Expedition filming

[ktrout]

I was kind of thinking about filming my next solo cycling trip. I have a GoPro Hero HD, which in 720p uses 4GB/hour. Modern netbooks have 250GB hard drives, which gives me 60 hours of filming. I don't know how this will do since I plan on being gone for a good fraction of the year, but I only plan on using it when things get interesting. Plus the battery only lasts a couple of hours. Not to mention that I don't want to have a bunch of stuff to add weight and get ripped off.
Maybe I just use my phone, which can also film in HD. Any ideas?

[Ultra Swain]

You can get small external usb drive. They are cheap, high capacity and don't take up too much room in your pack. I use LaCie rugged drives (the FW versions) and they work great. You can get the usb versions really cheap in their refurb section at LaCie.com

[ktrout]

Thanks, I was looking at terabyte drives today, which would be only 10 straight days of filming. Nothing does it like overkill, right?
It would be nice to get two, in case one goes tits up.
Hadn't thought of ruggedized ones.

[ktrout]

I also have to think about filming strategies since I am completely untrained in the art of cinematography. When I was in China last year I took a few short sequences with my phone but wish I did more.

[Ultra Swain]

The two things that are the big difference between shitty run of the mill travel videos and something you actually want to watch is camera stability and decent audio. If you can walk up closer to your subject do it. The zoom is not your friend. And if possible consider an external mic if you are going to want to do something meaningful with the footage when you get back home then its a must. There are a ton of options
to help stabilize your camera. A ziplock bag with sand in it is the cheapest and most effect I have used. Plus you can always get those gorilla grips or whatever they are called that wrap around just about anything.

And with those GoPro rigs the low light performance just plain sucks so keep that in mind.

[sdg]

And with those GoPro rigs the low light performance just plain sucks so keep that in mind.

Agreed. I love my GoPro HD, but low light just ain't its thing. The wide angle lens also blows for anything more than a few feet away or landscape video/stills.

[ktrout]

Alright, thanks. I'll have to practice with it a bit or just bag the idea and use my phone if I haven't given myself sufficient practice with it by the time I leave.

[JamesInTheWorld]

Put you vids on an external drive and bring it to a photo shop, they will put it on a DVD for you, then post it home



~JITW

[ktrout]

Put you vids on an external drive and bring it to a photo shop, they will put it on a DVD for you, then post it home



~JITW

I might see one of those once a month or so. Had the thought of buying a netbook with a compact external DVD drive and dropping them in the mail. Blu-Ray would be much more convenient but don't think I want to swing for that.
Right now my idea is to carry a Nexus One (or equivalent) with an external keyboard and hard drive for computing. Lots of interesting hacking going on with those. One gigahertz is a lot of processing power, actually. People have pretty much worked it out to be able to have USB keyboards, mice, hard drives, etc.. Just not very well integrated.
I have a Droid X but it's not very hackable at this point and it doesn't do GSM. Carry it as a backup.

[Ultra Swain]

GoPro Hero HD, which in 720p uses 4GB/hour

I was thinking about this while James was talking about mailing a DVD home. Standard "crappy" SD DV video runs about 13GB per hour. So I am imagining the bit rate on these cameras is pretty weak. I would go with the better resolution at a smaller frame size than blow it out at out at the 720p setting and have a crappier but bigger frame size. Especially if this is going to be viewed mainly on the web.

Just a thought.

[ktrout]

GoPro Hero HD, which in 720p uses 4GB/hour

I was thinking about this while James was talking about mailing a DVD home. Standard "crappy" SD DV video runs about 13GB per hour.

Is that uncompressed, though? I think these are MPEG4 files it's squeezing out.

[belay]

With a GoPro HD, if you're shooting in 720p at 30fps, 1 hour of footage will be about 4gb

[ktrout]

With a GoPro HD, if you're shooting in 720p at 30fps, 1 hour of footage will be about 4gb

Right.

[ktrout]

Right now I'm trying to decide on traveling light (a couple of smart phones) or kick down a couple of hundred dollars for a netbook. The Samsung N150 is less than Nexus Ones are going for right now and my HTC Dream/G1 is a pretty usable GSM phone with the 3KAh battery. It's been on three months of bicycle touring now. With my bluetooth keyboard my Droid X is almost big enough to be used as a laptop (4.3" screen). Just that it would definitely not be useful for video editing. But a netbook wouldn't be either.

[Ultra Swain]

GoPro Hero HD, which in 720p uses 4GB/hour

I was thinking about this while James was talking about mailing a DVD home. Standard "crappy" SD DV video runs about 13GB per hour.

Is that uncompressed, though? I think these are MPEG4 files it's squeezing out.

Of course, but the point is you are losing valuable 1's and 0's. It really depends on what the end product will be. For personal stuff it should be fine.