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In a previous post I mentioned about video editing software that will allow you to import, edit and export in HD the MP4 clips from your GoPro HD camera. It's always good to find a solution to a problem but if the solution implies buying a new video editor then it might not fit everyone. As the action sports camera alone costs 300$ then I don't see the fun in spending additional money for a new video editor. Maybe I'm not the only one thinking like that...
What you would like to do, perhaps, is to use your current editor to which you are already accustomed and get going with editing your outdoor videos. In order to do that, you need to convert the MP4 clips (H.264 encoding) into a more common format, recognizable by most of the video software out there.
A free and popular video converter is MPEG Streamclip made by Squared 5 - an Italian software development company. Streamclip is an MP4 to AVI converter but its capabilities go further than that. Here's the copy from their site:
MPEG Streamclip is a powerful high-quality video converter, player, editor for MPEG, QuickTime, transport streams, iPod. And now it is a DivX editor and encoding machine, and even a movie downloader. You can use MPEG Streamclip to: open and play most movie formats including MPEG files or transport streams; edit them with Cut, Copy, Paste, and Trim; set In/Out points and convert them into muxed or demuxed files, or export them to QuickTime, AVI, DV and MPEG-4 files with more than professional quality, so you can easily import them in a DVD authoring tool, and use them with many other applications or devices. Supported input formats: MPEG, VOB, PS, M2P, MOD,VRO, DAT, MOV, DV, AVI, MP4, TS, M2T, MMV, REC, VID, AUD, AVR, VDR, PVR, TP0, M2V, M1V, MPV, AIFF, M1A, MP2, MPA, AC3, ...
One of the fastest and most convenient ways to convert your GoPro HD clips is to open the video file with Streamclip and then save it with the .MOV extension. You will get a new file which should be importable by most editors - see picture below. Most importantly - the quality of the new file will be as good as the original!
Of course you can export the movie in other formats as well and you won't loose the HD touch. For example, when you export in AVI format you are allowed to adjust:
compression type
quality level of video output
frame size (resolution)
frame rate (fps = frames per second)
brightness (Adjustments button)
contrast (Adjustments button)
saturation (Adjustments button)
volume (Adjustments button)
rotation (rotate the clip to a certain angle)
zoom level
crop (lets you crop the edges of the clip by plotting the corners of a rectangle)
I highly recommend MPEG Streamclip for converting videos as it's free, light and powerful! For download link and more information visit Squared5.com.
On some days I don't feel like doing a long workout on my fingerboard and I limit myself to a simple training cycle on four types of holds: medium crimpers, slopers, small crimpers and two finger pockets.
The principle is really straightforward - hang 20 seconds on the holds (dead hang), rest 10 seconds, hang another 20 seconds, rest another 10, etc. Do this for five minutes on each type of hold and you will get pretty pumped. If you feel the work load is easily manageable, you can add extra effort to it by doing some pull-ups while you're hanging.
I usually get too pumped by minute three or four and I simply cannot grasp the holds anymore...
Don't forget to stretch and massage your forearm muscles after the workout.
During the last two years, as we went climbing, we would always find Cirpian Draghici at the crags with his camera taking shots of the routes and asking for information regarding difficulty and crux passages. Basically, when he wasn't climbing he was working on his climbing guidebook which was just launched this month - February 2010.
If until now we were heavily browsing the internet in search of climbing topos for Brasov, Zarnesti or Sinaia, now we have a more elegant solution with Cipri's Climbing Guide of Brasov Crags. Being written entirely in English, it makes a perfect guide for the foreign tourist climber as well who can also find contact information (emails, websites) for getting in touch with local climbers.
While the bulk of the work was carried out entirely by the author and his wife - Anamaria Draghici - many other climbers and photographers contributed with pieces of information, tips and photos. So as the community of climbers is well represented inside the guidebook - I have a cool picture in there :-) - we are all grateful to Cipri who mentioned about us even though everything was done at his expense.
What you can find inside the guidebook:
17 rock climbing crags
over 700 sport climbing routes with full description, french difficulty grades and rating for the beauty of each climb
photo-topos with route lines
color codes for route difficulty - easier assessing the routes and sectors
icons describing the route's character, steepens and beauty
GPS coordinates
approach maps drawn to scale
inspiring climbing pictures
The first pages will introduce you to Romania and Brasov, highlighting location, climate, history, culture, what to see, accommodation and restaurants.
