Garmin Virb Ultra 30

sennister

sennister

Joined
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Grant, MN (aka Stillwater)
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ST1100 & ST1300
Anyone out there done much testing with one?

I had picked up a GoPro Hero 5 Session before the holidays to use on our vacation to Fl and Mexico. It worked well but the more I thought of it, I was concerned with long term use being the battery isn't replaceable. After 2-3 years a cell phone battery is about shot and for $300 it was going to be expensive to just junk it. Since Best Buy had an extended return policy over the holidays I used it on the vacation and returned it when I got back. I was leaning toward replacing it with the Hero 5 Black but after talking with a coworker and reading/watching lots of reviews I went with the Garmin Virb Ultra 30. It just showed up on the doorstep today but haven't played with it much. Might go skiing this weekend or next weekend for sure. I also picked up a Giro Edit Ski Helmet to mount it to.

My thoughts were while both the Hero 5 Black and Virb Ultra 30 do data overlays, the Garmin is more open to 3rd parties. It seems from what I have been reading, GoPro is really locking out the 3rd party network. So things like paring my Sena 20s to it isn't an option with the GoPro but it works with the Garmin. They may add it later down the road with an update but I don't want to gamble on that. Also I have a bluetooth OBD-2 dongle so in my WRX I can log car data and overlay that right on the video. For instance I can overlay a tachometer. Or at least I think that is all possible. They don't have a lot of info on the Garmin site other than it can do it technically with some adapters but no word for sure on which ones it works with. For the bikes, like with the GoPro there are plenty of sensors built into the camera for speed, g forces and a bunch of other stuff. However those sensors don't add much that the GoPro does so if you are after those overlays, the two cameras are neck in neck from what I have read.

Anyone have any additional info on this topic?
 
I did a quick test this morning of the Virb in my WRX with the OBD-II bluetooth dongle and I was pretty impressed. I am not going to post a video link to what I shot because it came out pretty crappy. For mounting the camera I used a elastic head mount strapped to the passenger headrest. So the camera was bouncing around a lot. Even though I was shooting in 2.7K with image stabilization on, it was very bumpy. The stiff suspension on the WRX doesn't help this much so I will need to work out another mounting solution before I get usable video. This was more of a test of if the camera can capture data from the OBD-2 dongle and I am happy to report that it works very well. Some of the gauges that can be displayed had no data but some of this is a case of what the reader can see from your car. For instance some of the gauges like for fuel consumption didn't display anything. However when I used the Torque Pro app with the dongle it doesn't show anything either so my car probably doesn't report this. Things like speed, RPM, Throttle Position, MAF Rate, Coolant Temp, Engine Load all were being logged. I still need to test it with my Sena 20S but I am pretty sure I am behind on updates so I want to flash that with the latest firmware to give it the best chance of working.

Here is the dongle that I was using.

https://www.amazon.com/ScanTool-426101-OBDLink-Bluetooth-Professional/dp/B006NZTZLQ

with this camera

https://www.amazon.com/Garmin-VIRB-Ultra-Action-Camera/dp/B01HP4PMG0

In the app I grabbed this photo.

attachment.php
 
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Mellow said:
That's pretty cool!
Click to expand...

Kind of makes me wish bikes had to follow the OBD-II standards so we could do this on a motorcycle. There are still a lot of sensors packed into the camera so speed, location and a bunch of other stuff can be overlayed as well. The GoPro Black does these as well but only the Garmin supports Bluetooth mics at this point. So the Sena would only work with that unless GoPro comes out with an update later.
 
Here is the Giro Edit Ski Helmet which comes with a GoPro Mount. I am glad that Garmin is using the same mating system as GoPro so all the GoPro mounts and knock off mounts work with the Garmin.

attachment.php
 
I should add that the review in the link below is why I am a little concerned about the Sena 20S quality. It is possible that there have been some updates to correct the issues or it was a settings problem but it was a bit disappointing.

https://youtu.be/_oYFxjKo0IY?t=292

There was another video where I saw a while back where I think someone in Nevada did where I thought he was using the Virb Ultra 30 and Sena 20S combo and it sounded great. I will see if I can find that video for comparison. Or just make my own once I get the Sena updated.

