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GoPro’s brand spankin’ new line of its popular action-cams offers a lot of great upgrades: The cams are smaller, lighter, and have higher frame rates. Sweet! The Black version also offers 4K video recording—a feature sure to make headlines and widen the eyes of video gear-heads. It is ultimately nothing but a vacuous gimmick.
The 4K video standard—which amounts to double four times the resolution of HD—is the future of moving images. Not the future as in next year, but the future as in you might have a 4K TV in your house to watch Season 8 of Game of Thrones. Sure, there are commercially available 4K projectors for your superfly custom home cinema, but, to give some perspective, Sony is about to start selling its very first 4K capable TV—for £15,500.
The 4K video a GoPro Hero3 records will probably not be viewable on your, or anyone you know’s TV set unless it is scaled down significantly. In fact, the average user’s computer monitor probably doesn’t reach the necessary 3840 x 2160 resolution to display 4K at full-size. Finally, let’s not forget that 4K images carry large file sizes, forcing you to fill your pockets with extra memory cards. So what’s the point?
GoPro will probably say that they are “future-proofing” their cameras, so that you can be sure your new toy won’t grow obsolete in the face of the 4K revolution. That’s all well and good in philosophy, but I hope you are used to watching your footage at 15 fps, because that is the maximum frame rate the GoPro Hero3 allows for at 4K.
Here is a random YouTube video shot at 15 fps. It’s a choppy affair, and that is what your GoPro 4K footage will look like—not very conducive to the kind of fast action that GoPro cams are meant to show off. (Or you can speed it up to look like a slapstick film from the 1920′s—cause everyone likes that look.)
Don’t get me wrong, the latest GoPro line looks really great in almost every area, and you can buy a cheaper Silver or White version without the 4K. But even hyping the whole 4K thing is a transparent attempt to produce a WOW-factor in a market that is getting quite competitive (thanks to Sony and Contour). That translates to a higher pricetag for a feature that offers little actual benefit.
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Surely the benefit of 4K is the same as using higher resolutions on phone cameras; You can crop the video to “zoom” the video?
Omg…he went full retard. You never go full retard. And violentpacifist. Yes, one of the benefits.
has anyone optical-flow(ed) this up to 24 fps?
I might be missing the point here… but 2x HD Hero 3 @ 15fps = 30fps in 3D?
Someone tell me I’m wrong?
I think you might be…
It would still be 15fps.
2 cameras shooting 15fps will give you 15fps.
If one camera is timed to be slightly behind the other, theoretically you could combine the output into 4k 30p. Since two cameras produce a different perspective image, 3D glasses would be required. Each eye would have different information in regards to action and not depth perception. So possibly a non 3d (flat) 4k 30p image requiring 3d glasses could be produced with this setup?
Not sure if serious…
4K is quadruple the resolution of HD. How many times more will Gizmodo write it up as double?
Having 4K may be useful if you’re looking to take a still from the movie.
Why?
Good god these articles are woeful, lol, why on earth doesn’t Gizmodo hire someone who knows about this stuff, it seems odd to position yourself as a ‘go-to authority for – digital culture’ while not really knowing too much about what you are talking about – ok, I’m exaggerating, not always, but certainly when it comes to technical issues and always, universally so, when it comes to cameras, camera phones and videography in general you publish some fairly vague inexpert page-fill™ (my jurno-’landfill’ neologism, use it, I’m on royalties)
Firstly, let’s jettison any hope of correcting the idea that 4k is “double the resolution of HD”, this seems so ingrained now that it’s part of Gizmodo’s technical canon. Of course It’s wrong (4k is four times the resolution of HD) but it now seems the be the official Gizmodo line, so let’s just accept the following and make allowances for it:
Everyone else in the world:
1 x 1 = 1
2 x 2 = 4
Gizmodo:
1 x 1 = 1
2 x 2 = 2
As ‘violentpacifist’ (above) notes the benefit of 4K is not simply higher resolution playback – something to play to your friends on your 4k TV (which as this article rightly point out none of us have) – if this were the case you could busy your afternoons writing much the same criticism of every other 4k camera out there from RED to the EOS C500 – all apparently useless technical enterprises given none of us have 4k TVs.
