Dashware for video overlays...

[zossy1]

...is now free!

http://www.dashware.net/dashware-download/

Thanks GoPro

[Roadrunner]

Sweet!! I was just starting to look into this

[MattR]

So what Garmin have had out of the box for their Garmin Virb Elite.....
And also with Google maps or Google earth if you have web access when you are viewing....


And the Virb Elite with a selection of RAM mounts plus memory card is about the same as the latest gopro and a heap easier to use.

[timk]

That dude needs to point his camera straight ahead, that offset is really distracting!

[Dan]

So now those guys are working for GoPro, that's good news since I just got a GoPro last week to replace the crappy old camera I've been using

I'd like to see an easy timestamp integration between the video and data in the GoPro software so you don't need to do any sync, you can just load the data and it renders.

So what Garmin have had out of the box for their Garmin Virb Elite.....
And also with Google maps or Google earth if you have web access when you are viewing....
And the Virb Elite with a selection of RAM mounts plus memory card is about the same as the latest gopro and a heap easier to use.

Not exactly, if you have extra data sources like RPM and throttle position you need to either buy an expensive natively integrated system for your datalogger like a Video VBOX/SmartyCam or use a tool like Dashware to overlay it.

I made my first video using data from my Aim Datalogger a couple of weeks ago including throttle position and RPM. I didn't find the overlay difficult to do, the GoPro was less than half the cost of the AIM SmartyCam setup and I can use the camera for other things.

Also video quality is better on a GoPro, I have the Silver one and it does 2.7k/30 and 1080p/60 versus 1080p/30 maximum on the Garmin.

The Garmin seems like a good thing but there is still a place for data overlay software.

[MattR]

For me the video quality at 1080 is as good as you will ever need, most monitors don't cope with anything else, plus resolution is only a small part of the quality of a camera. In a lot of applications I have used a lower resolution camera because it performed better for the conditions.

The useability of the Garmin for it's primary use, road condition surveys, makes it a far better unit as it is ready to go out of the box, I can get all the overlays I could ever need for the work I do from the editing software that is very easy to use.

The big winner for me is the capability to log GPS data with the video data, I can use this with other specialist software I have, and the fact it syncs with Google maps and anyone can view it with the free software.

In my old job I played with just about every portable camera there was mounted to anything from the outside of a car, inside a car, on boats, hovercrafts, trains, helicopters and ATV's. I worked out one day I have videoed over 50,000km of road and something like 150,000 lane kilometres of road and dríven close to 200,000km of roads for surveys and getting to and from surveys.

I think the GO pro os the VHS in the video wars, in that there are a lot of better cameras out therem but GoPro was the first on the market and smashed everyone else like Contour and RadCam.

[Dan]

^ Sounds like you have your reasons for liking the Garmin, I was just saying that there is a reason for data overlay software if you want more than what the Garmin provides (RPM, Accelerator/Brake pedal position etc..).

No reason not to have the higher resolutions if you can afford it, I got the GoPro 4 Silver as a gift so I'm not going to complain but if I was buying it myself I'd pay the extra $150 or so to get the Black version which does 4k/30 (or the new 4k Sony Action Cam which was launched at CES). You might not need it today but it future proofs your investment and I'm told by a friend who shoots commercials professionally that you get better quality by shooting in higher resolution and then downsampling.

[Trackphotos]

..
I'm told by a friend who shoots commercials professionally that you get better quality by shooting in higher resolution and then downsampling.

To a point that's true. The problem is that if you are trying to squeeze higher resolution out of a sensor the same size, each photo receptor has to be smaller, which means less light hits it. At this point though, I can't see it being a problem. The image quality improvements in the higher rate ones are necessarily sensor improvements, rather image processor ones instead.