EDIT: looks like when I post a video is dropped the part to link to a point in time on the video. If you want to watch his full review feel free. Or skip ahead to about the 5 minute mark and he takes the camera out for a ride. For some reason he doesn't have any of the overlays on which is fine. I was kind of expecting it on a video review though. It is a selling point. If you have no use for this then it probably isn't worth upgrading from a Hero 4.
 
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fnmag said:
I like the screen readout. Hope the interface works out.
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At least in the initial test it seems pretty good. Interacting with the camera isn't much different than a GoPro. A few things to learn. Another cool feature is that with the Hero 5 I could create a wifi network but not join an existing one. The Garmin will join right up to my existing home network or be a standalone network if remote depending on what I am trying to do. The nice thing about that is you can join multiple Garmin cameras to one network to control them all. They really seem to be going after the video production market that GoPro has done quite well in. Not only is this visible in the wifi part but also the way you can build a configuration file then quickly copy it across all your cameras.

Their software isn't half bad. Having used the editing software from GoPro and now this I would say the Garmin is easier to use. All the overlays are done in the editing application. When you shoot video it has a plain video file (MP4) without any of the gauges or displays. Then each video file has a THM and a GLV file associated with it. I am not sure what is stored in those files yet but in another folder called GMetrix there is additional files. G-Metrix is what they call all the overlays in the editing software so I assume that this is where all that data is held. Once you import the files from the camera or by SD card, you can do the editing portion. Of course if you use a more powerful editing software like Adobe Premier, I would be shocked if it can overlay the G-Metrix data. So that might be a mess in that if you needed to edit the video you might have to edit it in Premier but you probably can't trim it down. Then pull it back into Virb Edit to do the overlay work and maybe do your trimming and transitions there or once the overlays applied to the video pull it back over to Adobe for final editing. If you trimmed it down before applying the overlays they may not line up right. If you edit things like maybe exposure corrections after applying the overlays you may impact them as well as I suspect Adobe wouldn't treat them as a separate layer.

I have an old copy of Premier but don't really use it so I will probably stick with Virb Edit.
 
sennister said:
Kind of makes me wish bikes had to follow the OBD-II standards so we could do this on a motorcycle. There are still a lot of sensors packed into the camera so speed, location and a bunch of other stuff can be overlayed as well. The GoPro Black does these as well but only the Garmin supports Bluetooth mics at this point. So the Sena would only work with that unless GoPro comes out with an update later.
Click to expand...
There is OBDII on the 2016-7 FJR's. Sena updates have been recently released, and a new model the Sena 30 is due out soon.........
 
RaYzerman said:
There is OBDII on the 2016-7 FJR's. Sena updates have been recently released, and a new model the Sena 30 is due out soon.........
Click to expand...

That is interesting. I didn't know they added it to their bikes. Does it use the same connector so any generic OBD-II reader can be used? I would imagine that is part of the spec so they have to.
 
What is happening is the Euro 4 emissions requirements are mandating OBD II compatibility. As new models are introduced, and older ones revised, this capability will be added. So far the regulation does not mandate an OBD II connector as in the case in cars. I suspect the motorcycle industry as successfully argued that such a large connector creates packaging problems. So far it seems Yamaha is using a proprietary adapter harness. What I don't know is whether the connector at the bike end has to be standard but I suspect not. If so then every manufacturer will do it's own thing requiring the use of their proprietary adapter. Hopfully all manufacturers make these adapters available to the consumer.
 
Getting back to the original topic, I have the first generation Garmin Virb Elite Camera:

Garmin-VIRB-Elite_1.jpg

I too, chose it for the replaceable internal battery and extra features and overlays, but what I've found is that they are mostly useless.
They look nice on the finished video (which, by the way takes hours to upload, edit, and output to a usable file format - and I have a stout professional editing system), but the speed readings, G-Force readings, etc, are very random and often completely wrong.

