GoPro drives me nuts. I bought one of their (second or third gen) cameras in ~2012 that had a firmware limited number of photos I could take with it.
One of my goals was to do a bunch of time-lapse shots, taking photos every few seconds and then making a video out of them. They marketed this feature (take a photo every X seconds) quite a bit, so it was definitely a selling point to me.
I discovered the bug a few weeks after owning it, right before a big vacation I was hoping to record. It would take about 8 or 9 photos and then lock up. I couldn't turn it off or stop its capture. When I plugged it into my computer, I saw that there were hundreds of empty folders. I tried power cycling it by taking the battery out and putting it back in. I also wiped out the memory card both via the computer, as well as selecting the 'delete all' option on-camera, all to no effect. I emailed them, and their response was:
> Hi, Do you take many time lapse pictures? What may have happened, is you may have encountered a known issue with our current firmware, in which the camera is no longer able to save files after it has taken 9999 images. Could you please let me know what the name of the last successfully captured image was? If this is the case, we would need you to send in your camera, and would reflash your firmware to fix the issue.
So I had to shell out $20 in shipping and mail my (brand new) camera across the country for it to be reset. I wasn't able to record the trip I took. Still irks me today that they were selling cameras with a known, software-limited, number of shots you could take with them before they had to be sent back.
If their QA department took a photo every 1 second (as their product was advertised to be capable of) it would take 2.78 hours for them to discover this bug.
I'm shocked that they required you to pay for shipping. That takes some serious lack of customer service to do that without blinking, particularly for a firmware bug.
I have no use for actions cams and am not an expert in any way, but the quality of that $20 camera looks amazing, in some scenes it actually looks sharper and better than the GoPro that costs 5x as much.
I used it primarily as a travel & underwater cam. The software is pretty terrible out of the box, and I ended up having a decent # of pictures that were either never saved or "lost" from the memory card. (The card was fairly old - so this could have been an issue with the card...) Also the camera stopped working completely (as in wouldn't take any pictures, and wouldn't turn off without taking the battery out) after about two months of use.
Given it was $50, and the shots I was able to pull off the memory card were great, I am not too upset. However, caveat emptor.
Unfortunately, in that preview, the (interlaced) GoPro footage has been incorrectly processed. If you pause the video at any point, you'll see the double-imaging in the GoPro footage - an immediate sign of incorrect processing that isn't the fault of the videocamera.
This happened because the GoPro probably records interlaced footage, which didn't get properly deinterlaced by the video-creator's software. Basically, the GoPro didn't get a fair trial.
That said, the SJ4000 footage has a decent quality, and I'm all for capable competition.
Bear in mind that there are a lot of counterfeit SJ4000s out there of varying quality, some of which are sold using photos of the genuine article. At that price I wouldn't be surprised if it's a fake.
The funny thing is, I own a Hero 4 Session. You're supposed to be able to continuously record and have it loop every X amount of time. Well there is a bug and it doesn't even work. This is the NEWEST version too!
Got one for Christmas... and I'm having multiple firmware issues. I mounted it on my MTB (the price of the accessories is insane !), started recording (1080p, Superview, 48 fps), after a little over 30 minutes the thing freezes. I have to hold the power button for several second for it to reboot. I can then start recording again. Of course the first 30'ish minutes are missing from the SD card. Same thing happened now two times out of two rides :-|
Don't worry. I have a newer GoPro and I truly love it. It's taken some of my favorite pictures, including my engagement picture :) Great wide angle lens and the integration with the phone app is really nice.
Me and my mates are big users of GoPro cameras. We use them for spearfishing, kitesurfing, surfing and filming our kids at the beach.
GoPro seem to be going towards smaller cameras (good) higher res (who cares - the camera lens is crap and fogs and is covered in water drops 90% of the time) and drones (who cares)
What we want is more data overlaid on the video or perhaps stored along with the video stream. Things like, depth, altitude, speed, G-force, GPS. From a random user.
[edit] I guess you guys may not be aware of Woo and Xensor which are gadgets you clip to your kiteboard, these measure GPS, jump height, speed etc. These are not sync'd to the video (they are different gadgets) but someone needs to make this work somehow. Not sure how they measure jump height in amongst the waves... it's all pretty neat.
