So, I'm starting a VR project that's going to need 180-degree (or thereabouts) stereoscopic video. Ready to spend money on cameras and actually get started.
"Cool! This should be straightforward, everyone uses GoPro cameras for that, so a I'll need to buy two GoPros!" was my immediate thought. All ready to give GoPro my money.
Oh, but they dropped stereo genlock after the 3+..... wait what?!?! VR filmmaking is one of those things that people are heavily experimenting with. Why would they purposely drop this segment when it's only just starting to pick up? This is a segment not filled by their ultra-expensive 360 rigs.
So off to eBay I go. Hmmmm.... do I need a 3, a 3+, a 3+ Black? A 2? Is there a 2 Pro or something? Do I need the 3D kit or the dual-Hero kit? Does it even still work with the latest firmware?
It's so confusing that even some people on eBay honestly weren't sure what they were selling.
There are a few things that could fill this niche, all right now frustratingly in 'pre-order' or 'might be out the end of this year' state. Yet GoPro had this and they just.... dropped it.
Too many different models in the past, just far too confusing.
For the record, I've gone with used GoPro Hero 2s from eBay. Just waiting on the sync cable now. Will see how that works out :)
If you're doing any sort of software development requiring cameras GoPro is definitely NOT the way to go. We use Point Grey for our camera equipment. Not only are the cameras very high quality, but their API is a developer's dream.
Unlike GoPro's overreaching application process, $100, or $1k fee, and an extremely limited API/features, these guys practically shove as much documentation and libraries down your throat that they can. I fucking love Point Grey cameras.
Thank you for this. GoPros have been challenging and we're looking for alternatives for the next camera rig we build. One nice thing about GoPro cameras that I think I would miss with these is their built in WiFi. It's perfect for ad-hoc field laptop scenarios.
Not 180, but you could buy that $15,000.00 go pro camera set for 360 video haha
Although I think truly immersive 360 video would require not only stereoscopic eg. Dual cameras per fov, but also that new camera technology that captures at multiple depths of field. Litho or something don't know what it's called. Then you can focus on different focal points of the video like up close or super faraway
Both of them, the Lytro camera captures multiple depths of field. Combine that with stereoscopic 360 cameras so that $15,000.00 camera might as well make that at least $30,000 now with twice as many cameras. That's hard though, where does it focus? Screw that instead lets make a 360 phased array grid camera so we can rapidly capture everything
Edit: actually the phased array crap I thew in there doesn't make sense, only of you're meeting an em wave not receiving.
Not fully done, but they've "retreated" from the consumer drone space.
Basically they got crushed by DJI (which was pretty predictable since the Phantom was already kind of the Bandaid/Google brand of consumer drones before 3DR went all-in with the Solo).
3DR still exists but is trying to pivot into some kind of "enterprise" mapping drone company.
I try not to generalize personal experience to a company's stock price. But in GoPro's case I'm picturing a bunch of folks like me who bought one, and then swore to never again buy anything with GoPro's name on it. And those people tell their friends who are considering an "action camera". So you end up with a segment of customers from whom you'll never extract another dime, plus all of the people who might have bought one had they not spoken with current customers. (I'd recommend the Garmin offerings if you're in the market.)
I won't reiterate my complaints with my GoPro camera because I've bitched enough already on HN. The summary is that it is probably one of the most disappointing, and frankly, aggravating pieces of tech I've purchased in the last decade. It's not a matter of "cheap Chinese knock-offs" being almost good enough. It's that what the Chinese are copying wasn't all that good to begin with, so it's not terribly hard to match on quality and then undercut massively on price.
I would like to echo your sentiment with my own story.
I've owned a GoPro since Christmas of 2014. After less than a year of use the camera would start washing out videos while recording with flares of green and pink then freezing typically after 11 seconds of filming.
When I looked on support forums I found that this was a known issue with my GoPro version. However GoPro would not admit the defect and after talking with support they could do nothing for me.
I decided to keep using the camera as I use it for primarily 1 second videos. 2 months later I take it diving, the housing fails at 30 feet (its rated to 120 feet). I call support again:
I'm offered 10% off my next GoPro.
In my opinion GoPro is a dishonest company who does nothing to stand behind its products of which their price does not match their dismal quality.
ProTip: Ebay sells action cameras with all the same features, better build quality for a third of the price
In this case, the Chinese originally were not copying anything, GoPro just sourced the cameras from a CM here in Shenzhen, putting the GoPro name on it. I suspect the relationship stayed much the same through Hero 2 & 3, with the CM driving the design improvements in the camera.
You know, I was tempted in one of my several comments in this thread to make some snarky comment about how GoPro is a "cheap Chinese knockoff" that they just silkscreened "GoPro" onto. But that seemed unnecessarily mean and petty, and I only half-suspected it.
GoPro is a poor shape to use with motorbikes; helmet mounts in particular are ludicrous. Any particular reason you didn't consider Drift? Fairly happy with mine, using it as a helmet-cam.
Drift is mounted on the edge of my helmet, opposite my Cardo Scala Rider intercom system on the other side. There's not much way for it to hit the road first without my shoulder going AWOL, and if it did, it would snap off pretty rapidly.
