Moto vlogging on your FJR?

[Kunk35]

How many of you guys do riding vlogs on your FJR?

 

[Bounce]

Too many post un/under edited videos on Youtube and other places. If you're going to do that, step above the noise and make you videos short and have a script for a voice over narration (instead of the ramblings that happen when the video is recording).

If you shoot 5 hours of video, the end product should be the best 5 minutes you can cut together.

 

[dcarver]

or less... 3 minutes or less gathers the most '100%' watched on my Vimeo channel.

https://vimeo.com/manage/showcases

 

[Kunk35]

I guess I'm asking for a few reasons.

When I'm not on the bike I enjoy watching motorcycle content on Youtube. Well, I "sorta" enjoy it. I don't really like watching all the "stupid crazy motorcycle" videos where sport bikes go around lane splitting and smacking the mirrors of people, and crashing because they are stupid. 

I enjoy watching videos from a guy in Missouri , "Backroads of the Ozarks" or something like that. And there are more and more women bikers getting into the vlogging scene which was kinda cool at first, but now there are so many. I'm not sure I totally get the point of listening to people ramble on and on while riding, but I do enjoy watching them go from scared first time riders, to experienced teachers of our past time.  And of course when I found my FJR the channel "TwoWheelObsession" was hugely helpful in tips and guides to maintenance or our bikes.

When I started back to riding last December, I thought it might be interesting to take some video of my adventures. Maybe learn about video editing and such. So I got some basic equipment and got it all mounted up. But the more I started taking video, I found myself wondering what the whole point was. I started thinking that I would rather just ride and listen to music. So I doubt I will ever start making videos for others but I may change my mind at some point in the future. Who knows.

All this got me wondering how many do and how many don't bother, taking video of their rides. How many take video but only so they can review near misses and such. How many take video and go on to edit them and publish on Youtube or Vimeo. Personally, I'm tired of seeing sport bike videos and would rather see videos of people cruising in places of beautiful scenery. Maybe detailing routes and offering reviews of different and quaint hotels or restaurants that are off the beaten path. I'm wondering if any of that exists and where to find it.

 

[Bounce]

I take video but just for legal support if something happens. I edit photos, audio, and video as a hobby that grew from my stereo/audio and music hobbies. It's why I like the Mac so much over the WinTel options; so many editing tools are included with the OS or freeware of high caliber that there's no need to buy a bunch of support software.

 

[CollingsBob]

I’ve been watching video of people sharing their rides of the NC500 in Scotland. Many of the videos are 30-60 minutes long, I think because the scenery is so amazing its hard to cut stuff out. If I ever get to go - I’ve booked and cancelled twice..May & September 2020, now rebooked for May 2021, I’ll be shooting everything 5-7 hrs/day, then cut out the boring bits when I get home. I’ve done some 6hr test recordings, the major issue that Ive run into is resolutions & file sizes too large for our 3yr old iMac to deal with..

 

[mcatrophy]

I’ve been watching video of people sharing their rides of the NC500 in Scotland. Many of the videos are 30-60 minutes long, I think because the scenery is so amazing its hard to cut stuff out. If I ever get to go - I’ve booked and cancelled twice..May & September 2020, now rebooked for May 2021, I’ll be shooting everything 5-7 hrs/day, then cut out the boring bits when I get home. I’ve done some 6hr test recordings, the major issue that Ive run into is resolutions & file sizes too large for our 3yr old iMac to deal with..

File size can be a real problem. I've done a few videos, mine come out of the camera at around 200MB per minute. That's a lot if you do many hours. In the end I almost stopped because I could never get the whole system - camera bike mount, audio, transfer to computer, editing both for duration and for file size and internet bandwidth requirements. 

Some of mine I find boring, but there's one I'm quite pleased with here, from this page, part of a group run in Scotland, A896 through Strathcarron near Loch Carron. If you do view it, turn your sound down first! It's about 18 minutes long, should have been edited to about 3!

