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Show HN: Steady – Shoot Cinematic Videos

213 points| trueduke | 11 years ago |steady.stupeflix.com | reply

110 comments

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[+] kevinalexbrown|11 years ago|reply
This is a most brilliant landing page - flashy, but in a way that directly demonstrates what the product does, and the text is readable even against the white waves. Each of the sequences look beautiful and seem like if I just had this app, I would be able to make my videos just as beautiful. Congrats.

I'm not sure, but I believe the beauty lies in the fact that each of these scenes is something I can see myself trying to capture: the beach, a forest, etc.

[+] thomas759|11 years ago|reply
Thank you for your feedback. This is exactly what I wanted to do, I am glad that you understood the purpose of this landing page!
[+] cristianpascu|11 years ago|reply
The videos the app produces (I just bought it) work great as video background for pages. They're blur ready.
[+] jamiesonbecker|11 years ago|reply
Seriously, this page makes me want to run out and buy an iPhone!
[+] duncans|11 years ago|reply
[+] kaahne|11 years ago|reply
Hey ! Just to mention that those video were taken w/ Steady and not post-processed. Give it a shot outside, on a bike or just walking ;)
[+] trueduke|11 years ago|reply
Do you want the originals? ;) (as they are not post-processed, they are just longer)
[+] lifeformed|11 years ago|reply
It's interesting that you can still see the jitter in the second to last video, through the lens flare. The motion stabilization pans the image around, but the lens flare bobs around and can't be fixed.
[+] o0-0o|11 years ago|reply
These seem jittery on a MBPr with 16GB of RAM. What gives?
[+] eigenvalue|11 years ago|reply
Just installed it. Seems to work pretty well. This would be useful to real estate agents for doing smooth apartment walk-through videos for listings-- might want to try advertising specifically for that use case.
[+] kaahne|11 years ago|reply
Thanks everyone for the input. Quick answer to most common questions :

* The video you can see on the landing page (steady.stupeflix.com) were all taken w/ Steady. Try using it outside on a sunny day for best results !

* Steady is not yet compatible with iOS8. Working on it ;)Same for iPad and iTouch.

* We use gyroscope informations to know the attitude of the iPhone while you shoot a video, and uses this information to correct the video.

* The app is not available yet on Android. We're pretty much tied to the iPhone right now, as the algorithm relies on a given gyro / camera pair to work.

If you like the app, a kind review on the App Store would be appreciated ! Thanks for taking the time to try it

From

Trueduke, Olotiar, Madlag, thomas 759 and Kaahne at Stupeflix

[+] matthieurouif|11 years ago|reply
I tried it on a bike and then edited the video with replay. I was really impressed with the result https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ynVeMFAQM8
[+] return0|11 years ago|reply
Would you care to post the original as well? It doesn't look very steady to be honest. Anecdotally, i would think iphone's camera is already doing some stabilization because i have filmed from my car using apple's bundled camera app and the video looked impressively steady (but hey, i was in a car).
[+] leaveyou|11 years ago|reply
What is impressive about that movie ? To me it's quite the opposite.. it's not impressive at all (too dark, bad fps) and when I watch it there is something in it that causes head aches. It's very hard to watch.
[+] jggonz|11 years ago|reply
Does anyone know if there's a similar video capture app for Android devices?
[+] emp_|11 years ago|reply
Just spins the loading animation without showing any video in the camera screen. Wondering if there is any server work and it might be under heavy load due to HN and whatnot. Edit: iPhone 5s. Edit2: its working now!
[+] kaahne|11 years ago|reply
The app does not require any type of connectivity. Try killing it and relaunching.
[+] joshwa|11 years ago|reply
I'm on a 4S and nothing but spinning...
[+] kcbanner|11 years ago|reply
Are there any recommended Android versions of these apps?
[+] chrischen|11 years ago|reply
Seems like google auto stabilized my video. They probably did it on the server side though.
[+] avalaunch|11 years ago|reply
Looking at the landing page on my iPhone and all I see is a bit of copy and a still image of a forest. Based on the comments in this thread the app seems worth downloading but not so much based just on the landing page. Are other people seeing video on the landing page when viewing on the iPhone?
[+] kaahne|11 years ago|reply
Sorry about that. The static image turns into a video on desktop, but there's no way to play a video that is not full screen on Mobile Safari.