Since the guide is at its first edition, we know there's room for better so please send your suggestions and feedback to Cipri. Also you can buy the book directly from him by sending an email to guide-book@romaniaquest.com.
A frequent problem all GoPro HD users have is finding the suitable video editing software that will both import and export in HD. The video output of the new action camera is MP4 with H.264 encoding which is a standard for digital video, remarkable for it's high compression rate.
Since I don't have a Mac laptop I can't speak for that but for the PC (Windows) users this information might be useful.
So if you're a Windows guy then you may have noticed that Movie Maker doesn't even import the MP4 clips form your camera. What you can do is convert the files into a more common format that will be then importable by almost any video editor. The bad part here is you'll loose the original HD quality of the video and then I may ask: What's the point of paying more for a HD camera if you can't show your edited footage in full quality?!
I tried lots of programs, looking for one that will run smoothly on my Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop.
To this point, the following video editors failed: Adobe Premiere, Avid Media Composer, Pinnacle Studio, Ulead Video Studio Pro, Pinnacle Video Spin. Some of them can do the job but they need a much powerful computer than I have so they're useless for the amateur editor - who's main focus is doing crazy stuff outdoors not buying expensive computer hardware, not to mention the software (at least 500$ for Adobe or Avid).
Don't get me wrong - Avid and Adobe create world class software but their creations just didn't run well enough on my computer. Within the editor's playback window, the footage played like a photo-stills slide show thus I couldn't see exactly were the scenes began.
Ulead impressed me with its stability but unfortunately it doesn't import MP4 in H.264 encoding. You can see the .mp4 option in the File Import window but if you try to import your GoPro HD clips you will get a message like "File format mismatch" - see screen capture below.
My relief came with Magix Movie Edit Pro Plus 15, a software that I've learned about by reading comments on other outdoor blogs. Movie Edit Pro imports MP4 and exports it in HD just as you'd expect!
I had to go through my learning curve with this product as well and now I'm happy to see the results. At first I wasn't able to edit clips longer than 1 minute as I got a message referring to "not enough memory" - 2 GB RAM that is and a Core 2 Duo Intel processor at 2 GHz. Then I came to the conclusion that the source files should have been downloaded on a bigger partition on the hard drive. As I dragged multiple clips into my project and also made a lot of cutting, the video editor was creating temporary files which were saved within the same folder as the source footage. So all those files were slowing down my computer until I eventually ran out of space and consequently out of computing power.
Now I download all the clips on a partition where I have at least 50 GB free space available and I also make sure the project folder contains the source files.
Being able to export in HD using a medium computer makes it a great software to work with and all this comes at a fairly good price - 89$. The interface is as intuitive as it can be so you won't really need to go trough tutorials in order to edit your clips - at least for basic editing you'll be fine with trial and error.
I also wrote a few mails to their support team and they always replied fast and with valuable information. If you want to have a true experience I recommend you download the free trial and test it yourself.
Other recommendations for editing your videos can be found here - Computerworld.com article.
Cycling and climbing tour in weekend - pretty warm for February!
Some years ago I had found an article on how to train on your fingerboard which was divided into three sections: warm-up, intermediate and hard. The article, and the graphics were available on IndoorClimbing.com but for some reason I couldn't find them anymore.
I still visit the site and I believe it's a great resource for training tips when it comes to climbing and bouldering. They have some good articles about nutrition as well.
Since I couldn't find the original training schemes I figured I can design my own workout, similar with what was then posted on the above mentioned website. Mine is a bit easier (?) and it's rather targeted for beginner and intermediate athletes.Update: Some tasks in the advanced set are hard to finish... So let me rephrase: These training sets are for intermediate and advanced climbers! However, if you are a beginner you can do only the warm-up set a few times.
If you are new to hangboard training then you should accommodate yourself with a few notions:
Shrugs - When doing shrugs you basically hang on your board (arms stretched) and move your body up and down from your shoulders as when starting to make pull-ups. This exercise works your back muscles and it copies the climbing situation for a long reach.
Offset pull-ups - You hang on holds which are either different (sloper and crimper) or are situated at different levels on the board (bottom jug and top edge).
Lock-offs - Keep yourself in place hanging with your arms bent at a certain angle (90° for example).
L-sit - see the picture. Raise your legs to a 90° angle with your upper body, all while hanging on good holds.