Sitting in my driveway, waiting for my daughter to gear up and ride with me, the speed sensors say I'm doing 24 MPG while I'm still on a kick-stand. (Vibration perhaps? It's definitely not based on just GPS readings). The G-Force readings when you are on a bike that leans into and out of corners is kind of irrelevant, isn't it? If the unit was held flat, say on a dashboard, it could pick up true G-Force information, but when attached to a motorcycle dashboard that leans into a turn, you get a completely bogus reading.

The concept is nice, the image quality is great, but the real world use for these overlays just doesn't work for me.
Perhaps things have improved with the latest generation of Virb cameras?

Just my $.02.
Jim
 
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wjbertrand said:
What is happening is the Euro 4 emissions requirements are mandating OBD II compatibility. As new models are introduced, and older ones revised, this capability will be added. So far the regulation does not mandate an OBD II connector as in the case in cars. I suspect the motorcycle industry as successfully argued that such a large connector creates packaging problems. So far it seems Yamaha is using a proprietary adapter harness. What I don't know is whether the connector at the bike end has to be standard but I suspect not. If so then every manufacturer will do it's own thing requiring the use of their proprietary adapter. Hopfully all manufacturers make these adapters available to the consumer.
Click to expand...

The OBD-II standard doesn't dictate everything. I haven't read the standard but it was mainly an attempt to move away from all these proprietary connectors to a standard. I would also say that some areas have to be standardized but not all. That is why if you have an older vehicle (what was it around 1996) you can pull general error codes as you can on a new one. With my first generic scanner I bought in the early 2000s it could read any code but I bought an expansion to decode additional codes and log additional data from GM vehicles. There was another module for Ford and Dodge. For instance I want to say this additional expansion let me see real time data like missfire count on a specific cylinder. As time moved on manufacturers moved to a CAN Bus. Again you may have needed a new scan tool to read this new data and some is still proprietary but I want to say I can still pull generic fault codes on my new WRX which is CAN Bus. I don't use it anymore though because I have had the bluetooth dongle which is CAN Bus compatible. However when connecting that to my Jetta TDI which was also CAN Bus, I still couldn't see all the data that I can with the VCDS system which is designed specifically for VW/Audi. With that device not only could I pull more codes than I could see with generic OBD-II but also log data across more channels and reprogram settings in the ECU.

As for motorcycles. They are in a different class of vehicles and have been largely exempt from all this stuff.
 
JMartin said:
Getting back to the original topic, I have the first generation Garmin Virb Elite Camera:

Garmin-VIRB-Elite_1.jpg

I too, chose it for the replaceable internal battery and extra features and overlays, but what I've found is that they are mostly useless.
They look nice on the finished video (which, by the way takes hours to upload, edit, and output to a usable file format - and I have a stout professional editing system), but the speed readings, G-Force readings, etc, are very random and often completely wrong.

Sitting in my driveway, waiting for my daughter to gear up and ride with me, the speed sensors say I'm doing 24 MPG while I'm still on a kick-stand. (Vibration perhaps? It's definitely not based on just GPS readings). The G-Force readings when you are on a bike that leans into and out of corners is kind of irrelevant, isn't it? If the unit was held flat, say on a dashboard, it could pick up true G-Force information, but when attached to a motorcycle dashboard that leans into a turn, you get a completely bogus reading.

The concept is nice, the image quality is great, but the real world use for these overlays just doesn't work for me.
Perhaps things have improved with the latest generation of Virb cameras?

Just my $.02.
Jim
Click to expand...

I agree that it is a slow process. I was on vacation with the Hero 5 Session and had my laptop which is an older i7 but only 4GB of RAM and I gave up. I just used it to offload the card to make room for more video footage.

I am using a Lexar 128GB card and found transfer rates were much faster with the included dongle rather than putting it in an adapter and using the built in SD card reader.

