GoPro HD Hero Winter Holiday Video Test

The GoPro HD Hero has been around for a few years now and has been used by amateurs and professional TV crews to grab fantastic wide-angle HD shots which weren’t possible before with larger HD quality cameras.

GoPro HD Hero shown with all the accessories we had at our disposal.

We were excited to get our hands on a GoPro HD Hero and see what the little camera can do. We used the camera during a 5 day winter break in France and it performed without any major issues.

We used the GoPro HD Hero to film our group of skiers and snowboarders. You can see how well the HD Hero adapts to outside light conditions, but really struggles indoors and in low light situations. Due to the compact size of the camera and the array of clamps included we were able to get an array of different angles by sticking the camera on helmets, boards and anything else we can find near by!

The odd reset was required after a hard knock, but overall the waterproof housing worked great. It allows you to operate all the functions of the camera even with bulky gloves, just be careful not to mess up the lens cover. A red flashing LED lets you know that the camera is recording and can be visible from a distance,  though the camera person  wasn’t able to see it if the camera is mounted on the helmet.

We put this little test together in the evenings when we had a chance to put our feet up and recover. The battery on the HD Hero can last up to around 4 hour even in the cold temperatures and recharging is done via USB, so it’s a perfect time to grab the footage, clear the memory cards and get set for the following day!

The .H264 codec used by the GoPro allows for very easy and quick cutting and arranging of the footage, however more complex editing would require the conversion of the footage to Apple ProRes in order to avoid having to re-render each time to make a change. We suggest you cut up your footage first before converting it to ProRes, unless you happen to have endless amounts of disk space!