A key advantage of the Drift and similar systems is the camera sensor can be rotated with respect to the camera body. So it doesn't matter that it's at an angle, close to your shoulder: the picture is still upright owing to one twisting the lens.
You have no idea how disappointed I am of the absence of said helmet mounts in a stereo setup. Is it really that difficult to merge the streams of two imperfectly aligned cameras with large parallax? We are missing out on the best Disney trademark infringement lawsuit ever.
Thanks for recommendation! I was recently looking for a helm mount camera for my rides, but all I could find were these ridiculous looking GoPro-like mounts.
My main complaint is that it's difficult to determine camera state. My main use case is having it mounted to a motorcycle where I can reach the buttons but can't safely or easily see the indicator LEDs. Is it on? Is it recording? I have some awesome videos of me sitting on a curb in front of a gas station drinking a Gatorade because I thought it was recording the whole time, and it turns out that when I pulled up and stopped the recording I was actually turning it on. That can and should be fixed by making a button that isn't so mushy. Even with bare fingers I can't tell you if I really turned it on without looking at the lights. With motorcycle gloves, it's a complete (and as noted above, often wrong) guess.
Okay, I'll strap my Pebble to the handlebars as there's a GoPro app for the Pebble. But the Pebble needs to go to the iPhone, which then talks to the GoPro iOS app, which then talks to the camera. Yeah, you can see where this is going: I spent more time trying to get all those devices to stay connected than I did riding.
Fine, I didn't want to do it, but I'll buy your $80 remote with status LCD. That piece of shit didn't work any better. I spent most of the time looking at an animated WiFi icon because it couldn't find the camera literally 50% of the time. If it did find it, it often wouldn't stay found. A single company made the hardware and firmware on both ends, and they still can't get them to stay connected.
Additionally, the thing eats batteries. I wouldn't mind so much if there was a way to power the thing while its in the case. There is a way, but it'll cost $65 for a waterproof case with USB port from a third-party vendor. I bought one. And about half the time when the bike fires up and pumps power to that connection, the GoPro's little pea brain gets confused and needs a reboot.
This is the kind of stuff I expect when I bought the cheap Chinese knock-off instead of the name brand. But I did buy the name brand, and specifically for this reason. And I end up still having the cheap Chinese knock-off experience, only at name-brand prices.
>My main complaint is that it's difficult to determine camera state.
Agreed. I gave one to a friend as a Christmas present a few years back and this was her big complaint. Mounted on a helmet (for whitewater paddling in her case), she was never sure whether she was turning it on or off.
In general the whole UI was just pretty awful in my experience. I get that it's hard but this strays pretty close to the "You only had to do one thing" meme. (Well, the rugged case, but that's not rocket science.) Their main innovation looks more like great marketing and community building to me.
I find the audio cues particularly useful - turn them on, set them loud and learn them well. Before this I used to be really frustrated as well, so I completely sympathise.
I motorbike, mountain bike, rock climb and race cars with the gopro, and the only thing I pay attention to is the audio cues.
Same here. Audio queues only. No one wants to wait for you to get your camera in the right mode or pair... Not to mention battery life of the remote and the camera. I have never gotten the remote to work on an actual trip. Only while testing at home.
I have a 1st generation Garmin Virb mounted to the front of my motorbike:
Stabilization is (very) poor, and image quality is so-so, but the thing works flawlessly; it's remote-controlled by the Garmin watch via a special connection that never drops, and powered by the bike. I love it.
I've been reading this thread thinking "hey, my GoPro has been great, little bit pricey for what it is but I have no major complaints" - and then I come across your comment:
> I spent most of the time looking at an animated WiFi icon because it couldn't find the camera literally 50% of the time.
...Ah! Now I remember why I completely gave up on the GoPro app and just use it as a standalone camera. Their wifi connectivity is an absolute joke. I guess I'd suppressed that memory :/
>My main use case is having it mounted to a motorcycle where I can reach the buttons but can't safely or easily see the indicator LEDs. Is it on? Is it recording?
If you get the GoPro phone app, you can do a live preview of what the camera can see and you can fiddle with most of the settings. I usually use my phone to make sure everything is pointing correctly from my helmets pov and then tuck my phone into my backpack.
>Note : I have an action camera, but it's from Garmin
Fwiw, I own a GoPro, but use Garmin's video editing software. Not only do I find it easier to whip up quick edits, but I can also overlay my Garmin Edge cycling data.
Wait a minute, I can use the GP for video, but then suck in GPS data from my Garmin and overlay it using Garmin's software? Oh, wow, thanks for the tip, I'll try that tonight.
Absolutely. VIRB Edit can handle your Garmin data files, and gives you many options for how you'd like to display the data. And as I mentioned, I import my GoPro videos, as VIRB Edit doesn't seem to care.
Same for me and my brother. Stupid proprietary application for file transfer and editing. Extremely confusing model line. Crazy expensive assessories. Never again.
