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Comment by monk_e_boy | Hacker News Reader

Me and my mates are big users of GoPro cameras. We use them for spearfishing, kitesurfing, surfing and filming our kids at the beach.

GoPro seem to be going towards smaller cameras (good) higher res (who cares - the camera lens is crap and fogs and is covered in water drops 90% of the time) and drones (who cares)

What we want is more data overlaid on the video or perhaps stored along with the video stream. Things like, depth, altitude, speed, G-force, GPS. From a random user.

[edit] I guess you guys may not be aware of Woo and Xensor which are gadgets you clip to your kiteboard, these measure GPS, jump height, speed etc. These are not sync'd to the video (they are different gadgets) but someone needs to make this work somehow. Not sure how they measure jump height in amongst the waves... it's all pretty neat.

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If I'm reading you right, that's kind of exactly what Garmin's action camera Virb does. I got one for my dad to use mountain biking and it syncs up the video with the gps location, the speed he's traveling, etc. Those stats can be overlaid onto the video, it's kinda the angle that they're taking while trying to get into the action camera market. Not sure if it's exactly the thing that you were looking for, but it sounded close enough.

Full disclosure, I work at Garmin.

I used to own a Garmin dashcam and even though I really enjoyed the lat/lng overlay on the screen, I think what would be even better (especially for actioncams) is to have a little map on the right upper corner of the feed like the "picture-in-picture" feature in some TVs. The map would obviously need to be downloaded onto the device beforehand but that really shouldn't be a problem.

If you're talking about for video, VIRBedit can sort of do this. I loaded a GPX file into a mountain biking video, with a little red dot showing where I was. I am sure a map is just as easy.

How about orientation data that could be used for VR ?

The Virb looks awesome. Is your Dad enjoying it?

Yeah, I made a full convert with that one! He had a GoPro, but I thought he'd like the data overlay feature and I was right there. He likes to compete with his old rides and this makes it a lot easier to compare the rides as well as add some theatrical effect.

These little gadgets are like having your own personal coach. They really make you up your game, no matter your age.

I truly wish I'd bought the Garmin instead of a GoPro (explains why I haven't touched GPRO since it IPO'ed). First, yes, the on-screen telemetry is a great feature, and it differentiates Garmin's product. The Garmin will attached to GoPro mounts. But no, at my wife's recommendation we bought a GoPro. It made sense, buy what's popular not because it's the best but because of the overused word "ecosystem" (see: iPod/iPhone).

The usability really needs work. The thing bellies up to the bar and just chews through batteries. On a motorcycle trip to Alaska I would have thrown the thing in a river had it not been for the fact that the fish don't need any more heavy metals to swim. For about the half-dozenth time that trip I missed nice video because it's impossible to know what state the camera is in without getting off the bike and looking at it. Sure, there's a light on the front of the camera, which is great when your subject wants to know that it's recording. However, the mountain goats were not very good at letting me know whether or not it was recording.

Most of all, there are no outstanding features that would make me buy a GoPro other than it's popular. Which is why I don't buy their stock (though I set a price alert, and then forgot to short it). As already pointed out elsewhere, there are other cameras that are probably equally good for considerably less money. I'll keep the one I got, it mostly does what I bought it for. But I'd never buy another one, nor recommend it to others.

Anyway, it looks like I kind of hijacked your reply; sorry. I'll reiterate: I wish I had purchased your company's product instead. :-)

The GoPro cameras are overpriced.

The Xiaomi Yi is under $100 and can do 1080p60.

The Mobius ActionCam is even cheaper than the Xiaomi, and it's true that can only do 1080p30, but the very low price and the extremely small size (matchbox) make it perfect to carry around all the time on a keychain, or install it on a small drone without much lift capability.

I have both these cameras. I made a helmet mount for the Xiaomi and I carry it sometimes when riding my motorcycle. The Mobius recently went up on a model rocket and captured a PoV of the whole flight.

A both of those still don't have the image quality a higher end GoPro does. They're close and a lot of people won't care - but a lot of people also do.

