Saturday, August 16, 2014

Go Pro Studio...Take One & Two

Usual loop, nothing new.  Phantom Road to Doumont Road via Kidney Lake...

Impressed as I am by Andy's time lapse video's via iPod App, I decided to produce a time-lapse video by stitching regular video (MP4) together and then speeding it up...  I am using a Coleman Conquest helmet cam which has the option of shooting in MP4 in HD 1080P @ 30fps and shooting continuously while saving files in 1 minute segments which fit together seamlessly when played back (it's called car mode). The advantage of this is that the files can be uploaded or edited quickly if you wish to cherry pick segments from them rather than sorting through one huge file (which you can do if you are glutton for punishment).  

So I downloaded Freemake Video and stitched 38 one minute MP4 files together, but stupidly checked the "transition" setting so they fade into each other.  I then further complicated things by downloading Go Pro Studio (Free & no malware) to take that single file and speed it up to 6 times speed.  So in all this file was converted from MP4, to as GSV file (a go pro tag), an AVI and then back to an MP4...  This may have impacted quality, so, for my second attempt, I did the same project again in Go Pro Studio only, to see if the quality is improved with as few conversions as possible.  

In Go Pro Studio you can select how many times you want to speed the video up from double speed to hundreds of times...I chose 6.  So I'm not sure how a 38 minute video was shrunk to 5m30...that's more like 7 or more times...  But it's free, and as me old (Step) dad used to say, "You get what you pay for..."

Attempt Two: Ok this was fun.  Go Pro Studio allows you to incorporate slow motion into the vid, controlling it via percentage (100% being normal speed), so I have incorporated a couple of sections of 50% and one of 25%.  Given this is a free program, I am very impressed with the flexibility and quality of the resulting product.  The downside is that it does take a long time to process the video - my 38 minute video compressed to a 7 minute video in about half an hour... 

To improve the quality, maximize the video, click settings and choose HD. Pretty darn good!  Oh, and there's a secret message at the end, but don't tell Andy.  Oh, and apologies for the music, but it is better than Andy's :)...Again - it was free...






The track for this ride can be found HERE.

[Edit, Aug 21st, Andy]
For a comparison, here's the same ride filmed in time lapse at 4x speed using an iPod and the app "TimeLapse."  The last minute is unedited.  Sorry--yes, too lazy to edit it properly. 
   

  

8 comments:

  1. Whoooooooahh!!! That was freakin' great! Music suited it too. You've totally trumped my timelapse vids... especially the crap one I'm about to post showing another disappointing app production. Nice job! Your on blog timelapse duty from now on!

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  2. I don't know about trumping yours, but the GoProStudio software allows you to slow some frames down in the middle of the vid....next one has slow mo...soooon....

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  3. Was that the miserable b.. you were telling me about at the gate?

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    1. Yes, he had a black dog, grey beard, walking stick, side kick and attitude, until I mentioned that he was also trespassing. Miserable is right.

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  4. Great video Paul. Any chance of getting the GPX track for the ride?

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    1. Thanks, Francis. It's uploaded now - do it before it rains...the last few clicks can be messy on a bigger bike in the wet.

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  5. OK, Sludgepump - like your TL Vid better only because you show the original Tank Traps are back AND it ends in Monty Pithonesque Golf scene. How the heck? Bizarre. All you need is a killer rabbit (hang on try the Black Bear Pub)....

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