GoPro Workflow

I'm trying to figure out the best workflow for a goPro Hero 4 Black Edition.

Does when really need to use their software, or can I simply import it into FCPX? Do I need to use their app for Protune or can FCPX do it all?

While we are at it, what settings do you use for things like sharpening and White balance? For what I like, I will most likely be shooting 1080 90 or 120.

My current workflow with gopro footage is like:
1. Import the mp4 video files from the camera to my harddisk using gopro studio importer tool;
2. Convert the mp4 video files with option remove fisheye checked, to mov format using gopro studio;
3. Import the mov formatted video files into fcpx library, and copy them into newly a created event.

For settings you can search the youtube channel. They have some great tutorials for color correction.

I use the files natively, and use the Fisheye corrector that comes with Lock & Load. All depends on what hardware you're running.

The native video files (mp4) are compressed so you can capture large amounts of data very quick. These compressed files are not to be used when editing or doing color correction in fcpx.

Can you tell us why using native files is the best workflow for gopro footage?

Nothing wrong with using native footage, if your hardware runs it well, as mine does. As for color grading, even if you optimize, you're not adding any color information. What the camera wrote to the file is all there is to work with, period. So color grading the native files works well for me. There's no rule says you can't. Few years ago compression was still shoddy and it was helpful to optimize everything. But codecs have come a long way since then.

You can also plug in the GoPro (or insert card) and use FCPX to just import the rang of clips you want. Can save a bunch of space in the long run!

BenB wrote: Nothing wrong with using native footage, if your hardware runs it well, as mine does....

Proof of this is why would Apple and Adobe spend so much effort providing the ability to edit camera native files if it was always a bad idea?

In *theory* doing major repetitive editing on highly compressed camera native video files could result in generational quality loss, however I have never seen that quantified on FCP X. The traditional technique is transcode to a mezzanine codec for editing but this was established long before current hardware and software. Part of that rationale was performance -- which is now less a factor.

That said we have many GoPros and FCP X feels a little more sluggish editing that material than other H.264 stuff. However we shoot so much it's not worth transcoding everything on import just to scrub through it and make selects.

We also shoot ProRes to Atomos recorders, but IMO the in-camera IPB codec on the 5D Mark III is very good so it's not really needed from a quality standpoint for most situations. Atomos will also accept HDMI from a GoPro but in practice we will never do that because it's a ruggedized environment and not worth the risk and effort. It would be interesting to test the quality both ways; I'll do that if I ever have time.

It just never crossed my mind to use native files, assuming this was bad for performance. And performance I need:)

But what about lower quality video when using protune, see : Got a GoPro? GoPro Studio 2.0 might be the best way to get your footage into FCPX

I think ProTune uses the same codec, which would entail the same editing performance issues. The link you posted showed how you can use Studio 2.0 to transcode externally before importing into FCP X. In theory that might provide faster editing performance but the current performance on an iMac isn't unusable.

The tradeoff is you'd have to transcode every clip using an external application. We have at least 10 GoPros and there would have to be an extremely compelling advantage to justify the work and complexity of doing all that external transcoding.

In this test there was little visible difference in using ProTune on a Hero 4, although they didn't externally transcode to Cineform: