Editing GoPro footage

Roostoids

What software (ideally free) do people use for editing and cutting up their gopro footage?

The gopro cineform studio seems very slow, and you can't even put the clips together on it. Have to chop them up, then export them (takes ages) then put them together elsewhere.

Is there a better/easier/faster way to do this, it's taking the fun right out of the filming.

cooldad

Thank god - the more hassle it is, the fewer pointless 'I'm a riding god' vids posted to Youtube.

angry_bird

PC or Mac? Mac I just use iMovie, it's alright, nothing special but does the job well enough for what I want, PC I haven't a clue I'm afraid.

Woody80

On a PC I use Windows Live Movie Maker (Windows 7) which is free. It's pretty easy to use. Have been looking at slicker options to get a bit more adventurous.

cat_with_no_tail

I just got my new Hd hero 2 yesterday. Currently, I've only done a little test footage. Some timelapse of the sunset last night, slow-mo of my kids playing on the trampoline, and my short commute to work. Just to get a feel for the settings, angles, mounts etc.

All my editing so far has just been done on Windows Movie Maker (PC). It's pretty basic, but it does the job and it's a piece of plss to use. You will need to use something like format factory or similar though to convert the files.

That said, I'll be taking delivery of a new laptop shortly which I think is going to get something like Sony Vegas installed on it (far from free though).

Roostoids

Thanks for the recognition Cooldad, as I am indeed a riding god

To your knowledge Woody, does that ship with Windows or an extra you can download? Knowing me I probably deleted it.

Yeah CWNT, formatting the files from mp4 on the gopro, into avi to edit, then back to mp4, seems to take forever on the free gopro software.

redvee

Cat With No Tail wrote:

That said, I'll be taking delivery of a new laptop shortly which I think is going to get something like Sony Vegas installed on it (far from free though).

I've purchased Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum from Amazon for £25ish. Played with it for the last 6 months and still not fully used all the tools.

cat_with_no_tail

Roostoids wrote:

Thanks for the recognition Cooldad, as I am indeed a riding god

To your knowledge Woody, does that ship with Windows or an extra you can download? Knowing me I probably deleted it.

Yeah CWNT, formatting the files from mp4 on the gopro, into avi to edit, then back to mp4, seems to take forever on the free gopro software.

I'm still very much a noob to this kind of thing, so forgive my ignorance, but why would you convert from MP4, to AVI, to MP4?

So far, all I've done is convert MP4 to WMV, edit, and upload to Vimeo. Am I missing something?

@ Redvee, cheers for the info. I've not properly started looking into editing suites, but vegas seems to be pretty much the default recommendation. I assume something like that has the ability to deal directly with MP4 files put out by Gopro?

Woody80

Windows Live Movie Maker is a free download from Microsoft.

I tried Sony Vegas and found it overly confusing but might go back to something like that for a bit more options, although considering buying a Mac...

Roostoids

CWNT; Well it might be that I'm even more newb with video editing than you!!

The gopro suite just seems to need to edit it from mp4 into avi to chop the video up. I don't know why this is. It takes a long time though so if there's a better option like WMV as you mentioned, I'll try and work out how to do that.

cat_with_no_tail

Just download format factory. It's free, and that will convert straight into WMV, then you can chop up, add effects, titles etc in Movie maker.

Virtual ub and Cinefx Jashaka seem to get decent reviews too, but I've not tried either yet to comment. I'd imagine at least one of those should handle MP4 files without conversion.

R8JimBob88

I just use my ipad with iMovie on it. That way I never need to use a PC or Mac, just stick the memory card in it and away you go. Can export to youtube etc from it too.

redvee

Cat With No Tail wrote:

Just download format factory. It's free, and that will convert straight into WMV, then you can chop up, add effects, titles etc in Movie maker.

Virtual ub and Cinefx Jashaka seem to get decent reviews too, but I've not tried either yet to comment. I'd imagine at least one of those should handle MP4 files without conversion.

VirtualDub was a toy I played with before I started to edit MP4s, it does need plug-ins for MP4s etc. Great as a freebie.

Woody80

R8JimBob88 wrote:

I just use my ipad with iMovie on it. That way I never need to use a PC or Mac, just stick the memory card in it and away you go. Can export to youtube etc from it too.

I thought the iPad would only edit movies filmed on the iPad camera?

bluechair84

redvee wrote:

Cat With No Tail wrote:

That said, I'll be taking delivery of a new laptop shortly which I think is going to get something like Sony Vegas installed on it (far from free though).

I've purchased Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum from Amazon for £25ish. Played with it for the last 6 months and still not fully used all the tools.

Yup, Sony Vegas is what I edit on. Any editing suites are going to seem daunting at first but against Pinnacle and Premier, Vegas is the one I thought was easiest to learn. The tuition files on it are awesome too, just watch them one at a time and there will be nothing you can't do with it.
Vegas Platinum is a relative bargain in the editing market, and the only thing it really looses out on compared with the £300 super suite that is Vegas Pro is the velocity tool which 'creates' slow motion footage out of low FPS files (like twixtor, but not quite as advanced, but then twixtor is a further £300 alone :shock: )

ilovedirt

I use Imovie, it's alright.

paul.skibum

Not sure why you need to convert anything to any other format with Windows Live - it takes raw gopro footage - each clip you add it needs to "process" or whatever which takes a little time - I just dump everything I plan to play with in there and wander off to make a cuppa or clean thebike or whatever then come back.

Hack it around, cut and chop, add some music, put on a title "I am a riding god" and some bizarre credits like produced and directed and staring me, then you can create a copy either for CD or PC or export direct to a bunch of formats.