If I'm reading you right, that's kind of exactly what Garmin's action camera Virb does. I got one for my dad to use mountain biking and it syncs up the video with the gps location, the speed he's traveling, etc. Those stats can be overlaid onto the video, it's kinda the angle that they're taking while trying to get into the action camera market. Not sure if it's exactly the thing that you were looking for, but it sounded close enough.
I truly wish I'd bought the Garmin instead of a GoPro (explains why I haven't touched GPRO since it IPO'ed). First, yes, the on-screen telemetry is a great feature, and it differentiates Garmin's product. The Garmin will attached to GoPro mounts. But no, at my wife's recommendation we bought a GoPro. It made sense, buy what's popular not because it's the best but because of the overused word "ecosystem" (see: iPod/iPhone).
The usability really needs work. The thing bellies up to the bar and just chews through batteries. On a motorcycle trip to Alaska I would have thrown the thing in a river had it not been for the fact that the fish don't need any more heavy metals to swim. For about the half-dozenth time that trip I missed nice video because it's impossible to know what state the camera is in without getting off the bike and looking at it. Sure, there's a light on the front of the camera, which is great when your subject wants to know that it's recording. However, the mountain goats were not very good at letting me know whether or not it was recording.
Most of all, there are no outstanding features that would make me buy a GoPro other than it's popular. Which is why I don't buy their stock (though I set a price alert, and then forgot to short it). As already pointed out elsewhere, there are other cameras that are probably equally good for considerably less money. I'll keep the one I got, it mostly does what I bought it for. But I'd never buy another one, nor recommend it to others.
Anyway, it looks like I kind of hijacked your reply; sorry. I'll reiterate: I wish I had purchased your company's product instead. :-)
I used to own a Garmin dashcam and even though I really enjoyed the lat/lng overlay on the screen, I think what would be even better (especially for actioncams) is to have a little map on the right upper corner of the feed like the "picture-in-picture" feature in some TVs. The map would obviously need to be downloaded onto the device beforehand but that really shouldn't be a problem.
If you're talking about for video, VIRBedit can sort of do this. I loaded a GPX file into a mountain biking video, with a little red dot showing where I was. I am sure a map is just as easy.
Yeah, I made a full convert with that one! He had a GoPro, but I thought he'd like the data overlay feature and I was right there. He likes to compete with his old rides and this makes it a lot easier to compare the rides as well as add some theatrical effect.
The Mobius ActionCam is even cheaper than the Xiaomi, and it's true that can only do 1080p30, but the very low price and the extremely small size (matchbox) make it perfect to carry around all the time on a keychain, or install it on a small drone without much lift capability.
I have both these cameras. I made a helmet mount for the Xiaomi and I carry it sometimes when riding my motorcycle. The Mobius recently went up on a model rocket and captured a PoV of the whole flight.
The Xiaomi Yi also has some community and collections of simple startup scripts to modify the camera's capabilities simply by placing a file on the MicroSD card. For example: shooting 1600x1200(4:3) video, or adjusting noise reduction etc..
Thanks. I bought a GoPro as a gift a year or so back, and thought about buying one for myself at the same time. I didn't, but I'm seriously considering a Xiaomi Yi after seeing these links. In China, it costs 61 USD.
Oh, wow, thanks for the links. I tried the denoise reduction hack. It turns out the camera performs massive amounts of denoise - and of course the result is that the image is a bit softer than it should be.
I turned denoise down to 1024, and the image is quite a bit sharper; that's great! There's a bit of noise visible now in low light (whereas before it was squeaky-clean), but it's comparable to my handheld camcorder, which is okay. I think they just made the decision that they don't want to show any noise, no matter what, and that impacted image sharpness out of the box.
I can't wait to test it under normal daylight. Also, the focus to infinity hack - since the camera appears to be optimally focused on a closer range.
Motorcyclist here. I have a Drift Stealth 2 [1] and have it mounted on the side of my helmet. I like it because the form factor is just so good. All the GoPro mounts I've seen seem to stick out from the side of your head awkwardly and look like some kind of antenna. You can get it here [2] with a 10% discount if you use the code VLOGHIM.
Ditto with a Drift HD Ghost, although the Contour cameras seem like they have an even better form factor. I like the fact that the Drift is waterproof out of the box too, no case needed.
