Does Iphone need to record video as well with Gopro?

[Harry]

The HEROs have two modules build in, a wireless module and a camera module. You have two buttons to turn these on and off individually. While the HERO3 can power on the cam module from the wireless module, the HERO4 can't (at least with the 3rd party API). To verify you have a working connection to a HERO, make sure you get the HERO placeholder displayed "picture in picture" while in Video View. For the HERO4, it can happen it shows an active WiFi status while the module has powered down to save energy. So in case you did not connected within the first 2 minutes (not sure what the exact time is), power down the WiFi module and turn it on again. Reconnect the WiFi of your iPad afterwards - it will be disconnected too.

- Harry

[Cloud9...68]

Just so I'm clear (and this sometimes takes some doing when it comes to me and high tech mobile devices...), the Hero 4 has three buttons: The main power button in the front of the camera, the wireless button on the side of the camera opposite the side where the USB cable connects, and the record button on top of the camera. When I press the wireless button, even if the camera is turned off, a blue light starts flashing. Of these three buttons, which one or ones do I have to press before starting my session (assuming the other criteria are satisfied)?

I ask because on my last attempt to use my Hero4 as the video recording device for Laptimer, the Hero placeholder was displayed picture in picture while in video view, yet it didn't record my session - the ipad mini's internal camera did instead. Thanks; one of these days, I'm sure I'll get it...

[Harry]

The internal can is operated always with the current LapTimer version. External can only operation will be added to v20 (Spring 2016).

For the H4, turn on the cam (front button), and the wireless modul (side button). For the H3, it is the side button only.

Harry

[Cloud9...68]

Great, thanks for the clarification. I'll report back on how it works after my next track session.

[Cloud9...68]

Before I do my session tomorrow, I'd like to get feedback on a few observations. The first couple are more related to iOS and how it interacts with peripheral devices, but Harry seems to understand this topic very well, so I thought I'd pose these questions here.

First, when I go into Settings in my iPad Mini, and then select Bluetooth, it shows that my XGPS160 is connected, but not my GoPro Hero4.

So, then I select Wi-Fi, it shows that my Gopro is recognized. I know you've spoken to this before, but any idea why iOS uses Bluetooth to connect to one of my devices, and Wi-Fi (I vaguely understand the difference between the two) for the other? It doesn't matter as long as it works, but it seems strange.

Then, when I open up Laptimer, and select the video display mode, it shows a nice icon for GoPro Hero4 in the upper right hand corner, and there's a button in the center labeled "Record Auto", and when I press this button, it displays a message saying that video recording will begin automatically when I pass the start/finish line. So this is encouraging. But what's showing in the background of the screen is images of what is being recorded by the ipad's internal camera. So, am I correct in assuming that when I pass the start/finish point, the internal camera will cease recording, and the Hero4 will start (provided I've manually tuned on the Hero4)?

Finally, does it matter what screen I have displayed when I run my session? In other words, is it OK to run my session with the video screen displayed, or should I run it with the "Timer" screen displayed? I don't see why it would make any difference, but I want to make sure I have all the bases covered. Thanks in advance.

[gplracerx]

The XGPS160 is Bluetooth only. The Hero4 has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth but, IIRC, HLT must use WiFi.

You won't see the video from the Hero4 until the recorded file is transferred to the iOS device. I'm pretty sure there isn't enough bandwidth to support live video from the Hero4 and do all the rest of the stuff that HLT does.

So, am I correct in assuming that when I pass the start/finish point, the internal camera will cease recording, and the Hero4 will start (provided I've manually tuned on the Hero4)?

Not in this version. You can't turn off the internal camera. The Hero4 should start recording automatically when you cross start/finish. If you start recording manually on the Hero4, it may stop when you cross start/finish. If you want video to start before you cross start/finish, use the record now button rather than the record auto button. If you do that, you have to stop the recording manually too. There should be a stop button.

Finally, does it matter what screen I have displayed when I run my session? In other words, is it OK to run my session with the video screen displayed, or should I run it with the "Timer" screen displayed?

Either way should work. Or at least it does for me with a Hero3.

[Harry]

One addition: the H4 used BT low energy (and wifi), which is a different thing than BT. BT LE devices are not shown in Bluetooth settings and they are not paired on OS level. The H4 uses BT LE for some authentication stuff you go through when connecting the H4 to the phone using the GoPro app and it uses it to do a smart power management of the H4's wifi module. The later requires a lot of battery so it makes sense to wake it up and keep it alive using BT LE. But it is complicated.

Harry

[Cloud9...68]

I did a track session yesterday, and the good news is that Laptimer successfully turned on my Hero4 to start recording when I passed the start/finish line. The bad news is that unlike when I run the Hero4 in stand-alone mode, the quality of the video from yesterday's session was TERRIBLE - very jerky, almost like a badly-edited series of still photographs spliced together to attempt to look like a video. It's as if either Laptimer, or the way Laptimer and the GoPro interact through the ipad Mini, is drastically dragging down the GoPro's record rate. So, I obviously have to fix this before I can come close to having this system (Laptimer/Hero4/XGPS160/ipad Mini) work in harmony to record data and video of my sessions which I can quickly download and play back. Any idea what might be causing this? Thanks.

Edit: I thought of something that might be contributing to my woes. I checked the memory usage on my (it's actually my wife's) ipad Mini, and it's quite full - it has 22.8G of stuff (songs, photos, and applications) on it, leaving just under 4G of free space. After just one 25-minunte session, there's only 2.3G of free space left, because of the fact that the ipad takes a video (of the front of my dash) with its internal camera, which apparently can't be disabled with the current version of Laptimer. Could this be why my video quality is so poor, and why my lap times don't jive (by about 5 seconds/lap!) with manual readings that have been taken with a stop watch?

[Harry]

Video quality is set to either HD or FullHD for the HERO once it is started by LapTimer. Please check your have selected "Master" as the MultiCam Preset in LapTimer's Settings. There is nothing else that influences the HERO quality, LapTimer has no influence on HERO video quality except HD/FullHD. You may want to experiment with etc HERO mounting.

On the internal video: set the internal cam to SD and delete it after each session. This will not consume too much memory.

If LapTimer is wrong by 5 seconds, this means you either have very poor GPS accuracy, or triggers are not set correctly. With the XGPS160 you should see an accuracy of +-0.05 seconds in 95% of all samples.

- Harry

[Cloud9...68]

Ah, my multicam preset had been set to "none" - I changed it to Master. Hopefully that will resolve the video quality issue. Thanks for that feedback - it was probably in the documentation, and I missed it. I'm doing another session tomorrow - I'll report back on the video quality. If it's good, I'll try moving to the next step and try to figure out how to overlay the video and the data.