We'll probably update the landing page soon. In the meantime, visit the landing page on your desktop, or see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mt286dTNFg

[+] joshmlewis|11 years ago|reply
I downloaded it and gave it a quick try. Walking around the office at a somewhat fast pace yielded some blur on each step. I slowed down a bit and results were better. We have a lot of windows so there was a lot of light/dark issues which is more the iPhones limitations than the app.

Stability was pretty cool though not convinced it would work well on a bike. If you have some untouched videos you captured from the app itself without any post production editing, that would be cool to see. If you said the videos on your website background were all taken with the app I'd be more impressed.

[+] trueduke|11 years ago|reply
Yes they are legit :) The originals are only longer... Those in the forest were shot (with an iPhone 5) on a bike, and you can "feel" the footsteps for those on the beach :) (it was last month in the South-West of France...)
[+] kaahne|11 years ago|reply
They were. Blurring happens in low-light environment. Give it a shot outside, i'm sure you'll be impressed !
[+] jamiesonbecker|11 years ago|reply
On a bike, it might work better than in an office because of the greater distance to the subject.
[+] jasonlingx|11 years ago|reply
With apps like these (horizon etc) - if they are any good won't Apple simply build it into their default camera app sooner rather than later? I'm curious, what's the product or business plan here?
[+] corobo|11 years ago|reply
I often shoot little snippets (cheeky bit of stock footage for behind credits etc) and usually have to use stabilization in post to make it usable

$1.99? The mere possibility of it working at a later date is worth more than $1.99. I'll give it a test run later on for sure but you guys should re-evaluate that price, if it works well you've way under-priced yourselves

[+] kenrikm|11 years ago|reply
Downloaded, looks good. Though it crashes when trying to do slowmo on my iPhone 5, 16GB AT&T. Also when you view "My Steady Videos" the Navigation bar buttons feel reversed, "Back" buttons are usually on the left in iOS, in that case the three dots should be on the right. Keep up the good work, hope it's successful.
[+] trueduke|11 years ago|reply
Oh sorry for the crash, I assume you sent a crash report. Will investigate... And thanks for the UI feedback! :)
[+] cellover|11 years ago|reply
I just bought it and it does not work on iPhone 4. I did not read the description before buying, my bad.

Unfortunately the app does not appear on https://reportaproblem.apple.com/.

[Edit] The app finally showed up on the "Report a problem" page

[+] sriku|11 years ago|reply
Does this, by any chance, use the 3D deforming based stabilization demonstrated here [1]. That was already an impressive demo when it came out.

[1] http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~fliu/project/3dstab.htm

[+] kaahne|11 years ago|reply
Yes and no. Going through the paper real quick, we use similar technique, but do not analyze the video to reconstruct the movement of the camera, which allows us to speed up the algorithm significantly.
[+] ivanlubenko|11 years ago|reply
Hey, great job here! Two questions:

1) Is it at all feasible to do the stabilisation on the fly so that the screen shows already-stabilised video (if not then why)?

2) Do you envisage building an API so that a third-party app can use your technology?

[+] kaahne|11 years ago|reply
Hey Ivanlubenko,

On the fly stabilization is not really an option, as smoothing is done by averaging movement from the past and future, up to 5s on both sides.

The API thing might be a good idea, shoot an email at [email protected]!

[+] eliotfowler|11 years ago|reply
With iOS 8, they could just make an extension that allows other apps to use it.
[+] FreakyT|11 years ago|reply
Looks pretty cool from the example videos. Is an Android port planned in the future?
[+] covercash|11 years ago|reply
Where are you seeing example videos?