Techmoan has extremely detailed action camera reviews, with raw sample footage, and often takes them out for a ride (weather permitting, he's in the UK after all!).
http://www.techmoan.com/blog/category/action-cameras
Please be careful with helmet mounts. There have been some serious injuries attributed (maybe incorrectly!) to rigid mounts transferring energy in ways helmets aren't designed for.
A both of those still don't have the image quality a higher end GoPro does. They're close and a lot of people won't care - but a lot of people also do.
Yeah, I have a Yi and for the price, I think it's great. I'd like better quality but I'm not sure paying the extra $300 is worth a maybe 30% increase in quality.
I don't have a GoPro. I've looked at comparisons online. The Xiaomi is not visibly "softer" than the GoPro, AFAICT. Its low light performance is not great, but again, I don't know how the GoPro performs in low light. In any case, at $90 online, it's okay if it's a little below the GoPro in terms of performance.
The Mobius ActionCam is surprisingly sharp for its price and size. But it's only 30fps and therefore quite choppy. Also has a bit of rolling shutter. Here it is riding an RC car and a model rocket. I'd say it's good enough for that sort of thing.
Exactly. I lost my GoPro Hero Black v3 rappelling down a canyon[1] in Bali, later borrowed a friend's v4 because I was considering replacing it.
The display was fancier but less functional, when I was handling the camera and pressing buttons it would dark out momentarily unlike v3, it had better specs but all stuff that doesn't matter anyway for the reasons you mention.
Sad to see that every great product like this seems to inevitably succumb to death by product management by piling feature on top of feature, instead of just doubling down on what makes it a great product in the first place.
1. Hit the plastic casing at exactly the wrong spot against a rock wall so it popped open and the camera flew into the river below
I feel like this would be a worthwhile pursuit, but it would be better as software than hardware.
If this were to be a hardware pursuit, you'd have to buy a bunch of sensors, all which have a price tag and their own limitations and issues. This might bring in $$, but also cause a lot of frustration that users would not find intriguing. Or, the sensors could be in the camera which would cause even more problems with power, heat, etc and the price tag.
Software, which can read data from a variety of sources such as GoPro, GPS, thermometer, whatever, and then integrate it all into a video timeline would be more practical. Then let the user overlay data onto the video using a variety of free and paid visual effects and templates.
GoPro should be working on a competitor to VIRBedit for this purpose. VIRBedit is great and doesn't require a Garmin VIRB cam etc. There is also http://www.traceup.com/ for snowboarding and surfing.
GoPro really missed an opportunity here, but it may not be too late.
(electronics dev here) My solution to this would be a small sensor box with a small LCD screen that shows a timecode. Show it to the camera at any time during recording for at least one timecode change and you have a synchronization point.
People have mentioned the Garmin Virb being able to do this, and I have to mention that their software [1] is great and easily useable with any video file. I've used it to sync up my bike rides recorded with a Go Pro to my .gpx file and show speed, map etc.
You just have to manually sync the start of the file with a start point in the video, which is easy enough.
The GoPro software is horrendous in comparison as I could not even import my video files (one of 4,5 gb and another one of around 1,5) with over 25gb free space. Maybe it needed to convert before importing? In any case I just joined up the files with ffmpeg and imported in Virb and off I went, very recommended!
The Action Cams from Sony have built in GPS. After filming, you can add an overlay to your video with the help of their software: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isxo89KqaRc
Good advice; it's good software. Per their site, so good that GoPro actually bought Dashware (or at least the team, not sure of the details of the product).
This was a very smart buy for them, assuming they use the technology and not just the team for some other venture. Their stock price may rebound if they can do this successfully.
- $$ for special effects or special "data widgets"
- have an online video editor that uses the "cloud" (so users are locked into their services and software). Sort of like Dropbox, but for GoPro videos and includes an awesome editor. Charge $$ for membership and/or space.
- $$ for GoPro sensors.
Of course, I hate to have to lock my video into their servers... but that is how they would make $$.
Exactly. They should offer optional plugin hardware with additional sensors for various sports. For example as a scuba diver I would be more likely to buy a GoPro if it could overlay depth, temperature, dive time, and GPS (start and end of dive, obviously not underwater). Motorsports enthusiasts would want an OBD2 interface, etc.
