Why GoPro HD Hero is The Best Helmet Camera - 2010 Video Highlights

Watching the HD video above is not hard to see why the GoPro HD Helmet HERO Camera is the preferred gadget to have when you want to shoot your outdoor videos.

Here are my top 3 coolest features:

• Waterproof - Shooting the cliff jumping video was so much fun. I never thought I'd have the chance to capture underwater footage with a relatively affordable camera.
• Small - A flip cam is easier to store in your chest pocket but yet a flip cam cannot be mounted on your helmet or bike and it doesn't have the wide angle lens. Being a sort of a cube the Gopro HD is still a small camera for what it can do. 
• Video Quality - As long as you shoot in good daylight you will be amazed by the footage quality. The HD 60fps mode means you can render smooth slow motion action with no head aches. 

If you want to take your action sport clips to a next level you can shoot your GoPro Clips with a DIY steadicam for a cool gliding video effect.

Do you have any GoPro videos that you'd like to share? Leave a link in the comments.

Are You a Fat Cyclist?

Coz if you are, fat that is, you're not the only one.

I myself gain and consequently struggle to loose about 2 kilos (4.4 lbs) per week so I feel fat pretty often. :-) That's because I like to indulge myself with pork - as you can see in the MTB video "And Mustard Please..."

What you can do for loosing weight is what the Fat Cyclist did for himself:

I had known I needed to lose weight, but hadn’t really done much about it. As I pushed my bike up the road, I realized I had not tried one very successful diet tactic: humiliation. I resolved to start a blog, embarrassing myself by proclaiming my weight on a daily basis, no matter how bad I was doing.

I urge you to read Fatty's blog here and start getting in shape. You can also bring your contribution to the fight against cancer by riding 100 Miles of Nowhere.





My mountain bike downhill video where I get fat...


Enjoy the bike satire!

Watch Free Online Movies

Update: The site (movie-links.tv) has been seized for copyright infringement...

But you can watch free online movies by typing watch...your title...online free on Google and you'll land on the right websites. ;-)

However, if you wanna watch your favorite movies in high quality for the minimum cost and without leaving your home, check out Amazon Prime Instant Video. You'll love it.

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Here's one for the internet enthusiasts - me being one of them.

Perhaps you've wondered many times how can you watch free online movies. Well, there's a site called Movie-Links.tv that offers just that - free online movies.


The site is basically a data base with movie titles. You can search the movie that you want to watch for free and then you'll get a list (search results) with titles that contain your keywords. If you enter the title correctly you usually get your video on top of the list. All the other movies that contain similar keywords will be listed below.

Click on your desired movie title and you will get another list with sites that host and stream the movies for free. Sites like this are: LOMBOO, MEGAVIDEO, etc. Your film is shown as being hosted on more sites and each movie source has a ranking given by users/viewers. It's nothing more than a grade on the quality of the movie and the playback reliability of the website/player.

Usually stuff hosted on LOMBOO or MEGAVIDEO work fine, as well as movies played with JW Player - that's the embedded player running on the web page (it's not something you need to download or install). Movies that display the Div X logo usually never load so you might as well skip those.

I guess those sites bring in revenue by affiliate links and banners, direct advertising banners and maybe Google AdSense so you have to work your way through tons of advertisements - including pop up and pop under ads... It can be pretty annoying but consider that to be the traffic nuisance until you reach the cinema. :-)

Some sites will also ask you for human verification so click on that. Then you'll get an ad just on top of the player - hit the play button once or twice and the ad will eventually fade out. The images below show you the process.

I've watched and enjoyed for free:

• Shaw Shank Redemption (screen shot just below the title of this post) - my favorite movie ever! I watched it too many times...
• Minority Report
• Inglorious Basterds

All the above are very good movies and the links lead directly to the free player page.

I guess we all know whether the service those sites provide is illegal or not. No comment on that.

Stay tuned! Power to the users!

Indoor Climbing Video with Paul Robinson - Filmmaking Competition from Reel Rock Film Tour

Here's a climbing video from BigUp Productions who are also announcing the Reel Rock Film Tour - filmmaking competition - on their blog.

This year's event is also sponsored by Goal0 - they are my biggest sponsor on Highball Blog - so this means if you win the video contest you'll also get gear from them, not only from Petzl, Evolv, Windstopper, North Face and Sterling Rope.

Boy do I wanna participate in this!!! I don't know how I will be able to export in reasonable quality my video in order to submit it but I must find a way. I edit GoPro HD footage on a Dell laptop and that's not enough for high quality video...

The idea is to create a two minute video related to climbing. There are no other restrictions and comedy/spoofing is encouraged. I got my thinking hat on.

Video found on Paul Robinson's blog - a climber and bouldering master from Boulder, Colorado (this town is predestined to produce bouldering addicts) who visited our climbing gym here in Brasov in 2009. Notice the little girl doing some incredible stuff on the campus board at the end of the clip.

I find it extremely helpful for lifting up morale and building motivation to watch climbing films. Don't forget to get outside though...

Go climbing and shoot videos!

Goal0 is an exciting new company making rugged, renewable power solutions for adventurers around the world. They're offering a Sherpa Adventure Kit, which is the perfect way for all you filmmakers out there to keep your cameras and laptops charged while out on a shooting expedition. The Sherpa kit consists of a foldable and portable solar panel, a 120 W battery pack from which you can charge almost any device via USB or DC output, an universal adapter so you can plug your portable computer, and a three Watt LED lamp (Estrella), which by the way is my favorite. I love the white flood of light it delivers and the various possibilities to hang it with the malleable silicone cord and the small carabiner - I even use it at home for night reading :-).

Awesome Mountain Bike Video

The title says it all: If Only Every Mountain Biking Video Was Shot Like This...

I assume they used a glidecam (Steadicam) with a body vest and flying arm for shooting this footage. It looks that they also had flying cameras on steel cables running above the single track. I can only guess the amount of work behind this free ride MTB clip. Good job guys!

Download this drawing for your mountain bike T shirt or hoodie here.

Keep riding and wear your helmet. Cheers!

How to Make Still Motion Video - Digital Photo Pro | DigitalPhotoPro.com

Learn how to create still motion videos from Andrew Kornylak, professional photographer and film maker. Oh, he's a climber as well. :-)

Still Motion - Digital Photo Pro | DigitalPhotoPro.com

Trail Running & Mountain Biking - CPNT Brasov Promo Video - GoPro HD - DIY Glidecam

Here's a short promo video that I made for my friends in CPNT - youth and sport club in Brasov. This clip shows two of their outdoor activities: trail running and mountain biking. They also engage into climbing, trekking and other mountain sports but this action video is supposed to be a digital brochure for their mountain running competition - Marathon 7500 in Bucegi mountains.

If you happen to know any company that you think might sponsor this event please shoot me an email so I can hook them up with CPNT. The more sponsors the event has, the better the prizes you'll get if you hit the podium!

The video was shot with GoPro® HD Video Camera, edited with Magix Edit Pro 11, and I used my DIY glidecam for smooth shooting and image stabilizing. My laptop couldn't export in HD this time - some memory error issue - and that's why the footage looks pixelized...

If you can't import or you can't edit your GoPro HD videos, try to convert the MP4 files to MOV or AVI with MPEG Streamclip.

Go trail running and show us what you got!

DIY Glidecam - Steadicam Update: Wing Nuts

Test Video - Shot with My DIY Steadicam


Everything I know about building a DIY steadicam is now is in this new guide. Learn how to get amazing cinematic video with this cool gadget that you can build using parts from your local hardware store.

If you don't like the material, no worries. I'll give your money back and you get to keep the guide. Guaranteed!

	Printable PDF document Instant Digital Download 60 Days Money Back Guarantee  Prompt Refunds No Questions Asked One Time Payment/No BS 2 FREE Bonuses: How To Build a DIY Camera Slider 3 Ways To Get Clients as a Videographer (you'll be surprised to find out what the first method is...)

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Since I'm no longer selling the DIY Highball steadicam, you may wanna check out these other camera stabilizers. Click on any picture.Check out the stabilizers on Amazon Canada, Amazon.UK and Amazon.DE.
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This post completes my first article about how to build your glidecam for shooting outdoor videos.

I recommend you use wing nuts for fast adjustments of your DIY glidecam. This is especially helpful when you want to change the camera on the top of the system - the glidecam must be rebalanced with every camera. The wing nuts will allow you to add more weights (washers) and to loosen the bolts when you need to slide them in their channels. The balance of the rig can be fine tuned better by sliding the weights than adding additional weights.

Another thing you can do faster with the wing nut setting is to lower or raise the gravity center of the glidecam. I do this by changing the position of the bottom plate (first picture below) closer or further to/from the gimbal. I simply loosen the nuts and slide the plate on the threaded bar, then I fix it in place tightening the wing nuts against each other, holding the plate between them.

