The difference in platforms becomes kind of obvious when you look at the instruction manual for the GoPro. Why should I work so hard to get this done? Of course I'm writing this on a PC since I'm such a cheapo.

In WINDOWS, double click on MY COMPUTER and you will see a “Removable Disk” icon. If you do not see this, close the MY
COMPUTER folder and then re-open it and the ““Removable Disk” icon should appear.
Double click the “Removable Disk” icon. Then double click the “DCIM” folder icon. Then double click the “100GOPRO” icon. The photo
and video files will be in the “100GOPRO” folder. Highlight the pictures or video files and drag them to a folder of your choice or double
click a file to view it.
MAC USERS: Simply plug the camera into your MAC with the included USB cable and the MAC OS will recognize the camera as either
a mass storage device or external hard drive. You can also use iPhoto to import photos from the camera onto your MAC.

I've had the Oregon scientific 4yrs and it's only let me down once when I was hit by a water spout. It is waterproof, very shock proof, when we got slammed the card got corrupted but the camera works fine. They're cheap enough to mount 2 on your pole for each side and come with good mounting kits. No HD but it records up to 4 hrs on lowest quality. I put a couple of sailing vids on youtube using Windows moviemaker with no problem and you can take stills off it.
regards