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Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

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Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#141

Post by skippyfish »

crote wrote: post #137
skippyfish wrote: post #128

I slept on GoPro for a long time because, but then wanted to document some outdoor activities. I went with two Hero 5 units and as a photographer, I was shocked by how overhyped these devices seemed to be. The first surprise was just shoddy electrical engineering: unlike any camera from a big-name manufacturer, they drain the batteries in storage, to the point where they're dead after 2-3 weeks. But that aside, image…

The GoPro has always been explicitly marketed as an action camera - to the point that people for a long time called any action camera "a GoPro". Comparing them to smartphones or mirrorless cameras is completely missing their point: nobody would buy them for regular point-and-shoot activity. You buy a GoPro to mount onto a dirt bike, or on your helmet during caving, or on a chest harness during a skydive, or on the fr…

No, that's precisely my point. It's only an action camera, and you assert that the market is massive, but I don't see it. Just how many millions of units can you sell to YouTuber spelunkers, YouTuber mountain bikers, YouTuber paragliders, YouTuber divers, and so on?

The reality is that even in "action" situations - the situations where normal people want to capture memories of hiking, biking, boating, etc - normal cameras, including cell phones, are usually more than enough and GoPro somehow managers to be worse.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#142

Post by abalashov »

As a cyclist (and former racer), I still want to know how to capture videos with telemetry overlays (speed, power, HR, etc) from my head unit in a straightforward way. NorCal Cycling's videos - https://www.youtube.com/@NorCalCycling - are an excellent demonstration of this at work.

Yes, I've done the Garmin VIRB Edit thing, which is the very approach recommended by Jeff (NorCalCycling) in his tutorial videos on the subject. It feels like something out of 2005. It is incredibly labour-intensive and imprecise unless you're fortunate enough to be in relatively short criteriums where you've got the battery runtime to just record the whole race. Most real-world events and rides require one to turn the camera on and off at certain moments, which then requires _hours_ of stitching together clips and correlating them to GPS fixes from the head unit (in the FIT file), and quite imprecisely at that.

There has to be a more 2026 solution to this. All you need to do is correlate the footage to the FIT data points by timestamp, in the temporal domain.

If Garmin came out with one, it would absolutely annihilate this space. To the best of my knowledge, there is no competition that offers anything turn-key, though perhaps the best of my knowledge has not aged well and by now there is something. It's maddening.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#143

Post by jitl »

crote wrote: post #137
skippyfish wrote: post #128

I slept on GoPro for a long time because, but then wanted to document some outdoor activities. I went with two Hero 5 units and as a photographer, I was shocked by how overhyped these devices seemed to be. The first surprise was just shoddy electrical engineering: unlike any camera from a big-name manufacturer, they drain the batteries in storage, to the point where they're dead after 2-3 weeks. But that aside, image…

The GoPro has always been explicitly marketed as an action camera - to the point that people for a long time called any action camera "a GoPro". Comparing them to smartphones or mirrorless cameras is completely missing their point: nobody would buy them for regular point-and-shoot activity. You buy a GoPro to mount onto a dirt bike, or on your helmet during caving, or on a chest harness during a skydive, or on the fr…

it’s very much like iRobot vacuums - more expensive and less performant than the chinese competitors that have totally overtaken the market. iRobot sad story, but so behind. i have a chinese robot from 3i that fills its mop water tank from humidity in the air. and my action camera is an Insta360 that does great 360 video underwater without a case.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#144

Post by jitl »

skippyfish wrote: post #141
crote wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GoPro has always been explicitly marketed as an action camera - to the point that people for a long time called any action camera "a GoPro". Comparing them to smartphones or mirrorless cameras is completely missing their point: nobody would buy them for regular point-and-shoot activity. You buy a GoPro to mount onto a dirt bike, or on your helmet during caving, or on a chest harness during a skydive, or on the fr…