 Wing-nut and bolt for fixing camera on upper plate 

The bolt goes into the threaded hole - tripod mount of the camera

 

Wing nut, bolt and washers glued together

Go outdoors and shoot your adventures!

How To Adjust YouTube Videos When Embedding Them in Your Blog or Website

Do you notice something wrong with the video below?



It's not displayed correctly - the video window is larger than the content column. So how can one change this?

First, you should know the width of your posting column in your blog (Blogger, WordPress or other blogging platform). If you use Blogger then you can find this easily by viewing the HTML structure of your blog: from dashboard go to Layout/Edit HTML. Press CTRL and F on your keyboard and type "#main-wrapper" in the search box. The browser will highlight the text for you and you'll be able to see the width of the main column - see picture below, 430 pixels in my case.

Now that you know the width of the content area you can work on adjusting the dimensions of the video for proper embedding and a neat display. Before doing that let's look at the HTML code of the video and understand it:

<object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/c94wOZqr1xY&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/c94wOZqr1xY&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="295" width="480"></embed></object>

The red and green lines of code represent the size of the video - the height and width in pixels. What you need to do is change the values within the inverted commas to the values you need your video to be displayed in. In my case I need to adjust the width to 430 pixels and in the same time I must keep the proportions of the video window.

In order to know what the new height will be - I know that the width must be set to 430 - I'll do some math:

• Finding out the proportions of the video: 480/295=1.62
  
• Finding out the new height: 430/1.62=265.4 ~ 265 (will work with round numbers)
• Verifying if the new dimensions respect the original proportions: 430/265=1.62 OK!
  

Thus the new code will look like this:

<object height="265" width="430"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/c94wOZqr1xY&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/c94wOZqr1xY&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="265" width="430"></embed></object>

And the result like this:



If, for example, the video is smaller than the space available for posting then you may want to align your video either in the center, left or right of the column. In the examples below I will use the same video but I will make it smaller by modifying its dimensions.

Align your video in the center:

<div align="center"> <object height="123" width="200"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/c94wOZqr1xY&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/c94wOZqr1xY&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="123" width="200"></embed></object> </div>

Align your video to the left:

<div align="left"> <object height="123" width="200"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/c94wOZqr1xY&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/c94wOZqr1xY&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="123" width="200"></embed></object> </div>

Align your video to the right:

<div align="right"> <object height="123" width="200"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/c94wOZqr1xY&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/c94wOZqr1xY&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="123" width="200"></embed></object> </div>

That's all. I hope this clarifies it. If not, write me an email and ask me - I'll respond even if I don't know the answer :-).

Cheers!

Winter Trekking Tour - Barbecue and Caving

Winter kicked the spring back from where it came (Africa perhaps...) but that was no reason for us to stay at home. It was rather an incentive to go outdoors once again for a trekking tour - a simple yet voluptuous treat: to walk through heaps of snow and to breathe the cool, fresh forest air.

My obsession with building a fire has manifested once again and that's how we ended making a little experiment - warming the ground for a bivouac. I heard that nomad Gypsy people used to build big fires and kept them burning for several hours, then they would clear the ashes and place their blankets or tents on the warm spots.

We didn't fell much warmth as we added too many branches as padding but we did feel the ground was hot without the spruce mat.

After that we went to a so called "Ice Cave" (RO: "Pestera de Gheata") which is more like a huge crack in a limestone block - a chimney if you want. There was some ice on the steep floor at the entrance but nothing spectacular that would make it deserve it's name. The icicles on the cliff overhangs and the ice stalagmites were more impressive.

Explore outdoors and seek adventure!

P.S. I cut out the footage took inside the cave as the GoPro HD shoots poorly in low light conditions...

Critical Mass - Cycling in The City

It was about time I participated in Critical Mass.

So what's there to be seen in such a bicycling event? Pretty much actually:

• lots of bikes - trial bikes, old school bikes, downhill bikes, BMX bikes - you name it!
  
• lots of bikers - some timid, some show offs, some silent, some outspoken
• lots of drivers along the way - some angry and stupid, some intrigued, some jealous, some sympathetic
• one or two police cars escorting the cyclists - that's impressive really!
• pedestrians scratching their heads or blinking fast in amazement
• and much more (like in teleshopping ads)
  

It's simply a joyful experience and I encourage you all to burn fat not fuel!

Wear your helmets while cycling!

Bike Stunts - MTB