Other tips for improving your forearm and finger strength in your climbing:
Concentrate on your weakness - If you have a hard time holding onto crimpers then build your training around this type of holds. Do not exaggerate with crimpers as you may injure your fingers (tendons) faster than with other holds.
Adopt the open hand - It's been proven that training with an open hand (and open mind) will increase your crimp power whereas vice verse is not true. Another reason for keeping your hand open is because this is normally a weakness for everybody - the usual way of holding onto something is grasping with full hands. An open hand capability will lead to better endurance as well.
Build strength gradually - You don't need to be champion at fingerboarding... Keep your training within reasonable limits and give your body time to recover. If you feel pain in your limbs or fingers then slow down and treat yourself - massage, sleep, sport balms, etc. Over-training is silly so don't do it!
Stretching - A pumped and fatigued muscle should always be stretched after a strenuous effort. Always stretch and massage your forearm muscles (as well as deltoids, biceps, etc) - the lactic acid will be dissipated faster and your aerobic capacity will improve. Stretching is the first act of recovery after exercising.
Eat carbohydrates - Your body will refill its glycogen reserves faster if you eat carbs within an hour after your ended your training. As an athlete, you may want to be able to perform again, over and over, so you have to reconsider your eating habits in order to consolidate your training.
Details + Mindset = Success - Doing all the above and many other small things that work for yourself will ultimately make you a better climber and a better sportsman. I get best results when I combine diet, specific climbing training, cross fiber massage (elbow joint) and aerobic sports (cycling and swimming). But I'm not sure if the outcome is generated by all these factors or by my brain... I normally gain confidence and I climb better if all the physical aspects of training are covered - so I guess your psyche improves with physical input.
How to execute the 10 minutes training sessions:
Get a wall clock - with arrow-hand for seconds - and have it placed in front of you, so you can see it while hanging on your board.
Print the training schemes and place them below your wall clock for quick reference.
Each set lasts 10 minutes with a 5 minutes break between them.
Your workout should last about 1 or 1.5 hours, thus you can repeat the intermediate or advanced session.
Drink plenty of water during your training - 1 or 2 liters will do. Your muscles and sinews perform to full power only when you are fully hydrated.
Do some stretching at the end.
That's it for now. I'll be adding more hangboard training exercises in the near future but remember that you can always improvise as you see fit for yourself. As soon as you find something that works for you, stick to it and keep improving.
In the previous post I mentioned how to manually set each link to open in a new window by adding a target attribute (target="_blank") within the anchor tags.
I currently read a HTML tutorial book and I've found out there's a simpler and better way to make all links from your blog or website load in new pages or tabs. To make this change to your Blogger / Blogspot blog, follow the instructions below:
Log into your Blogger account
Choose your blog
Go to Layout/Edit HTML
Find the opening head tag<head>
Paste this code just after it: <base target='_blank'/>
Click Save Template
That's it. You can now start posting links and all of them will open the target URLs in new windows. This means your readers will stay longer on your blog being able to read more of your awesome posts.
The base tag - <base/> - can be inserted anywhere between the head tags - <head> ... </head> - but it's better to place it below the start tag so you can find it faster later.
An image map is nothing more than a clickable image that can replace, in this case, your Facebook or Twitter button.
The best aspect of an image map is you can define more clickable areas within the same image. Also you can define the shape of each area - circle, square/rectangle, polygon, etc. - and you can ad a title suggestion as to inform your readers about the landing page they will be taken to if they click on a certain area, on the image. The title suggestion is shown if one hovers the mouse cursor over the image.
Being able to create an image map for your social media accounts gives you more freedom to add your personal touch to, otherwise, a standard button. As long as you have an image editor you can do anything you want.
You should be aware that the image map can help you spice up your blog or website in various other ways. Let's say, for example, you have a blog about guitar lessons and you notice that readers tend to read three major posts. If you want to give your fans a faster and more intuitive way to get to those three posts, you can do it by creating an image map and placing it on the top of your sidebar. The image may consist of three symbols that each relate to the topic of a particular post, thus your readers will be visually urged to click on the image and read your guitar tips and tricks.