"What we want is more data overlaid on the video or perhaps stored along with the video stream. Things like, depth, altitude, speed, G-force, GPS. From a random user."
Even though you flipped it off, a drone does exactly this ;).
That's just a matter of a better product hiding all that complexity. A few companies have already taken a jab at this (https://www.lily.camera/). No radio or software complexity, and a well packaged chassis.
My apologies if I read your comment wrong, but assuming you're being sarcastic:
It really isn't niche. GoPro's target demographic are people engaging in all sorts of activities. Biking, motocross, hiking, surfing, skating, skydiving, regular diving, racing, waterskiing, and so on.
All of these activities would benefit from some or all of the metrics parent listed.
Anecdotally, I know a couple people who buy a GoPro for a specific adventure. They use it, it's cool, but then it gathers dust for months afterwards. It's not hard to find used ones locally. Or to have a friend who you can borrow from if you know you aren't going to use beyond your own single adventure of the year.
In terms of daily videos, the mobile phone is good enough for most people who want to capture moments.
My comment isn't meant to poo-poo the GoPro because the product definitely fits a niche, rather to say that it wouldn't surprise me to see GoPro hit a certain ceiling with just focusing on portable camcorders.
Even within GoPro's demographic of sports, everyone who wants one probably already has one, more or less. Upgrading is now less of a concern with 4K. I bought one for skydiving and I can't see myself upgrading if they came out with a newer version (even if I use mine for every jump). Everyone pretty much has one or a few GoPros at the dropzone's I've been to, and it's great for that kind of stuff. But if I were to upgrade, I would move to a DSLR for better quality and more control - not another GoPro.
They'd need to considerably improve the quality and features if they want people to continue upgrading.
As a tandem instructor I used GoPros every day (had a glove that would stack 2 - one for video, one for pics). I used the GoPro 2 and specifically did not upgrade when new versions came out. The GoPro 2 was fine, it did the job, and I didn't have to deal with bugs. Also, I hate dealing with MicroSD.
If I were still jumping I'd use a Hero Session because the form factor is much smaller (rather than just slimmer).
Tandem instructors at my dropzone did pretty much the same thing. All stayed on the GoPro 2 or original 3.
I used to jump at Eden North in Canada, but I'm moving to North California so I have to pick a new one :) Gotta love a Cessna Caravan going to 13K in under 9 minutes!
You should definitely check out Byron (Bay Area Skydiving) as well. Between then and Lodi I don't think there's much reason to bother with the the other DZs.
> They use it, it's cool, but then it gathers dust for months afterwards.
Where I contracted last year, this was my experience. The team I was on had a GoPro, and we used it no more than twice in a 9-month period -- and I'm not even sure if the second time actually happened, as I personally only ran the first go-around.
Edit: Downvote me all you want, it's the difference between literally taking a dump on something and figuratively doing so. Words matter. If that offends you, maybe you aren't as open to knowledge as you think.
Also, since I see no reason why grammarist is more trustworthy than wiki, you're not even necessarily right: [from wiki] "A pooh-pooh (also styled as poo-poo)..."
I'm right. Did you look at the wiki reference? It's a book called "Seventeen Versions of Jewishness: 20 Examples" by a comedy/children's writer. More likely that example slipped by the editor.
The report is about GoPro cutting a % of their workforce because lower than expected sales.
I see 3 different kind of comments for this entry:
-A comment about an opinion of a GoPro camera... this reflects on "I would not buy another because".
-A comment about internal politics about the company...
-People stating "I have one" why should I have another?
with that said, most of them are about "I have one" or "I don't see a reason to buy another", the market has got to a point where most of the people who have bought one doesn't see a reason and the company have not provide one.
How is possible that no one on GoPro had done a market investigation prior to set quarter goals? for me this is a failure of estimating sales where there were no sales to be performed.
The real question here is "What is this new feature that would make our users want to buy a new one?" that would reflect on stronger sales?
someone to watch your 4 hours of boring helmetcam video, pick out the coolest 90 seconds worth, edit it into a cool video, and put it to hip music then upload it. That is a feature I would pay for! Gopro is great but the editing process sucks and is totally boring.
Something people often forget is that consumers aren't the only ones buying GoPros. They're used a ton by other businesses. And for businesses they're pretty much considered disposable since they're so much cheaper than an actual video camera.