Yeah, I have a Yi and for the price, I think it's great. I'd like better quality but I'm not sure paying the extra $300 is worth a maybe 30% increase in quality.

I don't have a GoPro. I've looked at comparisons online. The Xiaomi is not visibly "softer" than the GoPro, AFAICT. Its low light performance is not great, but again, I don't know how the GoPro performs in low light. In any case, at $90 online, it's okay if it's a little below the GoPro in terms of performance.

The Mobius ActionCam is surprisingly sharp for its price and size. But it's only 30fps and therefore quite choppy. Also has a bit of rolling shutter. Here it is riding an RC car and a model rocket. I'd say it's good enough for that sort of thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psu8JkJYwBs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbh2O4_UWT0

As a fellow motorcyclist looking at cameras, I'd be really interested in seeing / hearing more about your helmet mount.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3w-twe4seQ

Please be careful with helmet mounts. There have been some serious injuries attributed (maybe incorrectly!) to rigid mounts transferring energy in ways helmets aren't designed for.

Motorcyclist here. I have a Drift Stealth 2 [1] and have it mounted on the side of my helmet. I like it because the form factor is just so good. All the GoPro mounts I've seen seem to stick out from the side of your head awkwardly and look like some kind of antenna. You can get it here [2] with a 10% discount if you use the code VLOGHIM.

1: http://store.driftinnovation.com/cameras/drift-stealth-2 2: http://actioncameras.co.uk/

Ditto with a Drift HD Ghost, although the Contour cameras seem like they have an even better form factor. I like the fact that the Drift is waterproof out of the box too, no case needed.

Or try a pocket mount: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O9aLYSntTQ

Techmoan has extremely detailed action camera reviews, with raw sample footage, and often takes them out for a ride (weather permitting, he's in the UK after all!). http://www.techmoan.com/blog/category/action-cameras

The Xiaomi Yi also has some community and collections of simple startup scripts to modify the camera's capabilities simply by placing a file on the MicroSD card. For example: shooting 1600x1200(4:3) video, or adjusting noise reduction etc..

https://github.com/PJanisio/Xiaomi_Yi_autoexec

https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/forums/yi-action-camera.153/

http://fpvlab.com/forums/showthread.php?45118-Xiaomi-Yi-Enha...

Nice! CHDK The Sequel!

Thanks. I bought a GoPro as a gift a year or so back, and thought about buying one for myself at the same time. I didn't, but I'm seriously considering a Xiaomi Yi after seeing these links. In China, it costs 61 USD.

Oh, wow, thanks for the links. I tried the denoise reduction hack. It turns out the camera performs massive amounts of denoise - and of course the result is that the image is a bit softer than it should be.

I turned denoise down to 1024, and the image is quite a bit sharper; that's great! There's a bit of noise visible now in low light (whereas before it was squeaky-clean), but it's comparable to my handheld camcorder, which is okay. I think they just made the decision that they don't want to show any noise, no matter what, and that impacted image sharpness out of the box.

I can't wait to test it under normal daylight. Also, the focus to infinity hack - since the camera appears to be optimally focused on a closer range.

Exactly. I lost my GoPro Hero Black v3 rappelling down a canyon[1] in Bali, later borrowed a friend's v4 because I was considering replacing it.

The display was fancier but less functional, when I was handling the camera and pressing buttons it would dark out momentarily unlike v3, it had better specs but all stuff that doesn't matter anyway for the reasons you mention.

Sad to see that every great product like this seems to inevitably succumb to death by product management by piling feature on top of feature, instead of just doubling down on what makes it a great product in the first place.

1. Hit the plastic casing at exactly the wrong spot against a rock wall so it popped open and the camera flew into the river below

Maybe this guy found it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7mVPQBgYrg

His videos are hilarious, he is always finding random stuff like wallets, go pros, i phones... in one video he found 3 go pros.

I feel like this would be a worthwhile pursuit, but it would be better as software than hardware.

If this were to be a hardware pursuit, you'd have to buy a bunch of sensors, all which have a price tag and their own limitations and issues. This might bring in $$, but also cause a lot of frustration that users would not find intriguing. Or, the sensors could be in the camera which would cause even more problems with power, heat, etc and the price tag.