This. I first heard of GoPro back in 2010. Scroll forward a few months and I'm on sabbatical doing a couple of months snowboarding and a few guys I meet along the way have them. Needless to say I am entirely unimpressed:
- The rectangular box shape of them is bulky and awkward, particularly when you add the protective case on top, and seems particularly ridiculous compared with other sleeker helmet cam designs,
- The mountings seem prone to work loose. One guy spent most of the time with his helmet mounted GoPro filming the ground in front of him and he had to keep fettling the thing to get it back into place.
- Turns out GoPros had the time had terrible dynamic range so everything that was covered in snow looked the same uniform white, particularly on brighter days. Picture quality sucked. This has improved somewhat in subsequent updates but I would have been fuming if I'd dropped the £300 (plus the cost of accessories on one).
- When I did look at buying one knowing exactly which accessories I'd need was confusing.
- Just way too fiddly to use when wearing any kind of gloves, which is hopeless for what's supposed to be an action cam,
- In general seemed to lead to an awful lot of faffing around by owners; to me it just looked like one more piece of gear to worry about that was mostly going to serve as an annoying time-vampire.
Apart from the picture quality issues, none of the above has changed as far as I know, only now there are so many extant models it's even more confusing trying to figure out which to buy.
Part of me dies inside every time somebody gets out a GoPro (or one of its many clones) on a ski/snowboard trip because you just know it's going to lead to an inordinate amount of buggering around.
I fully admit, #firstworldproblems, but as far as I'm concerned GoPro suck: they're an expensive waste of time and money.
In the end, for various reasons (mostly because I wanted a camera for my motorcycle), I caved and bought a Garmin VIRB. This has the following advantages:
- Doesn't need (quite) so much supporting paraphernalia, primarily because unless you plan on going diving it's waterproof enough without requiring an additional case,
- Overall it's very robust,
- Easy to switch on and off with gloves on (there's a big slider switch on the side of the camera),
- Picture quality and dynamic range are good, even in very bright conditions,
- Generally sleeker design.
I've used it for motorcycling, skiing, and as a dashcam.
All of that said it some bad points:
- Still a certain amount of confusion over which you actually need for your chosen activity,
- Mounting brackets are somewhat fiddly and can work loose,
- Battery life isn't great,
- Batteries take hours to charge,
- Apart from record on/off, the interface is kind of clunky,
And there's one ugly point:
- The software it runs is really unstable, and regularly crashes; this can be extremely annoying when it misses the crucial piece of action because of it.
Oh, they do, but it doesn't ship until the end of November. The Engadget review (dated today) [1] presents a good look at the device and how it compares to the competition -- different trade-offs. Nicer if you're in the GoPro ecosystem, but the competition is a better flyer.
So perhaps the market for rugged cameras is fairly saturated by their own products, and the aerial market has partially sailed while they were working on theirs?
1. Many people buy these camera's that never use them, or use them a few times but realize editing videos takes longer than they hoped it would. So after a while of non use, they sell the camera.
2. They built a good product, one that lasts and is therefore good for the used market. People are comfortable buying a used GoPro because they know it's rugged and well built.
So GoPro's have a good resale value and therefore many people that might normally buy a new one, instead turn to the used market which doesn't help GoPro at all.
If only they made crappier products that break more often, at least then their stock shareholders would think it's a good company. This exemplifies everything that's wrong with capitalism and planned obsolescence.
It's not really about "crappier products that break more often." It's about not giving people compelling reasons to buy upgraded versions or not expanding into new product areas (as they've just recently done with their drone). And, yes, if you're a company with shareholders, you can't get away with selling a product and then have your sales dwindle when you don't follow up with anything people want to buy.
Or.. its just a reflection of the market they're in. Understanding how much innovation opportunity is left in a market/category is a huge part of identifying whether you should continue to invest there or elsewhere.
Leica is privately owned, which does make it easier to choose less growth. As a public company you need to grow or return enough steady dividends to make it worthwhile for people to keep their money invested in you.
But Leica as a company would have never reached the valuation Gopro enjoyed (and now suffers from, we would not have this conversation if the Gopro brand had not inspired unrealistic expectations)
That's the second half of the equation. The first half was "video editing is harder than they hoped so they sell it". Maybe focus on making the product EVEN better (vs worse) by identifying how to make the process after the video is shot better. Aka don't ruin resale value, instead focus on WHY people are reselling them and fix that. Maybe make an iMovie style tool for common go pro uses.
It's not them, if their product broke, someone else in China would have made a better one.
I think consumer video in the last 10 years went from expensive and ok quality to dirt cheap and professional quality. The same thing that happened to audio happened to video. Now all of that GoPro tech is hitting smart phones and ultra cheap Chinese knock offs.. The whole consumer electronics space has been eaten by the smartphone.
Same thing is happening to Apple. The cutting edge is slowing down or is too good already and everything is starting to get super cheap and commoditized. It's hard for premium brands to get an edge.
Or maybe they shouldnt build the company around one product. If they made a crappy product, someone else would make a better one, and people would buy that one.
GoPro's market segment requires toughness and reliability. It's the central plank in their offering. They'd never have built their name if they made shoddy stuff.
Capitalism isn't a bad idea, it just needs proper regulation. What we have is an unregulated mess which gives both stupid and unscrupulous execs the advantage.
