Release Housing (180’/60 m)
• 1 3M™ Adhesive Mounting Base
• 1 FCS™ Plug-Compatible Mount
• 1 Quick-Release Buckle
• 1 Leash
• 1 USB Cable
• 1 Component Video (HDTV) Cable
• 1 Composite Video + Audio Out Cable
• Warranty: One Year

 

Tech Specs:

 

Camera Optics

• Lens Type: Fixed Focus (2ft/.6m – ∞), glass
• Aperture: f/2.8 (high performance in low-light situations)
• Angle of View: 170º ultra wide angle in WVGA, 720p, or 960p mode
• Angle of View: 127º wide angle in 1080p mode

 

Video

• HD Video Resolution Modes: (subject to change, pending final firmware release)
  
  • 1080p = 1920x1080 pixels (16:9), 30 fps, 15 Mbit/s data rate
  • 960p = 1280x960 pixels (4:3), 30 fps, 12 Mbit/s data rate
  • 720p = 1280x720 pixels (16:9), 60 fps, 15 Mbit/s data rate
  • 720p = 1280x720 pixels (16:9), 30 fps, 8 Mbit/s data rate
  • WVGA = 848x480 pixels (16:9), 60 fps, 8 Mbit/s data rate
• Sensor Type: 1/2.5″ HD CMOS, 2.2µm-sized pixels
• Light Sensitivity: Super low-light sensitivity (>1.4 V/lux-sec)
• Video Format: H.264 compression, saved as Windows- & Mac-compatible MPEG4 (.mp4) file
• Exposure Control: Auto with user selectable center weighted average and spot metering settings
• White Balance: Auto

 

Audio

• Microphone: Built-in, mono with AGC (automatic gain control)
• Audio Format: 48 kHz, AAC audio compression

 

Photo

• Resolution: 5 megapixel
• Capture Modes: Single shot, photo every 2, 5, 10, 30 or 60 secs.; 3 photo burst; self-timer

 

Storage

• Memory: SD card, up to 32GB capacity (SDHC)
• Average recording times (using 32GB SD card):
  • 1080p (30 fps): 4h 21m
  • 960p (30 fps): 5h 26m
  • 720p (60 fps): 4h 21
  • 720p (30 fps): 8h 09m
  • WVGA (60 fps): 8h 09m

 

Camera Connectors & Cables

• PC Connection: USB 2.0 (data connection and battery charging)
• HDTV Out: HD NTSC & PAL (component cable incl.)
• Audio Out: Combo 2.5mm jack with stereo audio and composite video out
• PC Compatibility: Windows® XP (Service Pack 2 or later) or Vista; Mac OS® X 10.4.11 and later

 

Power & Battery

• Battery Type: Rechargeable 1100 mAh lithium-ion
• Battery Life: Approx. 2.5 hrs
• Charging: via USB to computer or optional power adapter
• Charge Time: 80% capacity after 1 hour with optional power adapter; or 2 hours with a computer’s USB port

 

Waterproof Camera Housing

• Depth Rating: Up to 180 feet / 60 meters
• Construction: Polycarbonate and stainless steel
• Hardware: Stainless steel

 

Size & Weight

• Dimensions (H x W x D): 1.6” x 2.4” x 1.2” (42mm x 60mm x 30mm)
• Weight: 3.3oz (94g) incl. battery, 5.9oz (167g) incl. housing

 

Optional Accessories

• Additional Rechargable 1100 mAh Lithium-Ion Battery (not yet available for pre-order)
• Full Line of Mounting Accessories

 

Optional Expansion Bakpacs™

 

An innovative expansion port on the back of the camera, the HERO Bus™ accepts optional Expansion Bakpacs to expand the functionality of HD HERO cameras:

• LCD Bakpac for on-camera preview and playback (not yet available for pre-order)
• Endurance Battery Bakpac for double battery life (not yet available for pre-order)
• More Bakpacs and expansion devices coming soon

Adobe CS4 Premeir and M2Ts AVCHD video editing.

Based on a chart that Adobe has published, you can import AVCHD video, but you can not export it in the original format.  I have found that youtube will allow you to upload your raw m2ts files directly.  However, if you want to edit the video, you will need to export it to another format.  I am currently searching for a way to do simple Splice and Slice in the native format.

I have found a simple program to splice the video.  It is very fast and will playback fine on windows 7.  However, when you upload the video to youtube, it doubles the size of the video and playback is in slow motion. It is as if the frame rate doubled.

AVCHD (.m2ts, .mts)

Import only

Supported file formats in Premiere Pro CS4

I have also researched Sony Vegas Pro and have found the same problem.