* I'd want a better camera for photos (I don't know if this is possible, and I bet this is not the principal use case of the gopro, but nonetheless I sometimes take pictures with it (maybe before I had a good smartphone) and it's just bad)
* I'd want a screen on it (I think for the last one you can buy one, but the fact that I'm not sure tells a lot)
* I'd want the interface to be easier to navigate (to setup the time, resolution, fps, etc... it's a pain)
I'm not saying GoPro is doing this, but many companies will list open positions online in order to collect applications to have on hand, even though they aren't hiring.
1. Advertise open positions that aren't really open
2. Collect a bunch of resumes
3. When a position opens up 6 months later, offer it to someone
who hasn't been able to find a job in 6 months...?
More likely it's something to do with hiring quotas -- perhaps they have to show they made an effort to fill a position with a non-H1B worker, or something.
1. Advertise open positions that aren't really open
2. Get a feel of the market and see how many candidates you get and what salary they ask
3. Gain brand awareness because candidates are used to your name
4. Test the effectiveness of your hiring/advertising channels without actually hiring anybody
5. When you actually need to hire somebody you already know what salary people ask, you know what kind of people will find your ad and you focus only on current CVs
Well, or what if you hire in big cycles? Like no hires for 2 months, then you have 30 days to fill 50 seats. If you always have job postings, you could always go back 30 or 60 days and have a bunch of resumes to go after. Makes sense maybe from the HR side (but super annoying from the applicant side).
This kind of recruitment is commonplace, especially in large "always hiring" companies. Its sometimes known as talent pipelines. However in all of the companies I am aware of, it will be made very clear to the candidate that they are applying to a pipeline, not to an actual open position. Doing otherwise would piss off candidates, harm the employer's brand, and likely be counter productive.
Its also common to ask candidates to "register" in order to be informed of future openings. Again though, its made clear that you are not applying for an actual position.
However agencies, particularly smaller ones (as opposed to actual employers), are well known for posting "bait and switch" openings which are not real jobs at all but simply to try and troll for talent.
That makes no sense. GoPro is an actual business, not a dotcom bubble stock. Fucked Company specialized in covering the rapid collapse of dotcoms with no business model.
They've been solidly profitable the last four quarters, and the three years before that - $220 million in net income over that time. They have $500m in cash and zero debt.
How bright is their future? That's a great debate to have. And that's an entirely different question than: are or were they a real business, and will they still be around in a year (obvious answer: yes).
I interviewed at GoPro in mid-September 2015, a hair-sliver before stock trouble began being discussed in the media, the hiring manager mentioned that "they [HR] might take my req away from me".
I took it with a half-dose of "not my fault" when the process fell through when news of this news article started to come out, since this wasn't my first time at interviewing with a company shortly before financial troubles become publicly known.
My understanding is that GoPro sells a small, rugged, waterproof digital camera that can easily be mounted on a bike/surfboard/whatever. It built a strong brand due to its first-mover advantage in the action sports community.
But beyond its brand strength, has there been anything preventing the commoditization of the GoPro product?
You need a certain amount of scale to stay close to the cutting edge (mobile) of imaging - GoPro uses the Ambarella chipsets and Sony sensors - if you want to talk to them directly (as opposed to 3rd parties), or the sensor manufacturers you need a level of scale/cash/backing. Also - in general its a tough market - if you look at the classic camera market their margins aren't great
You would think that, but that doesn't appear to be the case. There are a plethora of GoPro clones available now. I count over 50 distinct brands offered via Amazon Prime and hundreds of models filling the spectrum. The "action camera" has indeed been commoditized and GoPro layoffs are not surprising.
My feeling is they need to come up with something radically new to compete now. No idea what it could be. It'll be interesting to see how this market evolves.
I don't know about fitbit so much. The main advantage to me isn't the hardware, it's that it all uploads smoothly to their website for tracking. If I got a different device I'd have one website for steps, one for weight etc...
I own and iPad 2 and a gopro hero 2. Both are still running great and I still use both regularly so I suppose for the type of person that doesn't need the latest and greatest, it's holding back sales, albeit probably a small percentage.
Well that tells me I know nothing about business. A few weeks ago I was thinking of having my first go at buying shares and thought GoPro could be an interesting company to look in to.