That doesn't answer my question, at all. What is it about capitalism that makes the strategy you describe a) inevitable, and b) worthy of regulation (since you brought that up)?
Also, I disagree that the modern economy is unregulated. Quite the contrary, in fact. And it's regulation, bailouts and crony capitalism that protect companies who make awful products.
No, it doesn't. Consumers value products that last a long time.
This is a big reason Apple is the world's largest computer computer company despite charging more for the same transistor counts. People are actually willing to pay a huge premium for reliable stuff that they don't have to junk after a year. The market gets it right.
haha is this a joke? Apple basically forces you to upgrade your phone every two years, by releasing a mandatory OS update that makes older phones slow as dirt.
I'm talking about my mom's 1957 Ford pickup that still runs great today. I'm talking about the Ostrisizer can opener from the 1970s that my family still uses in their kitchen. 5 years lifetime for a $800 product is not "built to last".
I had my MacBook Pro for 6 years before I upgraded, and didn't really need to. Are there many better examples within the computer / smartphone industry than Apple? Capitalism allows $1000 to buy progressively more powerful computers year after year.
Oh but you're talking about pickup trucks and can-openers. Oh ok my bad.
Were those created by socialist / communist economies now?
What are we even talking about here? Did capitalist economies develop these things or not? Does the profit motive not motivate the auto company and can opener company to produce a better product?
We're not talking about capitalism vs. communism. We're talking about capitalism vs. consumerism, aka Planned Obsolescence.
Capitalism _could_ produce products (even high-tech products like phones) that last for longer than 2 years (e.g. swappable chips/boards/screens, etc), but it doesn't, because the rapid, constant growth demanded by investors is antithetical to making products that are built to last.
1957 Fords were made in a capitalist society under less regulations than todays cars.
Cold War era Trabants, Skodas or Ladas that were made under a socialist economy were neither as durable nor as desirable as those capitalist cars made in the West.
Nothing in the profit motive prohibits Apple's success, no. Apple certainly pays attention to its margins and how to increase them, it's just that they're not afraid to do it with price. However, and this can't be the first time you've seen this, but brands and their products are routinely downgraded in quality over time, particularly after acquisitions. Have you seen a Bell & Howell product line lately?[1] See also: Converse Chuck Taylor and Doc Marten shoes.
I'm not convinced that GoPro is unusually affected by #2 but resale values seem relatively strong, so maybe to some degree.
There's also more competition.
I'm inclined to think point 1 is significant though. This seems like one of those products/product categories that was a hot ticket for a while. Then most people who bought them realized that they didn't actually jump off cliffs and, after the 10th time, the video of them going down an intermediate ski run was sorta boring and not really worth the trouble to make. So, like many fads, it didn't go away but it wasn't a must-have gadget for the would-be daredevil (or those who wanted to think of themselves in those terms).
GoPro 2 was rock-solid, but 3 and 4 had huge quality problems. Terrible customer service as well. I used to like GoPro, but since the GoPro 2 they've completely soured me. I don't know if the GoPro 5 is any better, but the Amazon reviews are terrible.
The wifi on gopro 3 is spotty at best. I wouldn't put GoPRo in the "quality" camera department, since it's essentially just another CMOS sensor with accessories.
Can't find the link right now but I think Microsoft is working on auto-cut software that automatically detects interesting moments in a video and stitches them together?
The TomTom Bandit is an attempt to do that. The editing app is pretty decent, and it uses motion sensors and GPS on the camera to auto-detect interesting highlights in the video. (disclaimer: I do work there, but not on that team)
there are a few orgs working on this using AI/Machine learning on the b2b side for news/journalism orgs, no offerings for general users yet but it's on the horizon for sure.
I don't know what you call that, "dropping a steaming binary turd on your friends"? I dunno, but "editing" it is not.
I've got literal hours of video of some dirt road in the Alaska tundra. No one wants to watch that, I've got to whittle it down to the highlight and parts that folks might enjoy, like the mountain goats in the middle of a blind corner or the moose running across the road. And that is time-intensive; literal hours for fifteen minutes of something I'd share with people. Not just finding the interesting parts, but captions and titles, and some kind of soundtrack, it all adds up to non-trivial amounts of time. One could just hit the "share" button, but no one's going to watch more than 30 seconds of it.
One also quickly learns that from the camera's POV a lot of stuff looks alike. Our recent trip down the Icefields Highway in British Columbia looks like any of a hundred mountain roads when viewed through the lens of a camera. Makes me kind of wonder why I bother.
When you've had to deal with the hours-of-video problem, you learn to be much more selective for when to start recording, and for how long to record. But even with that, and end even when you've learned the tricks of your editing software, and when you have given up the inner perfectionist, in my experience each minute of the final (amateur!) production still takes 10-100x more time to put together.
Automated editing solutions would help, but compared to editing by hand, I'd say they would compare same way as Instagram filters compare to a photographer/retoucher working in Lightroom/Photoshop.
Maybe not iMovie, but I've been having great fun with the 'Memories' feature in iOS 10. I used it to make a 4min video of our recent family holiday in 30min on the plane.
