Quote Hello, I'm writing this message because I have a GoPro Hero 9 Camera and I need help regarding the Merging of my Videos. I'm now looking since months to find a Video Editing Program that is able to combine GoPro Videos with different resolutions (for example a video which was shot in 2.7K and another video which was shot in 4K) or videos with the same resolution but nonetheless different (for example 4K 50FPS and 4K 60FPS), and finally manged to find CyberLink PowerDirector which seems to be able to that work. As I am shooting a lot of videos with different resolutions and also because the GoPro is cutting the Video after a certain time I would really be happy if someone who also has a GoPro Hero 9 camera and who is doing that kind of videos could help me and confirm me that it is possible to combine those videos without having a loss in quality. I would really like to have one single video that I can watch for example with friends or with my family instead of having multiple videos which are less long then for example two minutes. It would also be great if the person who replies to my question could at least try to explain me which settings I have to activate in CyberLink PowerDirector in order to merge those videos. I am very sorry to spam the Forum with my strange questions, but I have never done that before and therefore I really need some help.

If possible, could someone also please tell me what are the absolut best settings for the GoPro hero 9 when shooting a 4k video when it starts to become dark and foggy outside.

I really hope and would really be grateful to get an answer as soon as possible.

Many thanks in advance

Hi,

I don't have a Go-Pro so I can't give any detailed experience. No-one has picked this up but some general points :

PDR will work with clips of different resolutions, frame rates and codecs. Some clips may have characteristics that make editing more challenging - typically Variable Frame Rate clips from smartphones etc. Also there has been a discussion on the forum on higher resolution GoPro clips
https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/107895.page#post_box_403516

However, although importing and editing them is normally without problem, your main question is more about production without loss of quality. Here you are asking a more complex question.

If you had the bulk of the clips at 60 but a couple at 30fps and you produce to a 60fps profile PDR will have to adjust the 30fps clips to "fill in" the "missing" content.
Opinions will vary as to how acceptable the results are - a static brick wall will be fine, some fast moving action might not be fine.

Same principle applies ro resolution. Lower res clips produced to a higher res might be fine or may appear to have a quality loss. Only very dedicated software could make an attempt at low res SD clip into a 4K clip as an extreme example.

So you are correct in asking for advice from other users as to the "best" setting and workflow to get acceptable results, but unfortunately I have no direct experience to offer!

Cheers,
PowerDirector Moderator

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Hi alexAndre9999 -

I occasionally use my GoPros (5, 7 & 10) together in the same shoot, usually with my grandsons/tripods on the other cameras. Since the footage will usually end up in the same video, I set the cameras as close as possible to the same settings (resolution, bitrate, & everything else) before we start. That simplifies things when you're editing.

I can't say I've done a lot of low light shooting, but this guy has some useful tips on GoPro 9 low light settings. You'll find plenty of videos that deal with the same thing. The best thing is to try out different settings in the conditions you typically shoot in.

Me? I generally avoid mixing clips shot using different settings but it happens. If I had mixed clips of 2.7K & 4K I'd produce to 2.7K. Typically, I'd shoot in 4K (or higher) to allow for cropping in post then produce to 2.7K or 1080p... especially when the camera(s) can't be too close to the action.

That's my 2 cents worth.

Cheers - Tony
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Quote Hi alexAndre9999 -

I occasionally use my GoPros (5, 7 & 10) together in the same shoot, usually with my grandsons/tripods on the other cameras. Since the footage will usually end up in the same video, I set the cameras as close as possible to the same settings (resolution, bitrate, & everything else) before we start. That simplifies things when you're editing.

I can't say I've done a lot of low light shooting, but this guy has some useful tips on GoPro 9 low light settings. You'll find plenty of videos that deal with the same thing. The best thing is to try out different settings in the conditions you typically shoot in.

Me? I generally avoid mixing clips shot using different settings but it happens. If I had mixed clips of 2.7K & 4K I'd produce to 2.7K. Typically, I'd shoot in 4K (or higher) to allow for cropping in post then produce to 2.7K or 1080p... especially when the camera(s) can't be too close to the action.

That's my 2 cents worth.

