GoPro Protune

[Paul Wags]

Here is what it looks like on the car. Not bad considering all the different exposures of light it has to adjust too. Jelly seems to be less too...Well done :-)

Raw files dumped straight into EDIUS, added some adjustments and rendered out this 1920/1080 @12mbps MPEG4 clip.

GoPro Hero 2 ProTune Car Test - YouTube

[Chris Harding]

Thanks quite impressive Paul.

What mode was that shot at???

Also I didn't get an answer from Ian so at 1080 25T what record time you you get with either a 16GB or 32GB card??? The USA cams seem to get double what I get!! On 32GB I get 1hr23mins and 41mins on a 16GB ... are yours much the same? In the USA at 1080 30T they are reporting times like 2nrs 58mins!!

Chris

[Mike Wade]

Hi Chris,

I get 42 mins with an empty 16gb card ready to shoot at 1080 25T, 58 mins for 720 60T. Not good is it ?

With Protune on, the time elapsed counter at the top of the LCD screen is not shown during recording only on playback - which is also a pity.

[Ray Bell]

This is my play on Protunes....
David at Cineform has over the years brought the Cineform platform up from just an intermediary video editing solution to a product that still does the intermediary function but he also over the years added additional capability for color grading.... so when Canon was the big buz word in video many folks attempted to create flatter profiles in an attempt at creating RAW type files from those cameras. that could take color grading correctly... thus the profile tune was added to the GoPro camera..
David pushed the Pro version of Cineform with the ability for color grading and then when GoPro bought out Cineform David became interested in that camera and how to better integrate the output of the camera to his color grading efforts in the Pro Version of Cineform products... so he set out to flatten the output of the camera and to let his cineform platform take over the post production color grades..... a very good example
of this is in this video on how to properly grade a shot....( this is Canon footage, but works exactly the same for the GoPro Protune)

Canon DSLR Footage 10-Bit Color Space Up-conversion Tutorial on Vimeo

If you take the GoPro Protune footage and apply the work flow in that video you will get fantastic results from the Protune " RAW " type of footage. And that was what David had in mind when you put the ProTune GoPro together with the Pro Versions of Cineform... and it works perfectly...

[Gordon Hoffman]

Well I just updated my two GoPos and it says 58 min for 720 60T and 1hr 28min for 1080 30T on a 16GB card. Using 720p60 I was getting about 2 hours using around 11-12 GB before so that seems about what it should be.
Have you guys in pal land tried recording to see what you really get on a full card ?

Gordon

[Tim Polster]

Does one have to pass the ProTune footage through Cineform software or can you put the ProTune footage directly in an NLE?

[Ray Bell]

You can put the Protune footage native in the NLE, there are advantages to convert to cineform AVI but you don't have to use cineform at all if you don't want it in your work flow...

[Tim Polster]

Thanks for the quick response!

[Dean Sensui]

Originally Posted by Tom Miller

Over all the app is OK but not perfect they need to make a big improvement in the latency issue there's about a 5 second delay. I haven't fully tested pro tune but it seems nice

I upgraded and saw that very long delay, too. I was hoping to use it as a wireless viewfinder but that's not possible.

ProTune makes the image a whole lot better, tho, so the upgrade is worth it. And while I haven't tested it yet, the ability to configure and possibly operate the GoPro through an iPhone looks like a very nice tool.

[Jason Garrett]

Another raw file; yeah, it’s not perfection – this one has some pumpkins and flowers from Whole Foods in it that sort of show some good color examples with the Protune before any post processing.

GoPro Hero 2 Protune First Tests on Vimeo

[Raymond Schlogel]

Just wondering if since the update anyone else has tried bringing the raw footage straight to their NLE without converting? Before the update I had no issues, files played back great in VLC Media Player and in Sony Vegas, after the update shooting 24p with ProTune enabled raw files are pretty much un-viewable in both. After converting I have no issues but obviously would prefer not to have to take that extra step.

- Ray

[Abe Kislevitz]

Just a note about Protune -

Protune is simply a mode in the camera that bypasses all of the in-camera settings that are added to the file to make it look pleasing to the 'consumer' out of the box. The other big addition it gives is the high bit-rate. This you'll only see an advantage in complex scenes or high motion. No it won't make a static shot look better necessarily (unless you're keen to less sharpening), it also won't do anything to rolling shutter - that's a product of the CMOS frame speed and vibration.

Why is it noisier? In-camera noise reduction is turned off, also the shadows are brought up to give more detail incase the user wants it..in standard color curves in the camera, lows are crushed to black so you never see the noise.

All that said, for the pro trying to utilize the camera in a PRO workflow, it will do heaps in matching to the other cameras being used.

Biggest uses I've seen are mountain bike, snow, and surf - all of which are complex scenes with high motion, high highlights, and dark low lights.

[Peter Riding]

Raymond, I have tried Protune footage in Vegas 12 and in VLC and it has been fine. Can your editing machine deal with other demanding formats without transcoding?

Vegas 12 does of course now have the facility to create proxies so that could be the way forward for you.

I'm still actually editing in Vegas 11 rather than 12 as I have unresolved issues with how 12 deals with some pan and crop presets I fcreated for use with still image slideshows - which I do a lot.

Pete

[Raymond Schlogel]

Yea Pete, I don't have any problems with any straight out of the camera footage from Sony F3, any of the Canon DSLR's, or 4k raw Red files without the need for proxies. Not sure what it could be about my system that it isn't liking about the new format, as I said it's not just in Vegas but VLC as well which has no problem with pre-firmware update GoPro footage at all.

- Ray

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Mike

That's roughly the record time I get as well. I still am mystified that the guys in the USA seem to get 1hr 28mins on a 16GB card in 1080 30T mode (so that's with Protune on?) and in 1080 25T here in PAL land we only get 41 or 42 minutes

Anyone else with a camera in PAL getting a longer record time like the USA cameras??

Chris