These are reduced to about 10MB per minute, and hosted from a professional server; my server's Internet bandwidth isn't quite reliably good enough.

 

[Bounce]

I had an instructor once tell me, "Words aren't children. It's okay to kill them."

It's the same with "hard-earned" video footage. Each moment is one of OUR precious memories but they aren't for others. Keep them engaged for 3 minutes and you've done more than a lot can.

My biggest challenge like that was editing down the footage I took years ago when helping build out a new office space for my OKC Division Office Co-Workers 2 days after the Murrah Building bombing. I spent weeks editing down footage that was especially difficult to watch for the FHWA Archives some 10+ years later.

Even though some of the news footage was multi-generational VHS copies of TV broadcasts, it was all there was after all the networks purged that segment from their archives.

Even so, I broke the 3 minute rule and suffer on the "completed views" score.

https://fjr-tips.org/misc/pics/FHWA.mp4

All done on a 6 year old iMac. I moved to a Macbook after that and learned my lesson. Just because 2 chips seem to be comparable, when the more powerful numbers are followed by an M, then it's the weaker chip. IOW: Mobile chips suck ass because they are concerned with power consumption. I sold the perfectly fine Macbook and went to a Mac Mini for the non-M performance with multi-tasking on video and audio editing and IO performance. File size isn't an issue if you have the memory, storage, and time to wait. After that, like bikes and cars, "how fast can you afford to go?"

 

[CollingsBob]

File size can be a real problem. I've done a few videos, mine come out of the camera at around 200MB per minute. That's a lot if you do many hours. In the end I almost stopped because I could never get the whole system - camera bike mount, audio, transfer to computer, editing both for duration and for file size and internet bandwidth requirements. 

Some of mine I find boring, but there's one I'm quite pleased with here, from this page, part of a group run in Scotland, A896 through Strathcarron near Loch Carron. If you do view it, turn your sound down first! It's about 18 minutes long, should have been edited to about 3!

These are reduced to about 10MB per minute, and hosted from a professional server; my server's Internet bandwidth isn't quite reliably good enough.

Nice video...I saved your menu page so I can watch more later..What camera did you use & what recording settings? Looks like you mounted the camera on the brake reservoir, I have mine chin mounted on my helmet with a remote battery inside my jacket.

 

[mcatrophy]

Nice video...I saved your menu page so I can watch more later..What camera did you use & what recording settings? Looks like you mounted the camera on the brake reservoir, I have mine chin mounted on my helmet with a remote battery inside my jacket.

Camera is a Tomtom Bandit. Settings: video "2.7k 30fps", wide angle, exposure automatic. Pretty much point and shoot.

It is mounted on the top of the brake reservoir. Lower than I would like, so it doesn't get the best of the views. The mount is adjustable for pitch, but isn't rigid enough, so magnifies any vibration. Also it's using the internal microphone, which picks up vibration and wind noise more than anything else. It's totally weather-proof. With a different front protector that covers the mic holes, it can be used underwater to a depth of a small number of metres.

Its battery is internal. The battery and memory card are on a carrier that can be unplugged and another plugged in, lasts several hours. The carrier has a USB plug that can both charge the battery and can transfer the video files, or the SD card can be unplugged and used with a card reader and/or another card inserted.

I've had one issue, it sometimes stops recording and puts up the message "Check card". Re-power it and it will continue. Might be the cards I'm using, not got to the bottom of it. 

I am very pleased with the videos it produces (that's technically, not so much artistically!).

 

[CollingsBob]

What program do you use for editing, and if you dont mind the plethora of questions...what do you do your editing on, and what are it’s specs?
I’m using a GoPro Hero 7 Black, using DaVinci Resolve on a 3 yr old iMac with an i5 processor..

 

[mcatrophy]

What program do you use for editing, and if you dont mind the plethora of questions...what do you do your editing on, and what are it’s specs?
I’m using a GoPro Hero 7 Black, using DaVinci Resolve on a 3 yr old iMac with an i5 processor..

