GoPro HD Hero2 Camcorder Review

Motion

The GoPro Hero2 captures motion differently than a normal camcorder, but the end result sill looked positive for the hands-free camcorder. Our motion test footage had some noise and blur (and some choppy movement), but artifacting wasn't all that bad and we were impressed by the plethora of frame rates offered on the Hero2. Most importantly, we found the camcorder's motion footage looked better than our test with the Contour+ hands-free camcorder. The Contour had more artifacting and interference than the GoPro, which is something you should be able to see in our test clip below.

The video directly below was shot with using the Hero2's narrow field of view setting, which had a similar recording angle to a standard consumer camcorder (still wide, but not so wide that it created an overwhelming fish-eye effect). Further down on the page, is the same motion test shot with the camcorder's wide field of view setting. The difference is extreme, and you can see how much of a warping effect the wide setting adds to the footage. More on how we test motion.

Motion Test - Wide Field of View

Resolution & Frame Rates

In terms of the amount of frame rates and resolutions offered for recording, the Hero2 runs circles around the Contour+ camcorder. GoPro includes one Full HD record mode on the Hero2 (a 1920 × 1080 resolution with a 30p frame rate), two 1280 × 960 modes (at 48fps or 30p), two 1280 × 720 options (at 60p and 30p), and two standard definition record modes (an 848 × 480 resolution).

Slow Motion Modes

To top it all off, one of the two standard definition modes on the Hero2 is a 120fps slow motion mode (the other SD mode records using a 60p frame rate). A 120fps mode won’t produce wildly slow motion effects, but it should produce video that looks about half speed compared to 60p during playback.