Supported File Formats

Opens: AA3, AAF, AIF, ASF, AU, AVI, BMP, BWF, CDA, DIG, DLX, DPX, DV, EXR, FLAC, GIF, HDP, IVC, JPG, M2T, M2TS, MOV, Sony MXF, MP3, MP4, M4A, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video, MTS, OGG, OMA, PCA, PNG, PSD, QT, R3D, SFA, SND, SWF*, TIFF, TGA, VOX, W64, WAV, WDP, WMA, WMV

Saves: AA3, AC3, AIF, ATRAC, AVC, AVI, DPX, EXR, FLAC, HDP, MOV, MP3, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video, MP4, M2T, Sony MXF, OGG, PCA, RM, W64, WAV, WMA, WMV

I have a Panasonic HD video camera, which records video in AVCHD m2ts video files.  I have been looking for software that will allow me to edit the video, save it in the raw format without quality degradation.  As of today, I found a solution that looks promising.  I have installed UBUNTU (Linux) on my laptop, and then installed Kdenlive.  I was able to add a clip to the timeline, cropped it and then rendered it to a mt2s file.

I have found other solutions with windows, but I didn’t want to shell out the big bucks just to edit some of my home videos.  Programs that I have found were Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, Pinicale.  Windows 7 has a built in video player for AVCHD and with Windows live movie maker (downloaded free from Microsoft), it was able to edit video.

With Youtube becoming a big hit with video, we have seen support for AVCHD video.  Just upload your raw video to Youtube for everyone to enjoy.  This is great if you don’t mind the limitation of 10 minutes worth of video.

One of the many things that I have noticed with shooting video in HD, is that the files are saved every time you pause recording.  When you start again, it creates a new file.  I have found myself looking for a program just to join several clips together into one larger clip.  I have one that works and plays back well with windows 7, but when I upload the larger clip to youtube, I find that my 5 minute clip turned into 10 minutes.  Playback is now in slow motion off of Youtube.  I am sure this is a rendering problem with youtube, but none the less, this created a new problem, and made the solution un-usable.

• Ubuntu
• Kdenlive
• VLC

Note that Cinelerra 4.1, Kdenlive and OpenShot all natively edit AVCHD on Linux.

Vacation in BWI : Video

Footage was taken with a Panasonic HDC SD1 video camera.  Using windows 7, and live movie maker, I was able to publish this video onto youtube.  It first saved it as a WMI video, and then it uploaded it to youtube.  This seems to be the fastest way for me to publish video in HD to youtube.  I have another option, and that is to upload the file directly to youtube, which may provide a better video resolution.

I have installed the 64 bit version of Windows 7 on my Dell XPS computer.  I must say, at first I thought this was just a watered down version of Vista.  However, after installing the RC software, I started to dive down into the new features of the O.S. 

Some of the big impressive improvements include Very fast downloads from FTP sites.  At first I thought this was an Explorer 8 update that resolved this problem.  So I decided to install Google’s web browser, Chrome.  It to was much faster in downloading files from FTP sites. 

With windows Vista Ultimate, I was able to download adobe reader in about 5 minutes.  With Windows 7 RC, I was able to download the program in 35 seconds.  WOW, thats a major speed improvement.  Even though this was great for adobe, I thought I should try other websites.  Sure enough, Mixcraft, webcam max, ISO reader, and Panasonics HDWRITER all downloaded at about 5 times faster then normal.  My average download speed went from 800Kbs to 6.7Mbs.

The install went almost the same as Vista.  Drivers for my hardware automatically installed.  I did get a notification that I didn’t have a sound card installed.  I then realized that I had removed my Creative sound blaster card.  I shutdown the workstation (much faster), and installed the Sound Blaster card CT4810.  The computer recognized it, but the drivers didn’t load.  I went to Creative.com to download the drivers, and yes they had windows 7 beta drivers available.  However, I am not sure if my card was available.  I am currently researching this.

Cool features that I like are things such as the show desktop in the bottum right corner, pinned applications and added applications such as sticky notes, snipping tool and many more.  My next big task was to try out playing HD video from my Panasonic HDC 1 camera (AVCHD -- MT2S files).  I just double clicked one of the files, and Media player launched, and to my suprise, began playing the video. All of this while using remote desktop from Vista to the Windows 7 workstation.  In the past, I had to download codecs and even then, video was choppy.  So far, I give this a great big thumbs up!

More to come…

1). Does CS4 Run in  XP 64 bit mode and Vista 64bit mode, or is it using the 32bit emulator to run?

2). Does the Trial version of CS4 support AVCHD MT2S files?

3). Does the Full version of CS4 support AVCHD MT2S files?

4). What is the minimum requirements to playback AVCHD video?

5). Does it come with a AVCHD codec that will playback AVCHD Video in full resolution?

6). Is this CODEC compatible with Media Player or other video player software?

Adobe CS4 -- Support Questions answered:

AVCHD smooth playback totally depends on your systems performance. Most Laptops will work just fine with AVCHD editing but don’t have as smooth a playback as a highend desktop. AVCHD is very processor intensive and takes nearly 95% of your systems performance to decode it(obviously depends on how many cores you have) . There are solutions that will convert your AVCHD for better playback (Cineform.com has always been an excellent choice) , but now you can get started with AVCHD and move to other Adobe plug-in partners if needed.