Works a treat - I dont have the Gopro software but it sounds complex for somethign designed to be used with a gorpo!

cat_with_no_tail

paul.skibum wrote:

Not sure why you need to convert anything to any other format with Windows Live - it takes raw gopro footage - each clip you add it needs to "process" or whatever which takes a little time - I just dump everything I plan to play with in there and wander off to make a cuppa or clean thebike or whatever then come back.

Hack it around, cut and chop, add some music, put on a title "I am a riding god" and some bizarre credits like produced and directed and staring me, then you can create a copy either for CD or PC or export direct to a bunch of formats.

Works a treat - I dont have the Gopro software but it sounds complex for somethign designed to be used with a gorpo!

Which one are you using?

Windows movie maker does not accept MP4 files, which is what is generated by GoPros. Perhaps windows live movie maker is different.
I also found out last night that the reason WMM will not save my files is because it can't process HD footage and dosent understand what an HD file looks like. Not sure how much truth there is to that. All I know is I can't wait for my new laptop to arrive, with a proper editing suite.

likewoah

Gopro raw footage is compressed. The cineform program uncompresses it, which Gopro say creates files that work better in editing software.

If you have the hard disk space it does work better. The problem I have is exporting to a decent format that is not too big but doesn't lose detail. Anyone got tips for that?

bluechair84

Cat With No Tail wrote:

I also found out last night that the reason WMM will not save my files is because it can't process HD footage and dosent understand what an HD file looks like. Not sure how much truth there is to that.

Lots of editing suites do really struggle with HD files. I learnt that when using Pinnacle 14 HD - the title is misleading, it can render files up to HD resolution, but can't actually handle source footage in HD. Ridiculous. Even the adobe suite struggled for me.

Likewoah - all video footage is compressed. Without it, a minute of footage would be many gigabytes in size! Removing the compression and making it 'raw' a) won't improve the quality of the footage and b) will create massive working files, I'm not sure what the effect would be on the computer's resources - might run out of RAM?

Northwind

If you're considering Vegas, demo it first- different versions perform very differently. Platinum vs non-Platinum in Vegas 10, frinstance- Platinum will run the preview smoothly on my PC, non-Platinum will barely run it at all. Sony's only comment was "You need a more powerful PC" even though their other software ran fine...

TBH I like Vegas but I find it hard to recommend because the user support's so terrible. I started suffering random hangs on mine- do a new windows install, they say. So I did. Still happens. Do a new windows install. It's the only answer they seem to have.

YeehaaMcgee

Cat With No Tail wrote:

Windows movie maker does not accept MP4 files, which is what is generated by GoPros. Perhaps windows live movie maker is different.
I also found out last night that the reason WMM will not save my files is because it can't process HD footage and dosent understand what an HD file looks like. Not sure how much truth there is to that. All I know is I can't wait for my new laptop to arrive, with a proper editing suite.

I take it you're still on XP?
WMM has been defunct for a considerable time, hence it not supporting HD at all.

bluechair84

Northwind wrote:

Platinum vs non-Platinum in Vegas 10

I didn't realise there was a Vegas, Vegas platinum and Vegas Pro. My experience and recommendation of Vegas is limited to the platinum version...

paul.skibum

I am using an older GoPro but Windows Live Movie Maker on Windows7. I find it works fine and I have put my mates HD GoPro through it too, and a Contour.

YeehaaMcgee

Northwind wrote:

If you're considering Vegas, demo it first- different versions perform very differently. Platinum vs non-Platinum in Vegas 10, frinstance- Platinum will run the preview smoothly on my PC, non-Platinum will barely run it at all. Sony's only comment was "You need a more powerful PC" even though their other software ran fine...

TBH I like Vegas but I find it hard to recommend because the user support's so terrible. I started suffering random hangs on mine- do a new windows install, they say. So I did. Still happens. Do a new windows install. It's the only answer they seem to have.

Sadly, the user support thing is true for all of Sony's software. It was far friendlier back when Sonic Foundry made Vegas and Soundforge etc.

R8JimBob88

Woody80 wrote:

R8JimBob88 wrote:

I just use my ipad with iMovie on it. That way I never need to use a PC or Mac, just stick the memory card in it and away you go. Can export to youtube etc from it too.

I thought the iPad would only edit movies filmed on the iPad camera?

If you have a camera connection kit then you just plug the memory card into it, and then the camera connector kit into the slot of the bottom of the ipad.

Woody80

Ahhhh, I see. I'll give that a go. Is it any good for editing footage or painfully slow?

R8JimBob88

Woody80 wrote:

Ahhhh, I see. I'll give that a go. Is it any good for editing footage or painfully slow?

Guess it depends on which iPad you are using. I have the iPad 3 and it copes well. Does get a little laggy if your using lots of different clips (45+ or so) but does everything I want it too.

A few things to mention though. Obviously file sizes are massive so I use an external hard drive (seagate goflex satellite) to store the finished movie on once it has been edited and also remove the original clips from the iPad and also store these on the external hard drive.

Also I film my gopro footage in 960p but once edited iMovie will only let you export in 720p. Strange as if you record in 1080p then you can also export at 1080p. Strange and slightly annoying. I use a combination of iMovie, my external hard drive and drop box to edit, store and move my stuff around.

R8JimBob88

Also to note that if your adding music and uploading to YouTube then a lot of music content is restricted to playing on non iDevices.

All my stuff seen here was done using the above method http://www.youtube.com/user/R8JimBob88/videos

bluechair84

R8JimBob88 wrote:

Also to note that if your adding music and uploading to YouTube then a lot of music content is restricted to playing on non iDevices.

All my stuff seen here was done using the above method http://www.youtube.com/user/R8JimBob88/videos

Just watched your Hope Valley and The Beast vid, pretty impressive that it was all edited on a tablet! And why are you riding with a shaving bag on your top tube??

R8JimBob88

In case I need a shave. Why else?!