Software, which can read data from a variety of sources such as GoPro, GPS, thermometer, whatever, and then integrate it all into a video timeline would be more practical. Then let the user overlay data onto the video using a variety of free and paid visual effects and templates.

GoPro should be working on a competitor to VIRBedit for this purpose. VIRBedit is great and doesn't require a Garmin VIRB cam etc. There is also http://www.traceup.com/ for snowboarding and surfing.

GoPro really missed an opportunity here, but it may not be too late.

(electronics dev here) My solution to this would be a small sensor box with a small LCD screen that shows a timecode. Show it to the camera at any time during recording for at least one timecode change and you have a synchronization point.

You're thinking of Garmin VIRB: http://virb.garmin.com/en-US/

Unfortunately Garmin VIRB maxes out at 1080p/30fps, which sucks for a sports camera. GoPro HERO4 does 1080p/120fps, for comparison.

EDIT:

Looks like VIRB Xe does 60fps at 1080p.

People have mentioned the Garmin Virb being able to do this, and I have to mention that their software [1] is great and easily useable with any video file. I've used it to sync up my bike rides recorded with a Go Pro to my .gpx file and show speed, map etc. You just have to manually sync the start of the file with a start point in the video, which is easy enough.

The GoPro software is horrendous in comparison as I could not even import my video files (one of 4,5 gb and another one of around 1,5) with over 25gb free space. Maybe it needed to convert before importing? In any case I just joined up the files with ffmpeg and imported in Virb and off I went, very recommended!

[1]: http://www.garmin.com/en-US/shop/downloads/virb-edit

The Action Cams from Sony have built in GPS. After filming, you can add an overlay to your video with the help of their software: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isxo89KqaRc

You may want to check out: http://www.dashware.net/

Good advice; it's good software. Per their site, so good that GoPro actually bought Dashware (or at least the team, not sure of the details of the product).

This was a very smart buy for them, assuming they use the technology and not just the team for some other venture. Their stock price may rebound if they can do this successfully.

- $$ for special effects or special "data widgets" - have an online video editor that uses the "cloud" (so users are locked into their services and software). Sort of like Dropbox, but for GoPro videos and includes an awesome editor. Charge $$ for membership and/or space. - $$ for GoPro sensors.

Of course, I hate to have to lock my video into their servers... but that is how they would make $$.

Exactly. They should offer optional plugin hardware with additional sensors for various sports. For example as a scuba diver I would be more likely to buy a GoPro if it could overlay depth, temperature, dive time, and GPS (start and end of dive, obviously not underwater). Motorsports enthusiasts would want an OBD2 interface, etc.

They actually bought a startup that did this (forgot the name). I imagine it's in the works to get fully integrated.

The thing I really want from GoPro is a camera with a battery that lasts more than 30 minutes. They always seem to be duds for me.

"What we want is more data overlaid on the video or perhaps stored along with the video stream. Things like, depth, altitude, speed, G-force, GPS. From a random user."

Even though you flipped it off, a drone does exactly this ;).

Sure—a drone also comes with a bunch of extra crap that isn't useful most of the time—motor, chassis, radio, software complexity.

That's just a matter of a better product hiding all that complexity. A few companies have already taken a jab at this (https://www.lily.camera/). No radio or software complexity, and a well packaged chassis.

This doesn't sound niche at all...

This was GoPro's core audience, which gave them massive early adoption.

My apologies if I read your comment wrong, but assuming you're being sarcastic:

It really isn't niche. GoPro's target demographic are people engaging in all sorts of activities. Biking, motocross, hiking, surfing, skating, skydiving, regular diving, racing, waterskiing, and so on.

All of these activities would benefit from some or all of the metrics parent listed.

I think OPs sarcasm was a veiled comment that GoPro's valuation is based on a broad audience, which doesn't exist for their product.

GoPro did indeed have first mover advantage, but it appears competitors are catching up now that the (niche) market has been validated.

Wouldn't an android phone be a superior platform for these kinds of things ?

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