YES – we use all Cores for playback , effects, and rendering for both Mac and Windows.

I highly recommend switching to Vista 64 if you are a Windows user (Mac guys are OK with 10.5.4 or higher) Vista 64 will allow Production Premium CS4 to run using more than 4GB of Ram (XP/Vista32 Limitation). As with most NLEs, there are several programs running at the same time to give you the NLE experience. CS4 now allows each process to take up to 4Gb of RAM. If you have 16GB of RAM, then 4 processes can take up to 4GB each. This is a HUGE advantage over CS3. What are some examples of processes? DynamicLink, AfterServer, Photoshop Server, Adobe Media Encoder, Titler, Playback, Capture, Importer, and many more. I tell most people to count on buying 8GB minium 

I couldn’t get ahold of Adobe, but I found this info in the knowledge base:

- CS4 supports the following file types:

Format Import/Export support Format Details 

3GPP Movie (.3gp) Import and Export QuickTime player required on Windows 

Advanced Video Codec (.mts) Import only  

AVCHD (.m2ts, .mts) Import only  

DV stream (.dv) Import and Export  

Flash Video (.flv, .f4v) Import and Export  

Microsoft AVI (.avi) Import and Export Export Windows only 

Microsoft NetShow (.asf) Import only Windows only 

MPEG-1 (.mpg) Import and Export Export Windows only 

MPEG-2 (.m2v, .mpg) Import and Export  

MPEG-4 (.m4v) Import and Export  

Panasonic P2 (.mxf) Import and Export  

QuickTime Movie (.mov) Import and Export QuickTime player required on Windows 

Shockwave Flash object (.swf) Import only  

Sony VDU File Format Importer (.dlx) Import only Windows only 

Windows Media (.wma, .wmv) Import and Export Export Windows only 

XDCam-EX movie (.mp4) Import only  

XDCam-HD movie (.mxf) Import only 

- The trial version is the full version

- It does support .m2ts, is that what you have?

- Supports Windows XP (32-bit)

- Supports Windows Vista (32 and 64-bit)

- Required: 2GHz or faster processor for DV; 3.4GHz for HDV; dual 2.8GHz for HD (an SSE2-enabled processor is required for AMD systems) 

——--

Adobe CS4 Premiere is not very well optimized for AVCHD editing/playback. Adobe points at the format, and users tend to point at Adobe. Personally, I think that the software is a little heavy, but I think that Adobe could make an effort to optimize it (other AVCHD players, such as the ImageMixer coming with the Canon HF11, are playing the .m2ts or .mts files just fine). See Adobe Forum on the AVCHD Playback.

However, I did find an [obvious] trick (on Windows) that makes the experience much better.

Just upgrade the priority for the process “ImporterProcessServer.exe” from “normal” to “high” in the Windows Task Manager. Simple, but it does make a nice difference (at least for me).

———-

People in the forums are very upset about the AVCHD support, there is all kinds of issues. They all say convert your footage from AVCHD to something else (use AVCHD upshift software $49 http://www.newbluefx.com/avchd-upshift.html)

———-

If you have a Panasonic, then you can download the converter free from their website. Go here: https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/desk/e/download.htm#avchd 

But be aware, the file size after converting will be much much bigger than the original avchd file. 

———

Panasonic Camera on a remote control helicopter
httpv://www.youtube.com/v/ZvfcuMaCyDY&hl=en&fs=1

David has been working with John on designing a home theater that would use a PC as the main Server in the Home Theater.  Since then, they have discoverd devices like the Hava and Sling player that gives you access to your recorded media anywhere on the internet.  In looking into the types of media that you could broadcast on the internet, they have Discovered Adobes media server.  Being able to stream video in high Definition was one of the features they were looking for.  Converting your DVD’s to MP4 format, you could acheive high quality viewing with a Flash Media player app.  In the process, they also have purchased the Panasonic HDC1 High Definition video camera.  Learning that the video camera stores video in AVCHD format, they needed an application to convert this media into either MP4 or DVD MP2 format to be able to view the videos online.

Nero video provided a great solution to the conversion process.  Sony Vegas 8 Pro also allows editing of the AVCHD footage.  Dissapointed, Adobe is not currently supporting the AVCHD format, even though it was promised to be out in a future release of there software suite.

We have come a long ways in discovering what it takes to do high definition on the internet.

Sony’s Playstation 3 seems to be the easiest solution, though not complete in the media center.
Hava is a great way to record HD TV with the Componet cables (un-encoded video).

Today we are in the process of getting the google ads working.  It looks like we have double the ads displayed.  I am not sure if it is a theme problem or if it is a problem with the scripts.

 

Video’d the first 15 minutes of a La Crosse game Saturday night.  I am looking for a way to post the video here on the blog.  It is in AVCHD format, and I am still looking for a way to watch the video on a PC.  If anyone has any ideas, let me know.  Thanks

David.