Here's the image map (and the HTML code) I use for my social media:
<img src="http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/6fa44b98b043e2d85bd3a2f070e5d74b4g.jpg" border="0" usemap="#Social_Media_Connect" /> <map name="Social_Media_Connect"> <area href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=563019460" target="_blank"shape="rect"coords="0,0,55,51" title="Connect with Me on Facebook" /> <area href="http://twitter.com/highballsport" target="_blank"shape="rect"coords="55,0,109,51" title="Follow Me on Twitter"/> <area href="http://www.youtube.com/catascouts" target="_blank"shape="rect"coords="109,0,220,51" title="Visit my YouTube Channel"/> </map>
And here are the explanations:
The red line represents the link where the image is hosted. I use Media Fire for image hosting. I recommend you to sign up with them and host your images on your own account. If you take the code above (including the image link) and, for some reason, I delete my image later from my Media Fire account then you'll end up with a blank space instead of the social media image.
The blue lines represent the URLs from my social media and YouTube channel. Replace these lines with your URLs, unless you want your visitors to land on my pages :-).
The green lines are the suggestions that users will see when they hover their mouse cursor over your image. You can add whatever message you want but try to be brief and relevant.
The purple lines define the shape of the clickable areas, in this case rectangles.
The orange lines represent the coordinates of the clickable rectangles. The values indicate where a rectangle starts and where it ends by plotting the upper left corner (first two values) and the bottom right corner (the last two values). Use the syntax coords="left, top, right, bottom" and view the image below for better reference.
The gray lines are the attributes of the area/anchor tags ( <area/> - <a>....</a>) that enable pages to be opened in new windows or new tabs in your web browser. The target="_blank" attribute can be used every time you add a link if you want to open the target page in a new window; Blogger doesn't have this option so you have to do it manually for each link in your post, in HTML view. Example: <a href="http://www.highballblog.com/" target="_blank">Highball Blog</a> - this piece of code will open Highballblog.com in a new tab (in Mozilla Firefox).
Give it a try! And if you want a colorful image for your social media image map then copy the PNG at the beginning of this post, have it hosted somewhere and use the above code as explained. Please note that the image width is 220 pixels.
For more information on how to create image maps visit this site.
You walk up the mountain, carrying a heavy backpack, sweating a lot but... what for?
There's no ready made answer for such a question. The simple pleasures of admiring the view, lighting a fire and sleeping in a tent are sufficient. Passionate trekkers and outdoors enthusiasts know what I mean.
My suggestion for printing your trekking T shirts and hoodies
I love fire! For a few simple reasons: it brings light, it gives me warmth and it makes me happy.
There are occasions, often while being up on the mountains, when I light a fire for pure joy, just to lift my spirit. And since I'm such a big fan of fire I should be able to light one in almost any type of weather conditions, right? I thought so too but in my last mountaineering trip I had a little bit of a struggle...
It was dark, freezing cold, the snow was big and all the wood we could find was either wet or frozen. We even tried to light the fire using one of our camping mini-stove and still failed. So then we brainstormed and came up with a neat solution that worked first time like magic:
Over prepare your fire starter fuel! Don't you ever think you've gathered too many twigs or that they are too thin. More is better and thinner is even better. Also, any other type of tinder will help - you can't find much in wintertime though - dry grass, leaves, pieces of dry tree bark.
Find a small opening between trees. You want the smoke to go up and you don't want to set the forest on fire.
Clear the snow or tread on it until you have a flat spot for your fire.
Make a U shaped bed for your fire. You don't want to waste the fire's energy for melting the snow, at least in the beginning you don't want that as the fire is weak. Also by doing this, you will ensure a better ventilation for your fire as it will be slightly above the ground. Build the bed out of spruce branches, dried wood of various thicknesses.
Take a few medium sticks and roll them into sheets of paper. Three or four will do.
Put the kindling paper inside the U shaped bed and add the "paper sticks" across the bed.
Add the bundle of thin twigs and tinder on top of the establishment.
Light the paper under the paper sticks. Try to light it from both sides so you'll increase the chances of drinking hot soup later.
You should now have a lively flame which asks for more wood. So add more wood to the fire. Increase the thickness of the wood as the fire grows stronger.
Now you can prepare your food, get some warmth, dry your clothes and let's not forget - tell stories by the fire.
Conclusions: It's essential to prepare thoroughly all the details before kindling. If the wood is wet or frozen you need more paper for starting out your fire. More tinder plus very thin twigs are always smart things to have before building the fire.
These tips are not necessarily for a survival situation. I usually carry matches and paper when I go outdoors, trekking or hiking, for more than one day. I sincerely believe it's good to be prepared for bad situations - frost or falling into water or whatever - and carrying some extra gear and gadgets is one way of being prepared for the unexpected.
Wear your helmets while cycling!
