My understanding is that they have difficulty with customer retention. Many people are drawn in by the amazing videos on youtube only to find
1) Video editing is tedious and often greatly underestimated.
2) Their product usability is wanting. I have both a v1 and v2, I still have to read the manual to figure out what the different modes are.
3) Battery life has been disappointing and I understand the v3 has issues too.
I've heard first hand evidence from insiders that loyal customer retention is a big challenge. Growing out of the niche they're in is hard to envisage.
I think the biggest killer for me has been battery life.
Video editing isn't that bad if you know what you're doing or willing to put in time to learn.
There aren't that many different modes, you can pick most of it up in 15 minutes of looking at the manual (which is probably worth doing with anything you're spending $300+ for.
The battery life though - it's a bummer to be out in the middle of nowhere & expecting to capture some awesome footage to come home & realize that your camera crapped out halfway through.
- Turn off WiFi. This drains battery faster than just having the camera record everything.
- Take only "snippets". This makes editing easier later anyways, since it's usually more convenient to browse through smaller files than through one big long video over an hour. I try to keep every snippet < 1 minute. Most of the time, only 3-5 seconds of one snippet end up in my final video to give it a fast pace anyways.
- Keep a spare battery pack.
But I have to admit that this won't help you a lot, if you're in difficult situations where you can't easily change batteries (under water for long periods of time, climbing somewhere, flying, driving).
I've been thinking about buy one - do you mind giving some details about approximately how long I can expect the battery to last in each of your scenarios above? Thanks.
1:30 seems to be about right, could be less though. I have a GoPro 3 Black Edition and a second battery back. Recently I went snowboarding, took about 2-3 hours of video footage in total (as mentioned above in 150 small files) and cut everything down to a 2 minute video.
So, part of "extending" battery life is knowing when it makes sense to record a scene and when not.
I can still fully recommend the GoPro. It's a fun camera and what I like in particular is that you can point it directly into the sun and still see everything. It has an excellent white balance for amateur video makers like myself.
Pyle HD PSCHD60WT: 2:54 (Marketed: “More than 2 hours”)
My Hero3 Black lasts well under an hour with WiFi enabled. I believe the Hero3+ is better - they claim 30% better because of software optimisation and a bigger battery.
I don't find recoding resolution makes a big difference.
Oh yeah turn off wifi. I have a Drift Innovation Ghost, and have the on board screen. I get about 4 hour of full time recording out of mine. My older Drift HD used to last about 8 hours of recording, which was enough for a full day motorbiking. Now I carry a spare battery and swap out at lunch time.
"Video editing isn't that bad if you know what you're doing or willing to put in time to learn."
You're thinking like a developer (o; End users see the cool videos and don't see the learning curve needed to produce slick videos. As soon as they're hit with that curve they realise it's not that simple. iMovie goes a long way but it's often a very foreign ui/workflow.
"There aren't that many different modes" not there are not, but the UI on v1 & v2 camera is simply confusing. Trust me.
The new(ish) version of the free GoPro Mac/Windows editing software is pretty decent[1]. It has templates & music and transitions, and my 7 year old made some pretty decent videos.
I agree the whole process needs improvement though.
1) Video editing is tedious and often greatly underestimated.
2) Their product usability is wanting. I have both a v1 and v2, I still have to read the manual to figure out what the different modes are.
3) Battery life has been disappointing and I understand the v3 has issues too.
I've heard first hand evidence from insiders that loyal customer retention is a big challenge. Growing out of the niche they're in is hard to envisage.