- Imported photos from our waterproof camera (compact-style, not GoPro. Cheaper than GoPro!) via the Apple Camera Connector.
- Used mainly photos from the iPhone, but because I have Live Photos turned on, it was the 6-sec video that got put into the final clip instead of just the still.
I agree with your premise; the hard part is definitely finding the interesting bits. Actually putting them together is easy after that.
There's some good stuff happening with "exciting moment detection" based on other sensors; like peak heart-rate and speed if you record those on Garmin.
That's not editing. iMovie is only easy if you don't actually edit your videos--arrange, slice, add music and text, etc. Video editing is slow and difficult.
I was thinking about the Snapchat glasses, which I initially regarded as stupid. But when I considered the intimidation factor associated with video editing, it dawned on me that Snapchat's 10 second time constraint effectively forces users to shoot video that is super easy for the masses to edit, arrange, share and aggregate, and within a universally defined set of constraints. So I think snapchat glasses could be huge success. They have a simple, low tech solution for the 'editing video for presentation is hard' problem, which isn't an immediately obvious problem, but it's critical.
I agree. And the snapchat glasses bring the fundamentals of editing down to the level of fingerpainting, which effectively democratizes it. No matter how skilled an editor you are, if you're publishing to Snap, you're on the same playing field as any 14 year old doing the same thing.
A little bit of well-design AI would be huge in this space. Imagine you import your raw footage and a rough cut with typical shot selections for your content and pacing is already arranged for you...just tweak from there.
So GoPro's have a good resale value and therefore many people that might normally buy a new one, instead turn to the used market which doesn't help GoPro at all.
That's not necessarily true. The counterargument is that having a good resale value allows you to charge more for your new sales because of the added value.
That counterargument only flies when sellers are repeatedly selling to get yet another upgrade. First time buyers rarely think about resale value.
But giarc's point wasn't so much about resale value (despite his claims of the opposite), it was about an active second hand market due to (1) confused first time buyers and (2) a reputation of ruggedness.
It basically boils down to: more people buy gopros than there are people with a real usr car for them, this is why the second hand market exaggerates market saturation effects more than usual.
I think you don't understand the point which I consider to be whether GoPro's profits are helped or hurt by a robust market for their used products.
Whether or not GoPro generates more total sales as a result of their products' value in the used market, they are able to charge a higher price for new sales because of it.
It may be that the higher price does not offset sales competition from used products, but that is another question.
>People are comfortable buying a used GoPro because they know it's rugged and well built.
My GoPro 2 is still going quite strong, despite having hit the asphalt on at last two occasions at high speed (well, high for a bicycle) due to their plastic mounts breaking. I switched to a third-party, metal mount, and haven't looked back.
So perhaps the issue is that they made a good product that never needs replacing. Is 4K recording a large enough draw? What is the saturation of 4K TVs so far? Could all contribute.
Equally a strong resale market should encourage people to try them out because the risk factor is relatively low. Don’t get on with it / use it? Sell it on & only have to eat a relatively small proportion of the price you paid.
I belong to group 1 – but because of the low battery endurance of the newer models. And the touch GUI and the apps aren't that great either. If I don't need a rugged camera, I can directly use my iPhone.
From what I can tell, I think you're right about them being too late into the drone market. I've been researching Karma and DJI Mavic Pro because I'm planning on buying a drone. Most reviews say Mavic is much better, and some reviews have been absolutely scathing towards Karma (ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xmqthgCvxk).
For better or worse, it's partially on the company to manage expectations. Amazon does a great job of this, which is why it can get away with minimal profit most quarters.
Agreed. Managing expectations into earnings is a large part of a CFO, treasurer, or other investor relations officer's job.
I do admit that it's necessarily hard for GoPro to do this, because they're a high-tech, discretionary consumer product -- the competitor landscape is always shifting and advancing, and a ton of factors affect consumer spending choices. GoPro is not a networking company with ten big and slow-moving clients. Something as simple as gas price hikes (less discretionary budget), or a new wearable product released by a different company (drains from "cool new toy" budget), could affect their sales.
Stocks like GPRO, FIT, etc are really hard to analyze, for these reasons and others.
Then again, I guess you could say that makes the task of managing expectations all the more important.
Nice point. Companies don't miss Wall St. expectations. Expectations miss on companies' guidance. (now if they didn't hit their own numbers that'd be a fail).
What else would you expect? The CEO took his money when the stock hit ~100 [1]. He didn't even wait for the lockup period to expire. The suckers left holding the stock have ridden it to the bottom, expecting it to takeoff any moment now... but if the CEO thought it would reach ~100, wouldn't he have waited?
Go pro is very good at marketing them selves however the cameras are not much better if not worse than many way cheaper competitors.
The drone would be a big hit if Dji didn't just blow the roof of with their incredible mavic pro that came on the market this week. It is by far the best consumer drone available and smaller than the go pro.
I've seen both the Mavic and the Karma, and I have to say they hit different use cases.
The GoPro is for when you want a drone that can carry your camera that you can also detach and use with their stabilized handle, which you can then take the GoPro out of completely and use on it's own.
The Mavic is for people who want a smaller drone.
