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GoPro announces at CES 2015 new features coming to Hero4 cameras

Current and future owners of the company's latest high-end cameras will get a firmware update for six new features for photos and video.

Joshua Goldman Managing Editor / Advice
Managing Editor Josh Goldman is a laptop expert and has been writing about and reviewing them since built-in Wi-Fi was an optional feature. He also covers almost anything connected to a PC, including keyboards, mice, USB-C docks and PC gaming accessories. In addition, he writes about cameras, including action cams and drones. And while he doesn't consider himself a gamer, he spends entirely too much time playing them.
Expertise Laptops, desktops and computer and PC gaming accessories including keyboards, mice and controllers, cameras, action cameras and drones Credentials
  • More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.
Joshua Goldman
2 min read

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LAS VEGAS -- Despite all the rumors of a GoPro drone showing up at CES 2015, it didn't materialize. There was some good news announced, though, for current and potential owners of the Hero4 Black and Silver cameras.

A firmware update arriving sometime in the first half of 2015 will add several new features. One of those is a time-lapse video mode that will snap photos continuously and then turn them into a video in camera. The current time-lapse photo mode takes a series of pictures, which you then have to turn into a video with GoPro's desktop software.

Two other new video capture settings will be available, too, for the Hero4 Black: 720p resolution at 240 frames per second for HD-quality super-slow-motion video and 2.7K resolution at 60fps, which gives you smoother video for fast-moving scenes at a higher-than-full-HD resolution.

With the Hero4 models, GoPro added a HiLight Tag feature that lets you mark the video you're shooting with the press of button so that when it comes time to edit, you know right when something happened. Once the Hero4 Silver gets this update, you'll be able to tag moments while recording and while playing back on the built-in touchscreen.

For photos, the cameras are getting a slower burst mode of 30 frames in 6 seconds.

Lastly, after the update the cameras will auto-rotate the picture when the camera is mounted upside down. So, no more digging around in the menu to rotate the video or having to correct for it when editing.

GoPro also announced that an app for its GoPro Channel will be available on LG Smart TVs in 2015.

Editors' note: This firmware update is now available.