

Show HN: Steady – Shoot Cinematic Videos - trueduke
http://steady.stupeflix.com/

======
kevinalexbrown
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.

~~~
bliker
I have some trouble with fonts on Elementary
[http://i.imgur.com/dYHPbvP.png](http://i.imgur.com/dYHPbvP.png)

~~~
MacsHeadroom
Looks the same on Ubuntu.

~~~
icebraining
Looks fine here in Firefox 29/Ubuntu 12.04.

------
duncans
Videos used as the backdrop:

[http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/...](http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/1.mp4)

[http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/...](http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/2.mp4)

[http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/...](http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/3.mp4)

[http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/...](http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/4.mp4)

[http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/...](http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/5.mp4)

[http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/...](http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/6.mp4)

[http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/...](http://d3eterog612le0.cloudfront.net/steady/videos/homepage/7.mp4)

~~~
o0-0o
These seem jittery on a MBPr with 16GB of RAM. What gives?

~~~
doorhammer
I'm noticing the slightest stutters with 32gb, quad core i7 and a gtx 780 on
chrome. I'm assuming it's a connection thing.

Same when I watched the video links directly.

Downloaded the tree one (which is where I noticed it) and played it with VLC
twenty times or so on loop; didn't pick up any stuttering then. Must be
something with chrome or my network (for me)

------
eigenvalue
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
Stupeflix (the company behind Steady) actually has a tool designed
specifically for Real Estate agents :
[http://studio.stupeflix.com/en/realestate/](http://studio.stupeflix.com/en/realestate/)

------
jo_
I remember seeing this during the 'tape to car wheel' test. That was
impressive.

What, if any, details can you reveal about the implementation? How is the
tracking/smoothing different than other SOTA approaches?

How tightly coupled are you to the Apple environment? Is an Android port
plausible?

~~~
duncans
I think that was a different app:
[http://www.horizon.camera](http://www.horizon.camera)

[http://blog.evilwindowdog.com/post/88969373226/extreme-
car-e...](http://blog.evilwindowdog.com/post/88969373226/extreme-car-
experiment-horizon)

------
kaahne
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

------
Jakob
Or you just use a chicken
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UytSNlHw8J8#t=132](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UytSNlHw8J8#t=132)

~~~
trueduke
Actually the app codename was "Chicken" :)

------
matthieurouif
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ynVeMFAQM8)

~~~
leaveyou
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.

~~~
matthieurouif
I am biking with one hand and filming with the other. The image doesn't shake,
try do film walking or biking and you'll see

~~~
MichaelApproved
I think he's trying to say that it's hard to tell because of the effects and
filters added to the video distract from the example of stabilized video. The
additional edits are unappealing to some so it's hard to get a feel for how
the footage looks.

------
jggonz
Does anyone know if there's a similar video capture app for Android devices?

------
emp_
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
The app does not require any type of connectivity. Try killing it and
relaunching.

------
kcbanner
Are there any recommended Android versions of these apps?

~~~
chrischen
Seems like google auto stabilized my video. They probably did it on the server
side though.

~~~
higherpurpose
Yes, Google has had some pretty good video stabilization on Youtube for 2
years now. I wish it happened in the camera app, though, especially since I
once posted some _private_ videos on Youtube, and Google deleted them anyway
because there was some music in the background. It even said some company made
a claim against them (even though they were _private_ ).

So yeah, Google's shitty copyright takedown system makes me not want to put my
videos on Google's servers ever again, and I'd prefer them on my phone.

~~~
georgemcbay
"It even said some company made a claim against them (even though they were
private)."

The claim system is automatic based on Shazam-style audio "fingerprints";
companies basically pre-complain about any uploads that match audio sources
they supply to Google that the claim copyright on.

On one hand, I can sort of understand Google's position with this proactive
system because the alternative would mean they have to manually deal with
probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions of copyright claims.

On the other hand, it is horribly broken in a lot of ways. In addition to not
caring if your video is private, there are basically two classes of people
(the ones with lots of subscribers who generate a lot of adwords hits for
Google and everyone else), with the former class having a much easier time of
disputing bad claims. Also I've run into situations where music that was
creative commons licensed was flagged with attempts to unflag it automatically
denied (with no legal basis to do so) and most amusingly(?) of all, Google
offers a bunch of public domain recordings they suggest you use for your
videos, but using them is almost guaranteed to generate a copyright claim from
some third party that you then have to manually dispute.

I basically stopped using YouTube for videos because there seems to be like a
80% chance anything you upload will be auto-copyright-flagged, even if there
is no recognizable music in it and it isn't worth the hassle to deal with the
system.

------
avalaunch
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
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mt286dTNFg)

------
joshmlewis
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
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...)

------
jasonlingx
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
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
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
Oh sorry for the crash, I assume you sent a crash report. Will investigate...
And thanks for the UI feedback! :)

~~~
trueduke
(if you are using iOS 8, we are currently working on supporting it)

~~~
kenrikm
Indeed I submitted a crash report, Yeah sorry I forgot I was on my dev phone,
it is iOS 8 and I can't expect it to work. ;-)

------
cellover
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/](https://reportaproblem.apple.com/).

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

------
bennesvig
The one thing that would be great to see is a comparison of video shot with
the app and the same video shot without the app.

