Ok, hold the show for one second. You guys are trying to do comparisons based off of youtube videos. As a user, we have no idea if something has been color-graded, stabilized, or otherwise cleaned up. And then its down-rezzed to fit online which changes the quality again. To really do a true comparison people would need to post up their raw, straight from the camera footage in its original file format and let others download it to play with and decide for themselves.
Now, I have no dog in this race but I do prefer the higher rez footage of the GoPro HD (mainly because it matches up with the other stuff I have shot on the main cam). The Tachyon does look pretty interesting and I could see where alot of people here would be very happy with it results when shooting friends in the water boat to boat so to speak. The problem with the Tachyon is its resolution, it is still a standard def camera at its core, thus not allowing the flexibility of an HD cam. Why is HD resolution better when all you are doing is posting online videos?
By definition HD footage needs to be captured at a much higher data rate than standard def footage. The end result is that it gives you more data to work with when you pull the video off of the camera (more data=better color, sharpness, a cleaner looking image). For a benchmark consider this; standard HD cams (HDV, AVCHD, etc) record at a rate of anywhere from 22 to 35 Mbps. The GoPro records at a rate of 12-15 Mbps in either its 1080 or 720 modes (the 960 mode is just odd so I would not even consider using it), and I could not find what the Tachyon records to, but based on its resolution would guess somewhere slightly lower than the GoPro. MasterBlaster, would you happen to know this spec on the Tachyon cam?
What does all of this mumbo jumbo mean to the average user? Simply put, the more data you have to work with the better your end result can be. Granted how much and what type of post production work you put into it will also affect this but the starting point between the two cams is very different in my opinion.
While I do think videos with some edit/color work done to them are always better to watch I can still appreciate a raw, straight from the cam video because no matter what you do with your footage or how you captured it the end result is the same. People with a common interest sharing what they love to do with others, and as others have stated maybe getting people outside the sport interested as well, which benefits everyone in the long run. And please if you are one of these people who say that they do not want anymore people involved and ride zones would be too crowded etc... I really hope you don't have any videos posted because that will speak more to your own narcissism than anything else.