Cheers - Tony

Hi Tony,

hope you are doing well.

Thank you very much for the video with the guy who explains which settings are the best to shoot in low resolution. Nonetheless, I think that you didn't answer my question about the loss of quality when merging the GoPro Videos. So if I do understand it correctly, you think that it is possible to merge those different 4k videos which are a bit different (for example 4k 50 FPS and 4K 60 FPS) ? I usually always record in 4K, so as I explained all of my videos are in 4k but still different. As I gave the example, you can have three different 4K videos, for example 4K 60FPS, 4K 50FPS and 4K 60FPS with a zoom. What happens now if I combine them ? Will it even be possible to do so with CyberLink PowerDirector or not ? I would not like to pay for something that is not going to work afterwards. Could you please come back to me concerning my questions ?

Quote


Hi,

I don't have a Go-Pro so I can't give any detailed experience. No-one has picked this up but some general points :

PDR will work with clips of different resolutions, frame rates and codecs. Some clips may have characteristics that make editing more challenging - typically Variable Frame Rate clips from smartphones etc. Also there has been a discussion on the forum on higher resolution GoPro clips
https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/107895.page#post_box_403516

However, although importing and editing them is normally without problem, your main question is more about production without loss of quality. Here you are asking a more complex question.

If you had the bulk of the clips at 60 but a couple at 30fps and you produce to a 60fps profile PDR will have to adjust the 30fps clips to "fill in" the "missing" content.
Opinions will vary as to how acceptable the results are - a static brick wall will be fine, some fast moving action might not be fine.

Same principle applies ro resolution. Lower res clips produced to a higher res might be fine or may appear to have a quality loss. Only very dedicated software could make an attempt at low res SD clip into a 4K clip as an extreme example.

So you are correct in asking for advice from other users as to the "best" setting and workflow to get acceptable results, but unfortunately I have no direct experience to offer!

Cheers,
PowerDirector Moderator

Hi PowerDirector Moderator,

I hope you are doing well.

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my question. So, If I do understand this correctly now, you think that it is possible to merge those 4K videos which are slightly different, but If I do not record a wall but if I am moving fast in the video (for example two different videos where I jump into the water) there will be a little loss in quality which is unevitable, but you are not 100 % sure ? Could you please come back to me concerning that ?

Hi again -

I think that you didn't answer my question about the loss of quality when merging the GoPro Videos.

It's actually a tough question to answer simply. There are so many variables. What I was suggesting (the thing that failed to answer your question) is that I try to limit the variables at the shooting stage in order to maximise quality in the production stage.

Look - I'm not a technical guy - the little bit I have picked up has been in these & other forums. That has guided my workflow.

PowerDirector Moderator pointed out some of the possible drawbacks with mixing frame rates. i.e. it could result in loss of visual quality. You're also asking about mixing videos shot at different resolutions and (maybe) different video bitrates. In theory, those variables are going to cause a compromise in quality... but in practice, it's probably subjective.

Anyway, I tried this little test using a variety/selection of GoPro videos.

The videos (all HEVC)
3840 x 2160 - 80Mbps - 59.94fps
1920 x 1080 - 66Mbps - 100fps
2704 x 1520 - 45Mbps - 29.97fps
3840 x 2160 - 100Mbps - 59.94fps
3840 x 2160 - 100Mbps - 29.97fps
5312 x 2988 - 120Mbps - 23.976fps

Lined them up in the timeline & trimmed each clip to ~15-30 secs, then produced the mixed clips to different profiles. I did this knowing that I was potentially sacrificing quality:
eg. trying to produce a 1080p video to 5.3K
trying to render a 24fps video at 60/100fps
trying to produce a video shot at 120Mbps to a much lower bitrate

The 4 production profiles I used:
1080p - 38Mbps - 24fps
2.7K - 40Mbps - 30fps
UHD - 60Mbps - 60fps
5.3K - 100Mbps - 100fps

Like I said, it's a bit subjective so you judge for yourself. I've uploaded the 4 produced videos to Google Drive. Each segment is labelled with the original video properties. Each video is named according to its production profile.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_pA5_VR5TRgOmBbHRmvZwt3Kr4kKcX-U?usp=share_link

Cheers - Tony
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Quote Hi again -

I think that you didn't answer my question about the loss of quality when merging the GoPro Videos.