Both are good tech, and I plan on getting both of them within the next year, but the GoPro one is going to be my first of the two.
The concept of GoPro Karma is intriguing but based on some early reviews it is a horrible drone. For example see this review by iPhonedo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xmqthgCvxk
Based on this video the price, stability, amount of features and just about everything is worse than my old DJI Phantom 3 Standard.
I wished GoPro Karma would be good but based on reviews I'm not impressed and probably end up going with Mavic Pro even though I just bought GoPro Hero 5.
Who halts the trading? Is it a normal circumstance before earnings reports are released, or does it have something to do with the magnitude of the miss?
That page lists the reasons as T1 (halt pending release of material news), and T2 (halt while news is being disseminated). So then it's not a circuit breaker (T5?)?
I wonder how exactly that works. What kind of news does it apply to? Is it common? Can a company ask for a trading halt on its own before it releases bad results?
My understanding was that the markets have a duty to provide equal access to information that would determine your decisions.
This is one of the reasons why companies often release their quarterly results after market close. It allows all relevant parties to be able to access the latest information before selling resumes.
If this wasn't the case, then users with the fastest connections would be able to process, and react to the data before others in the market had a chance to do so as well.
1) HFT is more than just US equities. Many exchanges are open 23 hours a day.
2) Many HFT firms do not specialize in 'news-reading'. That is, they will sit out periods when an expected announcement is coming. You can observe this by looking at the liquidity of a product just prior to an expected relevant news release - there will be very few orders.
3) There are more events than just news events that require speed.
Sure - market-makers need to react quickly. But that's only during the hours when the market is open. If there's no market, no-one needs to be quick about it.
I never knew this. Have you ever noticed when you look deeper at any system created and run by people who claim to love the free market, it is loaded with anti free market regulation? Who is the stock exchange to tell me I can't sell my asset?
you can't sell your assets on the exchange through a broker because you're a small chump.
you can sell your assets outside the marketplace just fine.
if they just allow orderbooks to get skewed more and more in one direction you just run head first into a potential macro crash and sometimes thats just a little more important than you wanting to unload your 60 bucks of stock.
And I'm pretty sure there's government regulation requiring them to do this.
Oh, so only small time investors and not large ones can't sell their stock? That sounds worse, not better.
>And I'm pretty sure there's government regulation requiring them to do this.
And who runs the government, empirically speaking?
"Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."
yes, you can sell your shares through other channels.
everyone can do that. you can take your 30 shares of random company x to your mom and sign a contract with her buying the shares.
anyone can do that.
stock exchanges are private businesses with private rules about who can and can not use their servers. they're open from 9:30 to 5. if you want to buy during other hours, you better find someone to buy from.
as far as the "look people are evil here's ONE ARTICLE of evidence" paradigm goes - its a bit lame. for further reading, google selection bias.
if you read my post, i'm not saying that this is good or bad. its just fact.
forex goes down during all news. doesnt mean that big banks cant trade with each other during news. doesn't mean that you can't walk into a commercial bank at noon and buy some currency. it just means that one exchange doesn't want your business during news because they'll potentially enter significant counterparty risk.
they just exercise their right of refusing to do business with you. doesn't matter that its automated through software. if I know for a fact I don't want to buy from door to door salesmen at 5am and turn my doorbell off during the night, its conceptually the same thing. you cant have it both ways. you can't only have "capitalism" when its good for you. you're either free to enter contracts or you're not.
and in case that's somehow not clear: stock exchanges are private for-profit companies. they're not institutions bound to some weird codified public goodwill. whether thats a good or bad thing is for you to decide.
One aspect of a free market is that its up to you to decide whom to do business with.
Free market applies to every market participant equally. Your privilege is the counterparties obligation. Do you believe other market participants should be forced to buy your stock while the stock is obviously crashing just so you can get a favorable outcome?
And because you seem to be clouded by little man nerdrage: The stock market doesn't temporarily shut trading down to keep smalltime hobby gamblers out. They do this to prevent institutional investors from unloading in a hurry which would send macro signals that may signal that one market participant knows more than the others ("insider trading") which would then kick off an avalanche of tag-alongs who believe they have to sell as well, eventually moving the needle on the entire economy which would then cost the suckers who you are so desperately fighting for to lose their jobs. do you want that? good.
Google black friday if you want to know why. it is not done to sucker 2k live savings gamblers out of their money.
"Do you believe other market participants should be forced to buy your stock while the stock is obviously crashing just so you can get a favorable outcome?"
A free market creates all kinds of poor outcomes for example.
Me:Do you think that American consumers should have to buy their lifesaving drugs at a few thousand percent markup from a company that manipulated the FDA in order to obtain a monopoly on a 100 year old drug?
Anyway, I got one of the clone after study the youtube video of the output for $50+ to put on my kid's model airplane. It works great. He crashed the airplane a lot. With only $50, I feel better.
I interviewed there a few months back and I gotta say I'm not surprised. Granted all of the people I met were really smart and seemed to know what they were doing but at the same time the product direction was...confusing to say the least. They also want to get more services and software going to monetize but it wasn't clear how they were going to monetize any of it just that their software needs to improve and be usable by other cameras not just there's.
