Go Pro Subscription, that’s not what was expected.
It sounds good that you get unlimited storage, quick upload to the cloud, replace the GoPro, 50% off accessories.
Let me elaborate before you make the same mistake that I did by buying subscription based on what was advertised will be the features of getting a subscription.
These are the top benefits of of getting a subscription, are they?
1. Unlimited cloud storage
Cloud storage is unlimited, but you are not able to upload your videos as it is taking days to upload your content. But no one is going to tell you that, which is really bad. So now I have already paid upfront for 1 year subscription for cloud storage and I would not be able to benefit from it.
So this unlimited storage is no good for me as I want to upload content on regular basis this unlimited storage
2. Quick upload
Definitely not a quick upload. This quick uplo will not work for me and many other people who want to create content on a regular basis,because when you start uploading videos, the keep uploading day and night and next day you want to film more content but your camera is still uploading videos from yesterday.
This is not good, you want to use your GoPro but it is busy trying to upload videos to the cloud. So you can not use your camera for hours, may be days.
3. Replace the GoPro no questions asked
Why would you ask questions when someone is paying for the camera replacement, you will have to pay $100 or more depending on what camera you are replacing and then pay delivery on top that can cost about $30 and might take nearly a month by the time you get your replaced camera. You do have to send your camera otherwise it will not work, so you are left without camera for a month.
You can not get an upgrade, it will be the same camera that you already have.
4. 50% off accessories
False statement again. It is upto 50% on something, well I have not found one thing on their website that go pro is selling for 50% off. You got a little bit of discount. So the battery that costs $29, you get it for $22. The handlebar I got $10 off on the handle bar. so I think you get like 20% off which is not 50%.
What can you do?
Okay so if you are someone that is looking into buying a GoPro or just thinking of getting the premium subscription that allows you to upload your videos to the cloud. Put it this way, it is not a premium feature that you are going to subscribe to.
An easy way around it is getting better micro Sd cards with good storage capacity. These memory cards are very affordable. The Sandusky micro ads extreme cards are around $30.
To back up your videos you can buy a ssd hard drive to store your videos on it, a lot of people already have these hard drives hanging around. I got about three 1 TB hard drives which can store heaps of videos. This is a good alternative.
Upload videos for free instead.
Well what I got the GoPro was for filming videos on the motorcycle, nature/beach walks and uploading them on YouTube after basic editing. If you do something like this your content will be uploaded online and you would not need to hang on to it, unless you want to.
There are many other ways, a lot of companies provide you free cloud storage up to 100 Gb, Surdoc web browser gives 100GB free storage no catch, google gives 15GB of free storage. So you can use all these freebies and store your videos.
My Cloud upload experience
On a full day of filming on GoPro Hero 9 with a SanDisk Extreme 32Gb MicroSD card with best quality footage selected. So I filmed heaps of videos around 60. When I tried uploading these videos to the cloud, even after 24 hours no luck, about 30 photos that I clicked uploaded on the cloud. Only the small 15 seconds or under a minute clips got uploaded.
But I filmed the whole trip on the motorcycle which is 2 hours round trip. So all that footage was not showing anywhere. After 2 days of continuous buffering sign on the GoPro I had enough, I can’t use the camera as it is busy trying to upload videos on the cloud for 48 hours.
Total disaster
I need to go out there and film more content, as my camera’s Sd card is full, I just tried to delete the videos that were already uploaded on the cloud. But you cannot identify what has been uploaded and what not when you are trying to identify them on the the small GoPro screen.
So, I was continuously getting memory full warning. On the screen, I ended up selecting the option to remove some videos, which ended up deleting everything on the camera. So all that footage that I got on my weekend is wiped out.
My plan
First thing I am going to do is get a 128Gb Micro SD card which is 4 times the one that came with GoPro 32Gb. GoPro supports up to 256 Gb card. For me 128 would be sufficient for now and I am going to format a hard drive and start uploading my content there or upload it straight to the YouTube channel, Goldcoaster 5K, as I am uploading 5K High definition videos.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, do not bother with GoPro subscription. It takes half a day to upload a single video to the cloud. Initially I thought it was my wifi then I ran few tests, wifi works fine. It is the go pro cloud that is super slow.
I think it should have been free for all the GoPro users out there who have been continuously buying GoPros and accessories through the years. I mean if you are paying for this service that uploads your content on the cloud quickly, It’s not doing what it is meant to do.
