GoPro4 footage to ProRes. Which ProRes ? LT/HQ/4444 ?

[Walter Biscardi]

Personally, we leave the GoPro footage native and edit with that. We output a ProRes file at the end of the edit. If you’re just using Colorista and MB Looks internal to Premiere Pro really no reason to add more compression to an already compressed file.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

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[Jeff Pulera]

Good advice from Walter, however the GoPro native files do not always play smoothly on some systems as a lot of CPU is needed to decode the clips on the fly.

Are you on PC or Mac? PC users can’t encode to ProRes anyway. But if you feel the need to convert, I would recommend simply using the GoPro Studio software which will batch-convert to their own Cineform codec, your choice or .avi or .mov formats.

Also, there is a checkbox to Remove Fisheye and I’ve found it easier to just pre-process in Studio and not have to deal with the correction in Premiere. The Cineform files are larger than the originals of course, but less compression equals better playback performance on many systems.

But like Walter said, if you can edit the native clips, why not try that first? Convert only if you encounter issues with that workflow.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Chris King]

It probably depends on your later use. As for original GoPro Hero4 2.7k footage, ProRres 422 HD is good if you pursue high video quality. For general GoPro video in FCP editing, ProRes 422 in 1080p video resolution is the common settings I use.