The official release date of the GoPro Hero 5 has been pushed back by a few months because the company is making further improvements on the device which would make it the most powerful videographic camera when it hits the market.
Christian Today reports that the camera would hit the market no later than October 2015 but it can be further delayed towards the end of the year or early in 2016.
Apparently, GoPro is working on further improvements on some of the camera’s specifications and features including the possible use of the A10 chipset which would allow the device to record 8K videos with 3840 x 2160-pixel resolution at a rate of 60 frames per second.
The new specification is a major improvement from the capability of the GoPro Hero 4, which is capable of recording 4K videos at a slower and choppier rate of 30 frames per second.
The specification shall also put GoPro Hero 5 well above its competitors considering that 4K video recording have become common and is now basically a market standard.
Capable of recording 3D videos
It has also been rumored that GoPro Hero 5 shall feature dual lens which would enable it to capture 3D videos as well. If this is true, this would be the first for any GoPro devices.
Technically speaking however, it is still not clear how the 8K resolution would blend with the supposed 3D video recording capability of the GoPro Hero 5, and also the supposed faster processing speed of the camera.
Several improvements were also made on the other specifications of the device including more generous battery life with its 2800 mAH battery, which is a 150% improvement from the battery of the GoPro Hero 4. With such battery life, the GoPro Hero 5 can actually record two hours of video on a single charge.
The device also features Wi-Fi compatibility, HDMI ports, Bluetooth 4.0 compatibility, and a waterproofing technology that can actually withstand a depth of 60 meters, which means that the camera will still be functional under water provided it does not go deeper than 60 meters.
The Bluetooth compatibility of the GoPro Hero 5 shall enable it to further increase the formidable upload speed of GoPro Hero 4.
GoPro devices currently features live streaming and uploading capabilities and with the Bluetooth interface on the GoPro Hero 5, it would make the sharing experience easier and quicker than ever before.
What’s the point in 8k? It’s already a known fact that you need a tv that’s at least 60 inches to be able to see the difference in image quality between 1080P and 4K, so you’d need about an 80 inch tv to see any difference between 4K and 8K. How many people have 60 inch tvs? Not that many in reality compared to how many people there are in the world so that makes 8K recording seem like a gimmick, kinda like Samsung saying the next Galaxy Note phone, the Galaxy Note 5 will have a 4K screen, on a litttle tiny 5.7 inch screen, GIMMICK!!! I think GoPro should have a ‘Medium’ angle setting in 4K recording because a lot of people hate the fact you can only record in ‘Wide’ on the Hero 4 camera and a lot o people hate the frankly awful distorted fisheye view.
Something else I think GoPro should address is the awful shakey video, you need one of the very expensive gimbles to steady your video, even though your hand holding the camera is barely moving at all. That barely moving turns into very, very shaky video and I, like a lot of people hate having to crop the video in order to stop the shake or purchase very expensive video editing software to try and stop shake, which I might add, STILL crops the image. If digital camcorders can have very good image stabilization then so can the GoPro cameras.
Your not thinking. Plenty of people crop footage, especially when stabalising. Recording in 8k, will be fantastic for me when I crop to 4k for BluRay use. If you don’t want 8k, just buy a cheaper model or whatever.
Instead of pushing 8K, In my opinion, Go pro should stick with 4K and work on improving the image quality, dynamic range, low light performance, lens distortion, higher frame rates and offer professional codecs.
Exactly!
I fully agree, these are the features most people would want to take advantage of – and if you want to shoot 8K in a serious fashion and not just have it as a spec you can boast with, you would be looking into buying a different camera anyways… I don’t think this feature is aimed at any con- or prosumers/professionals because frankly, nobody can take advantage 8K at this point anyways, and even if the resolution is this high the optics in the gopro will be a bottleneck to this increase in image size (having to be in such a small form factor and also just because making a high quality lens is way more expensive than the gopro would want to be), making the serious lack of image quality even more prevalent at such a high resolution.
I don’t think the Hero 5 will have 8K video, it’s not useful to the user and to the company. (why add non-important improvements when you can save them for future models?)
In my opinion this key improvements would make a great GoPro Hero 5.
– 4K 60fps
– 1080p 240fps
– Improved video stabilization
– Better dynamic range
And a bonus:
– Ability to record in ProRes or DNxHD for much better compression and faster editing.
Forget 8K, that’s absolutely pointless. If they’re going to push the envelope on a future standard, then go 4K HDR video with a better framerate than the current black edition. I’ll buy it on day one with that.
A10 chip? As far as I know Ambrella who make the chips that are used in GoPros have only released the H1, not an A10 and it only has 4K 50/60fps max resolution and 4K 30fps H.265 HEVC codec and 1080p 240fps so unless someone provides proof of 8K, I can’t see the Hero 5 having 8K recording.
Not to mention, how many computer monitors or TVs for that matter, actually have an 8K resolution (7680 x 4320) so you can view the videos in that resolution? Also not many graphics cards can output that resolution so consumer wise, 8K is a long way of since not even most TV broadcasts are in 4K yet and many are not even in full 1080 HD .
Forget 8K anway, especially if the Hero 5 still has a small sensor, even 4K at the moment isn’t good enough with the small sensor and lens. The first thing that they should improve is put in a bigger sensor, as big as they can fit in as this will allow for better low light, more dynamic range and less noise grain, and a better image overall and could allow for professional 4:2:2 codecs to be used in the camera.
I have used an Atomos Ninja 2 with my Hero4 Black which has a 1080p 4:2:2 uncompressed 8-bit output, and every video I took with it shows some noise grain because the sensor is too small to deal with light well enough, even in daylight.
The new Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera that was released this year, is an action camera and it has a Micro Four Thirds sensor, and interchangeable lenses so there is no reason it can’t be done with a GoPro either.
Another thing GoPro should fix is the moire patterns that appear that are especially noticeable in medium and wide FOV when shooting handheld as I noticed it on things like fences, roofs etc and its bad.
So improvements that would be nice:
1. Bigger Sensor (more necessary than something that would be nice, maybe at least a 1 inch sensor) and then maybe you could use any ISO over 400 in video mode without noticeable noise grain in the footage.
2. Interchangeable lenses or at least a sharp lens that you can change the apature, focus, iris etc… manually or automatically which isn’t a fish eye lens.
3. Higher dynamic range, maybe even wide dynamic range gamma
4. 10-bit video, perhaps in a HEVC H.265 Main 10 codec which records 10-bit, for even more accurate color, which will be more useful when pairing the footage with a professional 10-bit camera, since GoPos are widely used in broadcast TV shows which use 10-bit cameras.
5: 4K 50/60fps and 1080p 240fps which will probably will happen if it uses the H1 chip (I can’t find information on a A10 chip with 8K recording if it exists at all)
6. Use SDXC memory cards as they have storage up to 512GB and if the GoPro uses the H1 chip, the Hero 5 may use SDXC as it supposrts duel SDHC/SDXC memory cards.
7. 100Mbps bit rate in all resolutions and framerates (Protune on and off) which could work with a high capacity and speed SDXC memory card. Currently its 45Mbps in 1080p with Protune on and 60MBPs in 2.7 and 4K with Protune on.
8. Longer battery life
9. More manual control over video such as being able to choose the shutter speed.
10. Not necessary, but maybe an infrared mode for night videos.
Most important is improvments in 4K resolution and support for HEVC/H265 Codec with 50Mbit/s
Forget abaut 8K resolutions !!!! it’s a joke