Even though this camera fails to impress Gizmodo’s technical wizards, film makers will love a camera that shoots 4k . . . . the 15fps is a genuine limit that can’t be ignored but for things like plate shots, green screening, slow moving shots, establishing shots, FX shots and so on it’s insanely useful, I don’t know what the chroma subsampling is on this camera (I’m guessing 4:1:1 or 4:2:0) but to be honest I don’t much care as I can down-sample my footage to give me very high resolution chroma sampling. . . . and the anti-aliasing on a 4k shot down-sampled to a quarter of the original resolution (Shit ! Sorry, we are on Gizmodo, that should read ‘down-sampled to half the original resolution (cough, cough)) will be simply wonderful. I could go on, I could give you a hundred examples of where a 4k camera (albeit shooting at the non-standard 15 fps) would be enormously desirable.
And while we are here let’s pick up on what J2ozac mentions, Optical Flow, TimeWarp, Twixtor (etc etc) all programs which are only too happy to take 15fps and re-generate / interpolate 24 / 25 / 30 fps – and to an increasingly fantastic quality, only getting better as these products mature, for so many shots I’d prefer to shoot 4k, interpolate the frame rate and then down sample, sure it would be pointless on a fast action shot, but for everything from a slow pan or zoom to a landscape or long establishing shot it would be silly not to consider 4k (even at 15 fps).
>”Finally, let’s not forget that 4K images carry large file sizes, forcing you to fill your pockets with extra memory cards. So what’s the point?”
I thought we’d already established that in Gizmodo’s world 4k images are only twice as large as standard HD images, so having to carry 2 SD cards instead of 1 is hardly an argument against the camera. : P
“why were you late darling, I made lasagne and opened the 2011 vinegar-esque Chablis from your mother”
“I was ladened down with 6 SD cards, normally I carry 3, but the extra 3 . . . fuck . . . they nearly killed me, my pockets were straining”
P.S Michael Hession has written some great articles for Gizmodo, this is a general criticism towards Gizmodo’s technical indifference in general.
P.S . . . .
The sub 4k 2560 x 1440p @ 48 fps setting is simply insane . . . . for all the above reasons (and more) . . . although it might seem like another candidate for Gizmodo’s rather lazy ‘wonderfully useless’ pigeon hole (after all who has a 1440p TV?) it really should deliver some genuine benefits for film makers.
Lots of people have 2560*1600/1440 monitors, and the majority of GoPro footage is going to be watched on computers and not televisions. The thing is the Hero 3 doesn’t actually shoot proper 1440p footage at 48fps, it is instead a stupid 1920*1440. Instead you’d have to shoot either of the higher resolutions (2704*1440 or 2704*1528) at 24fps and 25/30fps respectively (no idea why the higher res is also at a higher frame rate) and crop in post, and you also can’t get 2560*1600 footage from either.
It all seems a bit half arsed, all they needed was 720p120, 1080p60, 1440p30, and 1600p30 (dump the useless 4k) and then allow users to select lower frame rates if need.
Hi theran24
Yep, I just checked and you are spot on, GoPro have gone with 1920*1440 / 4:3 (instead of 2560*1440 / 16:9).
That’s a shame.
Still, I stick by what I said in support of 4k, the argument is not simply about where the footage is watched (TV or computer), it’s also about what you can do with 4k footage.
No need for 4k for everyday filming however, you should be able to achieve some great time-lapse shots, especially with a camera that is so easy to mount anywhere.
Or pull 8megapixel frames from 4k video.
I think the most impressive thing that people are missing 120fps at 720p or 30 fps at 2k
Is it worth the price increase? well the hero2 with wifi backpack would be the same price
I came here to rant, but the previous commenters have done all the hard work.
Where does everyone keep getting 15fps from? It’s 12fps, it even says so on the GoPro website. As soon as I read about the Hero 3 I said the 4k is stupid and pointless, as is the fact that it doesn’t shoot in 2560*1600/1440 at 30/24fps with selectable frame rates. The only thing the highest model is good for is 60fps at 1080p and 120fps at 720p.
Cut and pasted from GoPro’s website:
4K Cinema (17:9) 4K (16:9)
12, 12.5, 15 fps
Ultra Wide FOV
Protune Mode
I just had to double check, 12fps is for PAL and 15fps is for NTSC. Because I was on the GB GoPro site is showed 12fps on the home page.
that’s a video of a Nokia, its not the same. also the purpose isnt really to go 4k, its a selling gimmick sure, but the main point is that it pushes all the lower levels up in FPS, so 1080 is 60fps, 720 is 120fps, 480 is 240 fps, that’s where you get your sauce… ill shoot some 4k in 15fps and well see how it comes out… ill have it uploaded by tomorrow on my youtube http://www.youtube.com/daewootech