~~~
foOg
There is a good comparison video here ->
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mt286dTNFg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mt286dTNFg)

~~~
msandford
The stabilized video looks fuzzier. There's a definite lack of crispness that
the unsteady video has.

~~~
kaahne
Quick aside to tell that this comparison video was generated a long time ago,
when stabilized video were saved at a lower resolution. Since then, we've
increased the output resolution and fixed some color correction issues.

~~~
msandford
That'll explain it! Thanks.

------
sriku
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](http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~fliu/project/3dstab.htm)

~~~
kaahne
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
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
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 steady@stupeflix.com!

------
FreakyT
Looks pretty cool from the example videos. Is an Android port planned in the
future?

~~~
covercash
Where are you seeing example videos?

------
davidbarker
Downloaded, and like it so far (although I did also experience the crash while
trying to record slow motion), but am I correct in thinking it only allows you
to record square videos?

~~~
kaahne
Hey, You can actually record landscape videos by turning your iPhone (make
sure that rotation is enabled though).

------
WhitneyLand
Are there any plans to add this kind of tech to cameras? I know they already
use optical image stabilization but wonder if the benefit would be additive.

------
james33
How does this compare to Luma? I've been using that app for a few years now
and it has been great, though it doesn't work well in low light.

~~~
kaahne
As one of the developer of this app, I'm obviously biased, but we think that
we achieve even better results than Luma.

Low light is always an issue (due to intrinsic limitations of the
stabilization method), but we added slo-motion and support for the iPhone 5s
and iOS7.

~~~
HorizonXP
Luma was acquired, so it's no longer being developed.

~~~
melfar
There is another similar app, DollyCam:
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dollycam/id449577531](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dollycam/id449577531)

Has been available for quite a while, and works on iPhone 4.

------
nitrogen
It was kind of odd watching the lens flare dart around the screen while the
sun was stationary. I guess that proves the video is legit :-).

~~~
woogle
Nice see!

The video are legit :-) The best thing to prove it is to try the app (it works
better outside) and I'm pretty sure you'll be amazed.

------
ykl
Downloaded and playing with it, seems to work fairly well. However, I can't
seem to figure out how to get the app to work in 16:9 mode.

~~~
Olotiar
Turn your iPhone to landscape position ;) (and make sure you are not locking
the rotation in control center)

~~~
ykl
Ah, I see. Very nifty!

------
vinhboy
Nice landing page. The use of videos here is really apt and powerful.

Unlike the Paypal homepage, which makes me feel unsecure..

------
Zepplock
I use "Luma", free. But I think they were acquired by Instagram and shut down.

How does Steady compare to Luma?

------
jdevonport
Wow fantastic app! I've missed this kind of video processing ever since Luma
was acquired by Instagram and shut down.

------
timbre
Maybe add iPod Touch to the not supported list in the app description.
Although I know there aren't many of us!

~~~
kaahne
Oups! We'll do that. There is a good chance that iTouch will be supported in
the next update.

~~~
rcarmo
I'd like that. The iPod Touch makes for a nice video camera.

------
skore
"and you get award-winning documentary shots right from your phone"

Please tone down the hyperbole.

------
cengizIO
App is buyable from iPad and checked as compatible with it, however your
description paragraph says otherwise.

~~~
kaahne
We can't really exclude iPad from buying the app using only App Store approved
methods. We try our hardest to warn users in the description.

------
raylus
You should get together with the people who made horizon and merge the two
ideas into a feature.

------
stevenhubertron
I just bought it and tried it out. It works great in good lighting. Awesome
job.

------
chillitom
Trying it out but it crashes each time I end a recording. (iPhone 5S, UK)

~~~
kaahne
Do you still have available space on your phone ? Anyway, send us the crash
reports, we'll look into this !

~~~
chillitom
It just throws me out to the home screen, is there somewhere else I need to
look for crash reports?

I have plenty of space, it crashes after about 1 seconds of processing the
movie.

~~~
kaahne
Damn. We'll look into that. Thanks for the feedback. IN the meantime, try
rebooting your phone and quitting all active app. This might be an available
memory issue.

------
pavel
How does this video stabilization work?

~~~
Olotiar
We record data from the internal sensors in your iPhone while shooting the
video (mainly, the gyroscope), which allows us to estimate how your camera
moves when taking the video and compensate for that.

~~~
tylerpachal
That's a neat way to do it, good stuff!

------
jedrek
Not available in the Polish App store.

~~~
krzrak
yeah, I wonder, why?

------
wesbos
Looks great, going to give this a shot

------
HorizonXP
FYI, this can be done on Android, it's just stupidly difficult.

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phmagic
Sold! Great work!

------
gomesnayagam
brilliant one, cant wait to get it in android

------
beartime
I'd never buy this without trying

------
anewcolor
this is really cool!

------
PaulHoule
I'll try it out when it's out for "the rest of us" who use Android.

