Steve Sawyer

I just started experimenting with a helmet-mounted GoPro, and have discovered that I have a habit of tilting my head to the right so that all of my videos are tilted to the left. I've tried to correct this by shifting the mounting slightly, and pushing my helmet toward the left, but it seems that no matter what I do, there's a tilt to the video.

Is it possible to correct this when editing the video?

I have Windows Movie Maker 2012 and Avidemux 2.6 and while MM can flip the video 90* neither seems to be able to correct the tilt. Is this a capability of any video editing software?

colleen c

Getting tilted video from a helmet mount POV cam seem to be a common thing. I get the same same thing even after correcting the angle of the mount. I am guessing the weight of the camera and the force of gravity is more powerful than my neck muscle.

I tried using Window movie maker and gave up with it. I chosed to use Sony Vega HD Platinum. It has many feature for editing video including fixing a tilted clip. However you will lose some of the original frame because it will crop the frame after the tilt is corrected. This is something that cannot be avoided. Imagine taking a frame and tilt it clockwise a few degree and than crop it back into a rectangular shape that's level. You will lose some of the corner in that process.

The software can be had anywhere from $45 for the older version to $80 for a newer versoin. It is worth the investment if you are planning to do many video editing.

Steve Sawyer

Colleen - thanks for the recommendation! I'm used to doing this with stills as and yeah, some loss of the frame has to be sacrificed.

01 CAt Man Do

In a way it's the same with helmet mounted lights. Sometimes takes a while to get them dialed in and then if your head starts to droop ( from tiredness ) you might have to readjust the angle of the lamp. Then there's the issue of helmet movement during the course of a ride. Almost impossible to control all these things, even more difficult the more weight you put on your helmet.

Of course with video you can't tell these things are even happening because there's no feedback once you start riding. One thing is certain, if you do finally get the video to look right you might consider "Not removing the camera from the helmet." This means having a dedicated helmet for video. This is also true for helmet lamps. Once you take them off you have to dial them in all over again. This is why it is extremely helpful if you have a helmet lamp that easily tilts "on the fly". ( such as the Gloworm products ). Those O-ring helmet mounts are simply a PITA once you start the ride.

Steve Sawyer

I had a chance to shoot some video on rides both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday on a 40-mile tour over mostly rural roads, helmet-mounted, and Sunday on an urban group ride, handlebar-mounted.

The handlebar mounting worked surprisingly well, even over some pretty rough patches through downtown Detroit. The only downside was that I picked up a lot of chain noise from my own bike (noise I can't hear when I'm riding!), plus the POV was a bit lower than might be ideal, but still not too bad overall. I might try that again using the standard backdoor instead of the skeleton backdoor I was using to see if that cuts down on the chain noise. I also had an issue with a brake cable showing up in the upper left of the frame.

The helmet-mounted footage from Saturday (helped greatly by some gorgeous weather!) came out very well too, with the exception of the aforementioned tilt. I have to mount located on the front of the helmet instead of the top - reduces the "dork factor" a bit, and hopefully provides a more stable platform for the camera.

I haven't sprung yet for the LCD Touch BacPac, but I've played with the WiFi "preview" on my iPhone, but it's a PITA - you have to turn on the WiFi, switch it to work with the iPhone instead of the remote, switch the phone to communicate with the camera, get everything set, then switch the WiFi back to the remote, switch the iPhone WiFi back to your local router instead of the camera AND REMEMBER TO TURN THE WiFi OFF on the CAMERA if you want to have any batter left after a half-hour!! Still it allows you to verify that things are aimed and aligned properly.