It sounded like a cool place to work but I was a bit worried about their next 2-3 years.
I almost bought the new Session just a few weeks ago. After seeing these comments, I'm glad I didn't.
The reason I didn't buy is I realized how much they are screwing people by charging crazy prices for essential add-ons. $xx for a basic mount (a piece of plastic), $xx for a bolt to connect to the mount, $xx for a case, $xx for a charging kit, and so on and so on. You thought you were buying a $400 gadget but suddenly your cart total is 2x that.
A Mobius ActionCam can do 1080p30 or 720p60 at $75 and it's even smaller - about the size of a matchbox, or keychain dongle. I use it on mini-quadcopters; my son put it on a model rocket. It still works. :)
I remember having an alert set for if GPRO ever bounced up from (let's say) $45. It hit that number and never bounced, it just kept on going down. I consider my GoPro to be my worst tech purchase in the last ten years, but as a mostly technical trader I'll occasionally (though rarely) buy a stock despite my feelings about their offerings. But GPRO demonstrates that, once again, I should stick to companies that sell things I like.
Yeah, I bought some as well. Can't win them all. I believed their vision of being a lifestyle company that could weather the whims of the tech market. That may be so, but looks like they never expanded their market, and their user experience didn't evolve to suit consumers.
OTOH, if I bought what I really liked, I would've bought HTC and stagnated. The Re action camera is an excellent value and gets the experience right.
Have you read One Up on Wall Street, by Peter Lynch? He talks about using your feelings about a company's products as a component of investment decision-making. You may find it interesting.
If only I bought shares of tech purchases I've made. I buy very few tech gadgets, but the few I buy always seem to have a great share price trajectory...
Tom Scott's "Things You Might Not Know" series is extraordinary. In a sea of internet tidbits and factbites that you've seen umpteen times before, his videos are almost always new things I've never heard about before; certainly less than 10% would be my guesstimate of things I knew of beforehand. Definitely worth checking out.
Still have mine somewhere, just too annoying to charge and doesn't last long, then I need to use their app to get the files etc etc. Just too much hassle for a simple use case.
(Why didn't they use a standard charging cable...)
Or Xiaomi products are simply better than GoPro's.
I was in the market for a 4K action camera and ended up buying the Yi 4K because the GoPro model only offered interpolated 4K, while the Yi offers full 30FPS 4K.
I won't say the Yi is perfect. The Xiaomi app stopped connecting to the camera after an update (and hasn't connected successfully since), and early firmwares had issues with 4K recording randomly stopping.
But they've since fixed nearly all the stability issues with subsequent firmware releases.
Overall the camera is loads better than anything that GoPro had on the market at the time, and the camera only cost me $250 with accessories (waterproof case, spare battery), plus $70 to DHL for customs and duties.
I'm not a Xiaomi shill, I'm just very pleased with the product I bought.
Funny you should mention plugs for Xiaomi. I picked up the Mi Smart Socket Plug the other day...have to say, I love it. I can set timers and remotely control my appliances from the comfort of my phone. Best of all, I don't have to interfere with the appearance and design of my home's interior.
the GoPro camera is the best camera I own. I don't need a DSLR, I'm not a serious photographer, I'll use my phone for regular pictures. but I really enjoy having a high quality camera for surfing, snowboarding, scuba diving, and slow mo
but it's so well made, and it's always in the case (so I can put it on a mount) that ot still Looks feels brand new. I bet it will last me 5 more years
Dnd future doesn't look good. Their star product is not as advanced as the new DJI mavic pro. The new gopro 5 don't have new amazing features (5k, raw recording, much better dynamic range etc.), it's mostly a small bump from the 4 series.
Unless you are a total GoPro fan, there's no reason you would buy the newly released products.
You are right, a gimbal is a very smart addition. Put it on the backpack for skiiing or on a bike to record smooth rides.
My biggest problem however is the lack of "intelligent" flying with GoPro's drone. Most people overestimate their flying skills. It's very easy to have a collision, loose your done. It's also difficult to do subject tracking. Many find themselves with a broken drone after just a week of use. On the other hand, the Mavic Pro has their most advanced visualisation technology + sensors to make your job easy.
If you are confident with the GoPro drone, I would recommend purchasing it from a store with a liberal return/exchange policy. Try it for one week and record a few videos. And then compare with the mavic pro
I don't know what market they want, but I never heard mavic outside of a few web pages. On the other hand gopro is becoming synonymous with small and sturdy camera. Maybe mavic will end up buying the brand.
Why is not selling enough a bad thing? You make a good product, everyone loves it and don't need another one? This is why I haven't replaced my original Pebble either. I remember Intel hitting this same type of market/stockholder crunch.
Hello: not selling more stuff is A GOOD THING! It means your last generation was really good (well, if people are still using it and not buying another one). It means you can lower factory worker numbers and pay them more.
So a company that makes shitty products you have to refresh is going to do _better_. This cuts to the core of the entire economy of growth and economy of scale problems with our current economy. There needs to be a way to reward companies for making good products that last forever instead of them having to pump out crappy products every two years to stay afloat. (I'm looking at you Pebble Time Round!)