No, that's precisely my point. It's only an action camera, and you assert that the market is massive, but I don't see it. Just how many millions of units can you sell to YouTuber spelunkers, YouTuber mountain bikers, YouTuber paragliders, YouTuber divers, and so on? The reality is that even in "action" situations - the situations where normal people want to capture memories of hiking, biking, boating, etc - normal ca…

plenty of companies seem to live just fine off selling scuba gear to divers

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#145

Post by gchamonlive »

altcognito wrote: post #102
sgc wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am American who has lived in many countries around the world, and I think this is distinctly wrong and the source of many problems in the US. It would be more correct to say that the average American values outward displays of nationalism more, and has a more negative perception of those who do not appreciate or want to participate in those displays than people in most other countries. And yes, they conflate this w…

Leadership in European countries is so routinely in conflict with their people who understand the inalienable rights of the people so well. I wonder where that comes from. You're not wrong that the American public is largely out of touch with the fundamentals of a free society.

> Leadership in European countries is so routinely in conflict with their people

> I wonder where that comes from.

> Leadership

Democracy is great but that elected leaders seek reelection at the expense of the common folk isn't something new, those in power will naturally seek more power.

The problem is that Americans look at vulnerable people and billionaires like they individually deserved their fate. The cult of merit.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#146

Post by shepherdjerred »

abalashov wrote: post #142

As a cyclist (and former racer), I still want to know how to capture videos with telemetry overlays (speed, power, HR, etc) from my head unit in a straightforward way. NorCal Cycling's videos - https://www.youtube.com/@NorCalCycling - are an excellent demonstration of this at work. Yes, I've done the Garmin VIRB Edit thing, which is the very approach recommended by Jeff (NorCalCycling) in his tutorial videos on the s…

Am I wrong in thinking you could do this with ffmpeg, your video files, and your data from Strava/Garmin/whatever? This feels like a program an LLM (or human!) could write pretty easily

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#147

Post by dismalaf »

xorcist wrote: post #139
Robotbeat wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GoPro is a US company designed in U.S. with manufacturing in Thailand, China, and Mexico. Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too. People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place. A similar pattern happened with drones with DJI, intentionally killing all non-Chinese dro…

> the only good non-Chinese printer that doesn’t cost 10-100x as much is Prusa They hardly have time to compete, busy as they are with foot-shooting practice.

Dunno, Prusa seems to have mostly forgotten about consumers as their industrial business is booming.

Stuff like this: https://sensofusion.com/dronefactory/

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#148

Post by TheArcane »

Robotbeat wrote: post #89
sen wrote: post #13

I’ve owned a lot of Gopro cameras, having done video capture for a variety of motorsports, and they just got too expensive for what you get. You can be more expensive if you’re better, or you can be worse if you’re cheaper, but they’re both the downsides while living purely off brand recognition. They also blew up in a time where there wasn’t any real competition. Sony had action cameras but they were bulkier and exp…

GoPro is a US company designed in U.S. with manufacturing in Thailand, China, and Mexico. Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too. People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place. A similar pattern happened with drones with DJI, intentionally killing all non-Chinese dro…

boo hoo china bad, buy my more expensive and shitty american product

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#149

Post by abalashov »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #146
abalashov wrote: post #142

As a cyclist (and former racer), I still want to know how to capture videos with telemetry overlays (speed, power, HR, etc) from my head unit in a straightforward way. NorCal Cycling's videos - https://www.youtube.com/@NorCalCycling - are an excellent demonstration of this at work. Yes, I've done the Garmin VIRB Edit thing, which is the very approach recommended by Jeff (NorCalCycling) in his tutorial videos on the s…

Am I wrong in thinking you could do this with ffmpeg, your video files, and your data from Strava/Garmin/whatever? This feels like a program an LLM (or human!) could write pretty easily

You would think it would be that straightforward. However, accurate synchronisation on GPS or temporal attributes would be required.

Judging by the paucity of software to do this, historically, it is not a straightforward problem, or all the devices involved don't generate all the data points required.

The real mess is when you have 26 clips from a long event to string together. It can easily take a day and a half to make a 3 minute montage out of that.

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