25. November 2017: GoPro Fusion – first impressions (and secret facts!)…

Gopro Fusion

Four days ago I got the brandnew preordered GoPro Fusion.
Because I wanted to buy storage cards, I wrote to the GoPro support to get informations about the recording-time per gigabyte. – But the support wrote: we have no informations about this. – OK???

 

Recording time

So the Fusion arrived and I did some basic tests.
Listen, GoPro: take one of your new cameras, put two micro-sd-cards into it and watch the display:

  • 2 x 64GB, 5,2k/25fps [PAL], Protune Off: 2h 30min
  • 2 x 64GB, 5,2k/25fps [PAL], Protune on: 1h 57min (interesting!)

Protune … by the way: there is NO possibility to set the white balance manually … hm … So it’s an automatic all the time ? Gopro, pease add the feature to set the light colour in Kelvin. Should be no problem, right?

The battery will last round about 70min. I did a concert with it – 47min – no problems, no overheating. It’s possible to power the camera battryless via USB-C. – Probably the best solution for long stationary sessions because the battery will not suffer from the  heat. – I will check that soon.

Software

At this moment the GoPro-app for Android does not support the Fusion. On an Ipad there was an update which should recognize the Fusion … – the camera appeared in the listing, but the connection failed. Maybe you need OS11, but this does not work with my Ipad 4 …

So for me the one and only solution me was the Gopro Fusion Software (Win10) – and this does work. The PC recognized the Fusion – you will get two seperate drives – but I was not able to copy the data directly by drag-’n-drop. Via the Fusion software you can choose the files and convert („render“)  them to a directory of your choice in two different flavours (5,2k): cineform or prores422.

One minute original material needs ca. 2 x 325MB of space onto the cards – the rendering to cineform (default) generates a final file of ca. 3,22GB. The same file as Prores422: 4,9GB.

The camera has to get connected due the rendering, otherwise the software stops the rendering (?). Maybe this could be fixed, GoPro.

My first real-world-test – a performance a few days ago with a length of 47min:
First rendering – to cineform-codec – did cause a system-crash. CPU was at 100% all the time – OK – but memory also … 100% usage of 64GB and the Gopro-software was just listed with 13GB. Maybe a memory-leak … – ended with blue screen …

Second attempt did work. Remember: the final file will get very large. The software first merges the 3GB-parts of each camera to one single file and the resulting two files (front and back) will stitched together.

Fortunately the software allows to set in- and  out-point, so you do not have to render whole shots and you are able to take small parts or cut off the beginning (in my case  I had to start the camera before the beginning of the performance). This could save precious disk-space.

Rendering … Processor & GPU …

I noticed very huge differencies depending on te machine you are using to do the rendering:
My notebook – Gigabyte Aero X15 (i7-7700HQ / GTX1070) – needs for a one-minute-file approx. 40min!! – The same file on my desktop-PC was processed in approx. 4min!!! On the notebook the CPU-load was just around 20-30% – GPU: zero%, the PC used approx. 90% plus 40-90% of the GPU.

The result is really good – well stitched – and the plug-ins for reframing in Premiere Pro/After Effects do work well, also with the notebook. Rendering to HD is fast.

(First) conclusion

The Fusion is a revolutionary camera which will have a noticable impact in the media-business as the original GoPro did years before. Now there is need for working apps to have more control on location.

8. November 2017 – Portrait mit Wort: Christof Wackernagel

Jetzt könnte man ja mit Recht sagen: die RAF-Geschichte ist nun schon was her und außerdem hat er sich vor ewigen Zeiten deutlich davon distanziert, aber für mich ist das ein Stück Zeitgeschichte und es war zugegebenermaßen der ausschlaggebende Grund, um ein Wort zu bitten. – Umso überraschender kam es dann aber auch …  – Aber hier kann ja jeder machen, was er will. Ein Hauptwort soll es zwar schon sein, aber was will man machen, wenn jemand mit viel Leidenschaft dieses „Wort“ zu Schiefer bringt. – Meine Kinder würden es verstehen, sagte er auf Nachfrage bezüglich des Inhalts …

Portrait mit Wort: Christof Wackernagel – (eigene?) Hieroglyphen