If you're going to ask that, you also need to ask why needing to halt trading is a bad thing. "Good" and "bad" are value judgements that change in different contexts.
A large component of stock price is the expectation of profits for share holders in the future. If those expectations change, and the stock price plummets, it's not necessarily good or bad in the sense of a product being good or bad, or a company being good or bad.
Needing to halt trading is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes you see trading halts that precede large upside moves, and sometimes the stock doesn't move at all when it reopens.
Not all trading halts involve limit-down circuit breakers or short-sale restrictions.
It's a bad thing for a publicly traded company that doesn't offer a dividend. Basically, investors want your company to either grow (so share prices grow), or offer a dividend.
If you can't offer either, then an investor might as well invest in something less risky.
A privately held company that has relatively flat YoY sales, but is at least able to raise prices to match cost of living increases would be "good" in many cases (depends on the investor expectations, again).
Can anyone recommend a good GoPro model (or similar product) to pick up for use on a helmet? Specifically while cycling. I once had a Contour, but lost it, and never replaced it.
I haven't used on myself, but the Garmin Virb cameras [0] seems to be popular with cyclists. I'm guessing partly because Garmin was already a popular brand because of their bicycle computers, and partly because the cameras have built in GPS and what Garmin calls "G-Metrix" which enables some fancy statistics on your video [1].
I second the Session recommendation. There's one button to press and it "just works". The session is lightweight too, so it will create less torque on your head/neck than other cameras.
I bought a GoPro a couple years ago because I was considering buying the stock as it was about to be listed. Took it on a ski trip. It was one of the worst pieces of consumer electronics I've ever used. Just atrocious. It seems they took every wrong turn possible whenever faced with any design decision. I avoided the stock but should have shorted it.
GoPro needs additional applications to their camera besides being an action cam. How about adding home security, or baby monitor capability? Otherwise the GoPro camera will sit in the closet for 364 days of the year. What a waste.
They have one niche product that is very expensive. It does not offer anything new or extraordinary to the experience other than what it should do: take video. Customers can get a product that is similar for 70% less price (from China cough). It's no surprise.
Yeah I don't get the derision. On my desk are multiple electronic items (laptop, speakers, mobile phone, mouse, keyboard, external hard drive) that are all either made in or assembled in China.
Meh, I am buying some shares of FitBit and GoPro tomorrow as either could get acquired or bust, but at > 25% discounts i'll take that risk as the potential upside is too good to miss. Purely speculation on my part
everyone has a hobby -- i trade stocks and have done pretty good for myself. They both picked up a few percentage points from their after-earnings lows. Either they get bought, go kaput, or soar again a-la AMD in their most recent restructuring (selling HQ and leasing it back, paying down debt,etc.); either way I win: I win because this is fun, and I win if the shares rise.
The New Iphone 7 with iP67 water-resistance rating will negatively affect GoPro sales. People will likely bring their iPhone to the beach/lake if they trust it doesn't get damaged by an accidental water splash.
Water resistance seems like only one of many advantages a GoPro has. I would never consider doing with what my phone what I've seen many people do when they are tossing around a GoPro.
This it true for extreme situations, but I do believe with the new iPhone, people we be less likely to use a GoPro, if even just 10-20% less it does affect the bottom line.
It's too bad they didn't capitalize on the opportunities to partner with Facebook for live video. And their API is a joke. If they would open it up, developers might make something that would drive sales.
Crama drone was a massive flop. DJI have simply smeared them. The latest camera releases are not innovative at up. They are desperately trying to catch up!
There is no such thing as an original idea. If another company can take an existing product and do it better, I can't see a good reason they should be prevented. Better products are always a win for consumers, and a win for innovation.
There are reasons to complain about China (unfair labor practices, pollution externalities), but copying/improving on western ideas is not one of them.
Maybe not, but being the first to implement one is massively more expensive than being the second to. Hence patents, to give you a chance to recover your expenses – if companies have to fear never making a profit of being the first, you're still starving innovation: Ideas are worthless if they aren't implemented.
"Cool! This should be straightforward, everyone uses GoPro cameras for that, so a I'll need to buy two GoPros!" was my immediate thought. All ready to give GoPro my money.
Oh, but they dropped stereo genlock after the 3+..... wait what?!?! VR filmmaking is one of those things that people are heavily experimenting with. Why would they purposely drop this segment when it's only just starting to pick up? This is a segment not filled by their ultra-expensive 360 rigs.
So off to eBay I go. Hmmmm.... do I need a 3, a 3+, a 3+ Black? A 2? Is there a 2 Pro or something? Do I need the 3D kit or the dual-Hero kit? Does it even still work with the latest firmware?
It's so confusing that even some people on eBay honestly weren't sure what they were selling.
There are a few things that could fill this niche, all right now frustratingly in 'pre-order' or 'might be out the end of this year' state. Yet GoPro had this and they just.... dropped it.
Too many different models in the past, just far too confusing.
For the record, I've gone with used GoPro Hero 2s from eBay. Just waiting on the sync cable now. Will see how that works out :)