At home my desktop is a custom built i7 with the 6700K processor and is overclocked a bit along with 32GB of RAM. This was night and day different in editing and processing the video. I still would just start it and let it run. If shooting in 4K not only are the files really big but it will take a lot of power to process it.

One of the benefits of the new Ultra 30 over the older ones is that they have made improvements in the GPS. They went from a once a second log to 10 times a second. This will make it so it more accurately traces your path. For instance one of the reviews showed various camera logs going through a round about. The ones with a 1 second log showed more of a diamond path around the round about where the Ultra 30 more accurately mapped the actual path. This will come into play with speed. Keep in mind the way GPS speed and compass heading are calculated in using points in time. To go from point A to point B in ____ time gives you speed and to get from A to B you went this direction. If you have slow sampling and curvy roads this won't be accurate. If it is a straight road it will be pretty close but all bets are off in the twisties and that is the fun stuff that you might want to record. That is the nice part about OBD-II integration. When I am editing I can either select to use GPS speed or OBD-II Speed. Of course because OBD-II speed is taken from the car directly it will be much more accurate than GPS unless you have the wrong size wheels and tires. Of course this doesn't help on a motorcycle with no OBD-II. Also inconsistencies while stationary are pretty common with GPS. This is more so the case when a device with GPS is first powered on. This is because depending on how well it can see the sky, it takes a while to get a good fix. If you were to record a log of the camera just sitting there in one place you will likely see your location bouncing around. Since GPS speed is calculated from time and location from point A to B to C...... As it jumps around it is constantly assuming it is moving even though it may be stationary. Better GPS antennas help with this but the quality of them, and other interference like buildings will decrease the accuracy and give poor readings.

There are a lot of sensors and not all of them have much use for us in the motorcycle side of things. I saw it logs things for the aviation side of the house like slip in turns. There are things like hang time which if you are logging that on a street bike you are doing it wrong and a bunch of other stuff.

I think my main thing is that I miss that the Hero 5 Session (and Hero 5 Black) use the USB Type C. This isn't a big deal for everyone but why I like it is because my phone and my wife's phone both use USB Type C for charging so one cable can charge everything. With the Virb it uses Mini USB. My tablet is Micro USB. The Virb is the only thing I use that is Mini-USB and that is annoying. I liked how the Hero 5 Session and Hero 5 Black are water proof without a housing. However only to 33ft. That is fine for my use though. I didn't like how GoPro is locking out a lot of the accessories. No more back packs and such to extend battery life. One thing the Ultra 30 has is a few contacts on the bottom of the unit for a yet to be released accessory. Maybe some form of waterproof case with a built in battery. While the Hero 5 Black has sensors like GPS for speed and such as you have experienced they will likely be inaccurate. The OBD-II option in the Ultra 30 is nice if your vehicle supports it.

Also there is a new feature which is interesting with timelapse. You can do the normal take a photo every xx seconds like GoPro and older Virbs. There is a new mode they added that is distance based. So take a photo every 1/10 mile for instance. That is kind of different. Of course you need to make sure GPS is enabled to do it.

Still need to update my Sena and try the voice stuff. I will try and get to that this weekend.

I also ordered a couple more batteries for the Virb today.
 
I had forgotten about the Mini vs. Micro USB thing too. That is a pain.
Only my Virb and an old Home Theatre Remote that I have still use this plug.
 
JMartin said:
I had forgotten about the Mini vs. Micro USB thing too. That is a pain.
Only my Virb and an old Home Theatre Remote that I have still use this plug.
Click to expand...

I should mention that while I don't like dealing with another cable, I hope if they change it they go to C. The mini USB is too fragile and I wouldn't trust it in the long run. I am happier than it is mini vs micro. C is not only nice because it is what my phone uses but it is reversible so no messing with does it go this way or flip it. This is mainly for charging though. Maybe this will be less of an issue for me. As I mentioned I ordered some additional batteries and they came with a charger. I don't bother with trying to move the files via USB because it simply takes too long. The only time I will likely use it for charging is when doing an extended time lapse where I hook it up to a battery pack.
 
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