Recording Live Games 101

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Oct 21, 2016
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I'm interested in recording my DD games with a Go Pro or something similar. Can someone give me a quick crash course on equipment and where to start? Camera, Mount, extra batteries, etc.... I've looked at the GoPro Hero a little bit on amazon. Also, what video editing software should I be looking at?

Thanks in advance!
 

WARRIORMIKE

Pro-Staff Everything
Oct 5, 2009
2,815
48
At the Jewel in San Diego
Gopro Hero 3 Black or newer. Must have a lynkspyder. Dont let the imitators fool you.

For Games editing software is pretty standard with windows movie maker or whatever free version you can find. Buy an external batteries but always good to have extra batteries just in case

Camera settings should be with your FOV or Field of View at Narrow or Linear.
1080p or 2.7K at 60FPS . Slower the frame rate if you dont care about slow motion or need to conserve memory space on your SD. Which reminds me, buy the gopro SD. That way its guarantee to be compatible with your camera.
Exposure should be at -.05 for day, opposite at night. Or you may have to play with that. Use the gopro color for now.

Hopefully this is "crashy" enough for you.
 
Oct 11, 2010
8,337
113
Chicago, IL
Josh Greer is a poster here that sells a contraption that mounts go pro to backstop. He knows everything about it.

I would send him a PM to get his attention, would not mind anwser being posted here though.
 

Josh Greer

DFP Vendor
Jul 31, 2013
934
93
Central Missouri
Thanks guys for the plugs. Good suggestions above on cameras. At this point, if you are on a medium-ish budget, the 2018 base model Hero is a good bang for the buck. The HERO5 and 6 have the best quality and features. As we have done more field tests this summer, we are finding some stability issues with the HERO6. The HERO5 is still my preferred recording camera.

For streaming, with quality results, the Mevo Plus is an excellent device. But not cheap. Also don't like not having a live LCD. But the smartphone App is wonderful; GoPro could learn some things.

Smartphones also make good streaming devices. But the field of view is narrow and heat can be a problem.

In all options, external USB batteries are a great investment
Get a couple 20000 mAh batteries and keep all of your gizmos going all weekend. We recommend the EasyAcc 20000 device found on Amazon. It has dual 2amp charging ports. So it charges twice as fast as most batteries.

For software, we use VLC Player for just making clips of videos. It is free and does frame by frame very well. For heavy production, we use Adobe Premiere Pro. It can be expensive, but allows you to batch process a lot of video automatically. The Premiere Elements program is cheaper. You lose the batch feature but still very good syste.

Hope this gets you started .
 
Apr 16, 2013
1,113
83
I use the LynkSpyder with the extra attachment to mount my full HD handheld camcorder. At 1080p 60fps I can record about 6 hours of video on a 64gb SD card. I also have a small battery pack I keep it plugged into. I have to charge it all and remove the files after a day of recording. I use OpenShot Video Editor for putting all the files together/editing them for upload to youtube. It's a free open source editor that has a lot of good features for being free. Get yourself an external hard drive of at least 2TB, as those files will fill your HD super quickly.
 
May 16, 2016
946
93
Here's my kit...

1. Go Pro Hero 3 Silver
2. Link Spyder Mount
3. Memory Cards. 32gb is usually enough for 1 tournament length game. I use 1 card per game, and switch cards every game.
4. External Batteries.

Using Adobe Premiere Elements for video editing.

FYI. Costco has a Go Pro Hero 5 bundle for $249.

Includes GoPro Hero5 Black, 16 GB MicroSD Card, Case and Tripod
 
Oct 21, 2016
189
28
Thank you all for the responses. They are very helpful and exactly what I was looking for as a quick crash course. I would say a medium-ish budget is what I'm looking at. I don't want to go cheap and end up with poor quality. Will look for that Gopro Black 5 bundle at Costco and LynkSypder for sure. Sounds like there are free versions that will work for software, which is great. Thanks again!
 

WARRIORMIKE

Pro-Staff Everything
Oct 5, 2009
2,815
48
At the Jewel in San Diego
I'm interested in recording my DD games with a Go Pro or something similar. Can someone give me a quick crash course on equipment and where to start? Camera, Mount, extra batteries, etc.... I've looked at the GoPro Hero a little bit on amazon. Also, what video editing software should I be looking at?

Thanks in advance!


This is a recent video short clip I did at night. I am starting to use my Hero6 more over my Hero3. I'm digging the linear view more and more

Oh also on sharpness. Set it to Medium. That way you can adjust in Post production

https://www.discussfastpitch.com/shameless-parent-brag-post-forum/34582-homerun-derby.html

If you noticed in the slo-mo part the ball gets a "choppy" look. Thats because of the frame rate. If I would of cranked up the frame rate to 60FPS instead of 30 then I would of gotten the "noise" on the video. I went with quality of video . I didnt really care about slomo to much.

Basically at 30FPS the eye of the lens opens up more to allow more light to the camera sensor.
 
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