If you didn't look into it yet, it hardly indicates you know nothing about business. Randomly picking companies to examine further is a perfectly reasonable way of trying to find investments (and what stops you following the crowd).
In my OPINION GoPro's problem is that they haven't diversified in any significant way. Here's a list of products GoPro sells: GoPros (and accessories). That's it.
But this area has hardly been standing still. We've seen drone-cameras take off, including the ingenius ones which follow you (e.g. Lily), we've seen those throw-up 360 degree cameras, smaller versions (e.g. Mokacam), and a near constant stream of less expensive generics which do 90% of what a GoPro can do (and can even use GoPro's accessories).
GoPro had a MASSIVE market lead and still does, but they're squandered much of it on reproducing the same product over and over until the market is saturated.
This. How many people get dropped off by a helicopter for skiing or fly around in wing suits? Not enough to support a camera maker. GoPro is marketing a lifestyle, and it's a heavily idealized lifestyle.
Meh, so is Red Bull marketing a lifestyle. But you have to be good at it. A couple years ago it seemed like every pre-teen snowboarder had one on their helmet. They failed to maintain their momentum.
To be fair I don't think any of the cheaper knock-off products come anywhere close to the quality that GoPro produces, both in terms of solidness and image quality?
They're almost all standard CMOS camera sensors, so depending on what you're wanting to do (action images, streaming video, etc.) you should compare on those features.
The built-in waterproofing is a big deal. As is the sturdiness of the case. Doesn't matter if I'm biking, swimming, diving, snowshoeing, I can always have my GoPro with me and I know it will always be available to take a video at a couple seconds' notice.
I can't imagine I'd have the same confidence in a cheaper camera with a waterproof case add-on that I do in my GoPro. Also, the $130 I paid for the entry-level model was a good price.
We've seen drone-cameras take off, including the
ingenius ones which follow you (e.g. Lily)
Literally have not seen Lily take off. It doesn't ship until summer.
GoPro is of course trying to diversify. The question is, what will their selling point be as the marketplace gets crowded? Will brand+distribution be enough?
Haven't used it myself, but the Xiaomi (http://amzn.to/1UPTQNl) is a popular GoPro clone that sells for cheap and has been reviewed surprisingly well. Low light is probably still in the GoPro's favor, but check out some YouTube comparisons -- they're not far off.
IMO, GoPro's biggest issue is usability, and it's an area where they could fight back against cheap knockoffs. GoPro cameras are frustrating to use, and editing hours of footage is not something most people enjoy doing. A commenter above suggested most owners use the GoPro a few times and then forget about it. Usability is, IMO, why.
GoPro had been in trouble for a while. The rumor is they've saturated their niche. They also pushed back the release of the 5 which also hurt sales. And with Sony and others entering the market GoPro will have a tough time. I also think some people are putting too much faith in the stone.
Ooh and their session didn't pan out quite like they expected.
Technology stocks are a terrible sector to look at on the long term because there's so much churn. A company with one product that's saturating the market and/or being bypassed by the competition usually never recovers. All they showed is that they happened on a good product/market fit once and were able to execute, but can they reproduce this with a different product? Even Apple struggles with this now (Apple Watch) and they've had multiple record successes.
Last week, I went to Iguaçu Falls with my kids. I was impressed with the amount of GoPros I saw. Just the elderly tourists didn't have one. Groups of young tourists, everyone in the group had their GoPro in a stick. Now I know it is mainstream. Sport people aren't their public as they are from North Face.
I don't think this really surprises anybody. GoPro management is trying to pivot the company into a media company, which carries completely different stock valuations. It just looks like the decline in hardware sales is happening faster than anticipated.
Basically everyone who wanted one already has one. I have a hero 4, and even though I got it at a 50% discount, it still was too expensive for what it does imo.
I worked at Mivrosoft when Tony Bates - curent GoPro CEO - was Head of the Skype divison there. After the Microsoft aquisition, and Steve Balmer announced stepping down, Satya Nadella, Stephen Elop and Tony Bates were the front runners for the Microsoft CEO seat.
When it turned out Satya got the CEO seat, rumours of Tony joining GoPro immediately surfaced - and turned out to be true.