Video reduction was done using a command line-driven program, ffmpeg, on a Mac. It's driven through home-brewed php software (I play a lot with php for virtually everything on my web site), it would do the reduction, create the thumbnail still, pick the necessary data for duration and so on, and upload it to the remote server. I've not done any significant editing beyond that. The last was done some years ago, the last time I tried it, ffmpeg didn't function, probably because the Mac's operating system has been updated.

I've tried one or two free video editing programs, never got very far, and eventually enthusiasm waned due to family events. I have just started to look at it again.

Forgot to mention, Tomtom provide a utility that can extract a GPX file from the video file, with time, position, altitude and speed information. 

I find Tomtom's software to be not user-friendly, but that's another story. 

 

[Bounce]

What program do you use for editing, and if you dont mind the plethora of questions...what do you do your editing on, and what are it’s specs?
I’m using a GoPro Hero 7 Black, using DaVinci Resolve on a 3 yr old iMac with an i5 processor..

Resolves a goodern alright. Hard to beat it without going into ludicrous costs. I also use iMovie and Affinity Photo for stills. Handbrake is also great to have for changing encoding types (MP4, MOV, etc.).

 

[shadowrandering]

Well. Since The only thing I edit are videos from my GoPro I use Movavi. Here's the thing I started with https://www.movavi.com/support/how-to/enhance.html . It hugely improves the general quality of the videos I shoot. And you will get a hang of the rest of things there quite fast. Everything is intuitive and easy to use. So, I hope this will help you

 

[CollingsBob]

My GoPro Hero 7 is for sale. I want the larger capacity batteries available for the GoPro Hero 10 - Using an external power bank with the 7 was cumbersome. I have also purchased a dji Mini2 drone to augment the helmet mounted footage.

 

[JQL]

You can get professional quality video editing software for free from:

Lightworks: https://lwks.com/
DaVinci Resolve: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/

Both are very powerful (even in their "free" version) and are used to create Hollywood films, so do have a learning curve. There are lots of tutorials on their respective sites and the web. To get some of the more very advanced features you do need to buy a licence (not expensive) but, for YouTube etc. they have probably everything you need.

 

[CollingsBob]

I have the paid version of DaVinci Resolve…both the free version and the paid version require a fairly powerful computer to run them smoothly however.

 

[Bounce]

Resolve works fine on my Mac Mini (last gen with the last Intel chip). Also works great on the new M1 and M2 chips.

If needing a serviceable option to Photoshop, I recommend Affinity Photo. $50 for about 80-90% of the functionality.

 

[KevinLewis]

Too many post un/under edited videos on Youtube and other places. If you're going to do that, step above the noise and make you videos short and have a script for a voice over narration (instead of the ramblings that happen when the video is recording).

If you shoot 5 hours of video, the end product should be the best 5 minutes you can cut together.

Yes you are right, Great tip. Do you have any vlog experience before?

 

[RBEmerson]

Resolve isn't for the faint of heart. Unless the plan is to compete at or close to the corporate level, the free version is more than enough to produce impressive work. The later Resolve revs are IMNSHO almost overloaded with capabilities. I use V15 and haven't felt a great need to update from that.

I've used Shotcut (I definitely dislike the cutesy name - a typo waiting to happen). Although it's quite capable, I basically gave up on it because i was tired of dealing with its quirks. I'm not a Shotcut fan, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be checked out.

Plan on spending a lot of time wading through YT videos on Resolve, Shotcut, etc., and tons of time trying to make sense of it all.

Video editing takes serious computer horsepower. Think in terms of getting well into gaming horsepower. Dissolves and effects take a lot of effort to produce.

Audio, for the most part, is pretty straight ahead. From a production standpoint, it's a matter of keeping the timing and quality straight. Plan on doing any tweaking (noise reduction, etc.) before providing the track to Resolve, etc. Although a little quirky, Audacity works well, and the price is right.