It's actually a tough question to answer simply. There are so many variables. What I was suggesting (the thing that failed to answer your question) is that I try to limit the variables at the shooting stage in order to maximise quality in the production stage.

Look - I'm not a technical guy - the little bit I have picked up has been in these & other forums. That has guided my workflow.

PowerDirector Moderator pointed out some of the possible drawbacks with mixing frame rates. i.e. it could result in loss of visual quality. You're also asking about mixing videos shot at different resolutions and (maybe) different video bitrates. In theory, those variables are going to cause a compromise in quality... but in practice, it's probably subjective.

Anyway, I tried this little test using a variety/selection of GoPro videos.

The videos (all HEVC)
3840 x 2160 - 80Mbps - 59.94fps
1920 x 1080 - 66Mbps - 100fps
2704 x 1520 - 45Mbps - 29.97fps
3840 x 2160 - 100Mbps - 59.94fps
3840 x 2160 - 100Mbps - 29.97fps
5312 x 2988 - 120Mbps - 23.976fps

Lined them up in the timeline & trimmed each clip to ~15-30 secs, then produced the mixed clips to different profiles. I did this knowing that I was potentially sacrificing quality:
eg. trying to produce a 1080p video to 5.3K
trying to render a 24fps video at 60/100fps
trying to produce a video shot at 120Mbps to a much lower bitrate

The 4 production profiles I used:
1080p - 38Mbps - 24fps
2.7K - 40Mbps - 30fps
UHD - 60Mbps - 60fps
5.3K - 100Mbps - 100fps

Like I said, it's a bit subjective so you judge for yourself. I've uploaded the 4 produced videos to Google Drive. Each segment is labelled with the original video properties. Each video is named according to its production profile.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_pA5_VR5TRgOmBbHRmvZwt3Kr4kKcX-U?usp=share_link

Cheers - Tony

Hi Tony,

thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions and to try to solve my problems.

I absolutely understand that this is a very complex topic and I admit that I underestimated everything when I started to ask people about the merging of videos. I thought that it would simply be possible that someone tells me which Video editing program I have to use and that it was just about aligning the videos and merging them.

I wanna say thank you for the videos you uploaded on Google Drive. As soon as I find the time to do so (which will be challenging) I will watch them in order to have a first impression. I'm also waiting for someone who works a lot with GoPros and uploads videos on YouTube to reply to a comment of myself. I think that at the end of the year I should be able to buy a licence for CyberLink PowerDirector. I will keep you updated on the evolution of the situation.

Have a nice day and thank you very much

Cheers - Alex

Hi Alex -

Thank you for the thank you.

It's the "without any loss of quality" in your question that led to all the complication.

If your purpose is to be able to combine videos that have been shot on different settings to enjoy with friends & family, you won't have any problems doing that. In the examples you asked about (4K @ 50fps & 4K @ 60fps) there's not such extreme variation compared with the ones I posted. You'd probably need to be examing the produced video frame by frame to be bothered by it.

Also, it won't matter whether it's PowerDirector or another app the same "problem" exists. Whatever software you use will have to "will have to adjust the clips to "fill in" the "missing" content." (PowerDirector Moderator).

The best thing to do is to try it out for yourself to see whether it satifies your needs.

Good luck in your quest.

Cheers - Tony
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Quote Also, it won't matter whether it's PowerDirector or another app the same "problem" exists. Whatever software you use will have to "will have to adjust the clips to "fill in" the "missing" content." (PowerDirector Moderator).

I think it does matter on how the "problem" is addressed. PD simply does frame duplicates in say going from 50fps to 60fps. You simply get 10 duplicate frames in a second of video. If one's happy with that, great, it allows a simple PD timeline to be used with multiple assets. However,quality really depends on type of video and how much action or motion one is dealing with.

For higher quality combination, I often find it advantageous to convert everything outside of PD to a common frame rate and use tools that support various frame interpolation approaches and technologies. This can often produce much smoother videos at non source frame rates when motion exists.

Jeff