I am pretty sure GoPro execs were hoping Tony Bates would make GoPro the mainstream success that Skype was. He did... except Skype was never profitable - but it was also not publicly traded, so this wasn't apparent, and never really an issue.
I do wonder if GoPro would have done better to appoint any other CEO, but personally I never even noticed any change of direction before or after Tony Bates being the CEO, despite the massive hiring spree that followed. Mind you, the same happened at Skype after the Microsoft aquisition - except Microsoft easily footed the bill.
In the light of things I do think GoPro did make the mistake of hiring an overly ambitious CEO, who hired too fast and too soon, without the financial results following.
Interesting, thanks. I knew a couple of recent GoPro hires, both good people, very capable. I wonder how the restructuring is going to hit the technical side of the house there.
We bought 6 Hero Pro 4 Black and a Freedom mount. Multiple issues with latest firmware, misleading advertisement info
a. Cameras freeze when are switched on and plugged in USB f PC. Have to remove battery to unfreeze them.
b. Not able to explicitly sync time on cameras with Studio
c. Not open in providing lens specs (it was proprietary information what kind of fisheye distortion happens), no focal length, no sensor size, nothing
d. UDP streaming is proprietary
e. Whatever you do, you need the Go Pro app, not possible to control from PC, no documentation
f. Not developer friendly (no REST API for developers)
g. Camera acts as a Wi-Fi router, you cannot put multiple of them in the same network as your PC.
h. Unintuitive UI in camera, too many clicks to achieve your goal.
i. For streaming, they forgot to tell you that you need a Micro-HDMI to HDMI adapter and a USB frame grabber, hidden extra costs.
Gopro was pretty much the first "reasonable" price 4k camera on the market. I've often wondered why they didn't move up market into the nikon/canon space starting with the small mirrorless replaceable lenses format. That space has been ripe for disruption for at least a decade.
bought one of the new session cameras to put on the bike for rear-view capture of douchebag drivers. it flat out did not work. tried several approved microsd cards, etc, etc..
big disappointment as I really need a decent solution that will run for many hours at a time...
It's an action cam, not a dash cam. Try the mobius action cam. The suggestion seems like a joke due to my first sentence but the makers worked with the users and added dash cam features to the firmware. Been using it as a dash cam for over a year and the quality rivals my GoPro. Under $100 too.
FWIW my brother has a Hero 3 Silver and got all kind of problem with it. Not booting, freezing, firmware etc. He serviced it and is supposed to have got back a new one, but years later it's worse and worse (I think it's a RAM problem or something, who knows).
Now the warranty is over and the customer service is still useless with their stock sentences.
So he need a new one and I'm guessing it's not gonna be a GoPro.
Take a dust and water proof smartphone, some of them do 20+ megapixel picture and 4k videos. Why would anyone still use a clumsy device? (except for rare action videos)
Most likely, buying a dust-proof, water-proof, and shock resistant smartphone with 4k video support is going to be a tad more expensive than your entry level GoPro.
However, for the casual user (not doing action shots), you've got a point. What use would my mom have for a GoPro that her iPhone can't do?
One of my goals was to do a bunch of time-lapse shots, taking photos every few seconds and then making a video out of them. They marketed this feature (take a photo every X seconds) quite a bit, so it was definitely a selling point to me.
I discovered the bug a few weeks after owning it, right before a big vacation I was hoping to record. It would take about 8 or 9 photos and then lock up. I couldn't turn it off or stop its capture. When I plugged it into my computer, I saw that there were hundreds of empty folders. I tried power cycling it by taking the battery out and putting it back in. I also wiped out the memory card both via the computer, as well as selecting the 'delete all' option on-camera, all to no effect. I emailed them, and their response was:
> Hi, Do you take many time lapse pictures? What may have happened, is you may have encountered a known issue with our current firmware, in which the camera is no longer able to save files after it has taken 9999 images. Could you please let me know what the name of the last successfully captured image was? If this is the case, we would need you to send in your camera, and would reflash your firmware to fix the issue.
So I had to shell out $20 in shipping and mail my (brand new) camera across the country for it to be reset. I wasn't able to record the trip I took. Still irks me today that they were selling cameras with a known, software-limited, number of shots you could take with them before they had to be sent back.
If their QA department took a photo every 1 second (as their product was advertised to be capable of) it would take 2.78 hours for them to discover this bug.