Gopro MP4 files strange?

from bit.ly/139WCEn

 

Question by Alec: Gopro MP4 files strange?

I just bought the Gopro HD Hero 1 w/ 4gb SD card. I took about 20 short videos (I know, risky) and opened them up on my computer (I have a vista) The files, of course. were Mp4 videos, but some of the previews on the files were missing. When opening them up, I can play them, but windows media player lags a bit and sometimes crashes. I moved about 4 of the strange files to my computer, but when I tried to delete them, it would claim that no data was detected. Therefore, I couldn’t delete them. I took a lot of footage, and I really don’t want to loose it. What should I do?

 

Best answer:

 

Answer by Dennis C

Hi Alec, and welcome to Yahoo!Answers:

 

The first rule of digital photography & video is ALWAYS COPY, never MOVE files on SD cards. And only use the camera (NOT your computer) to delete SD card & internal camera memory files.

 

There are a lot of index and thumbnail files (and folders) you have no concept of, when it comes to digital camera memory.

 

When copying an SD card’s contents to a computer, the best thing to do is create an empty backup folder on your PC, then drag & drop the entire SD card “removable disk” icon onto the folder for copying. That way all the hidden files and subfolders are backed-up, and you won’t be missing any files or videos/photos if anything goes wrong with your original SD card.

 

As far as your Windows Media Player issues, GoPro warns about trying to play the MP4 files directly from the camera’s SD card. The MP4 “container” files are actually encoded using the H.264 codec, and if you don’t have the latest HD version of WMP loaded, you might not have the correct codec. See the GoPro HD Troubleshooting page: bit.ly/Vvt12N

 

GoPro (as well as myself) recommends you make sure your computer has enough “horsepower” to properly handle HD video. The high-compression rates of H.264 HD video takes a lot of CPU speed and plenty of RAM (as well as a decent video card) to process & playback properly. The camera uses hardware codecs to do this, which your PC lacks.

 

If you wish to edit your footage in Windows Movie Maker or “Live” Movie Maker, I’d recommend either MPEG Streamclip or Handbrake transcoders for conversion over to WMV format. You can also download Real Networks free “Real Player” which will play your MP4 videos “as is” as well as give you the free Real Player Converter for transcoding them to WMV or other formats for editing.

 

hope this helps,

–Dennis C.

 

 

What do you think? Answer below!

 

GoPro video

 

Read more Gopro MP4 files strange?. More content about GoPro by Thomas on Through GoPro .

Done