FAQ
Before buying
Plugged on a GoPro®*, SteadXP@ will follow you anywhere, anytime in your outdoor adventures.
It works with GoPro® HERO[4, 3+, 3, 2] camera* and fits inside the GoPro®* housings with their BacPac™* backdoor. It cannot be used with a GoPro® HERO5* or later since it doesn’t have the connection to plug accessories on its back anymore. SteadXP@ is not compatible with GoPro® HERO5* or later, DSLR, MirrorLess and video cameras.
On a DSLR, MirrorLess or cinema camera, SteadXP+ will be your ultimate companion for filmmaking and video reporting.
It just needs a flash mount (coldshoe) and a mic input (jack, mini jack or XLR). HDMI and AV outputs are not required to plug the device. Be sure to deactivate the EIS/OIS of your camera while using our device. Otherwise it will mislead our algorithms. SteadXP+ is not compatible with GoPro®* cameras.
SteadXP software is included with the purchase of any SteadXP device.
It is available as a x64 (64bits version) and is compatible with:
- Windows 10, 8.1, 7
- MacOS 10.15 Catalina, 10.14 Mojave, 10.13 High Sierra, 10.12 Sierra, 10.11 El Capitan, 10.10 Yosemite, 10.9 Mavericks
SteadXP products are shipped by DHL Express International to the following countries:
Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States.
Don’t forget to specify a valid phone number if you order one of our products.
No, SteadXP combines the device (which records your camera motions) and the software (which synchronizes videos and data files to correct the camera motions).
You need them both to stabilize your videos.
SteadXP was conceived for DSLR, MirrorLess, Cinema or GoPro®* cameras. It is not compatible with smartphones.
A SteadXP software license is included with the purchase of any SteadXP device. You can install SteadXP softwares on as many computers as needed.
When using our software for the first time, you have to register your SteadXP device. For this, you will need the email address used when the product was purchased and the serial number of the SteadXP.
Important to know before filming
Lenses
It is essential to film your sequence with the same focal length. So two possibilities: the best and easy one is to use a fixed focal (prime) lens or you can still use a zoom with some gaffer tape to prevent any focal movements.
EIS / OIS
Every electrical (EIS) or optical (OIS) image stabilization systems have to be deactivated on your camera and/or your lens.
Shutter speed
The more dynamic the scene you want to film is, the more you will have to increase the shutter speed to avoid motion blur. E.g. If you are filming when walking, 1/125 could be quite enough but the result will be more efficient with a higher one.
In a dynamic context (i.e running), we advise not to use SteadXP with shutter speeds lower than 1/250 to avoid motion blur artefacts.
Recording SteadXP audio signal
To work with SteadXP+, your camera needs an Ext MIC input (jack, mini-jack or XLR cable). Full details here.
Settings
For optimal rendering, setup your action cam with:
- 4:3 image ratio like 1440 or 2.7K
- Wide field of view
- The best resolution available
- The LED enabled
- “Never” option enabled for display sleep
To get the best stabilization results, it is essential to correctly synchronize the video with the motion data recorded by SteadXP. For each video, the software performs an automatic synchronization, which must be validated by the user in Sync tab (takes ~10s per video). If done correctly, the background will remain perfectly still during playback. If you forgot the synchronization movement at recording time, don’t worry it will still work, but if you do it you will save time in post: the auto-synchronization will be perfect right away.
Here is how to make a good synchronization movement at the start of your videos
For SteadXP+:
1. Point the camera toward distant background, slightly up (not too much foreground objects for the first 5/10 meters)
2. Plug SteadXP+ and wait a few seconds for the boot sequence to finish (do not move the camera)
3. Start the recording
4. Make 2/3 sudden wrist movements on the pitch axis, like explained at the start of this video tutorial
For SteadXP@:
1. Point the GoPro* toward distant background, slightly up (not too much foreground objects for the first 5/10 meters)
2. Start the recording and wait a few seconds for the boot sequence to finish (do not move the GoPro*)
3. Make 2/3 sudden wrist movements on the pitch axis, like explained at the start of this video tutorial
NB: Make sure to film only above the horizon when doing the synchronization movement, to avoid foreground objects (floor)
NB: If you are inside, point the camera toward a wall/ceiling junction
SteadXP hardware
Fully charged, you can use SteadXP+ for 10 to 12 hours.
You can charge the SteadXP+ battery with the micro USB port.
SteadXP devices are recording motion data at 24kB/s, so using this 2 GB microSD card, you have a 24H autonomy.
We recommend formatting your microSD card (1GB to 32 GB) with the SD Memory Card Formatter, using FAT16 or FAT32.
Warning: exFAT formatting is not supported by SteadXP devices.
Warning: you should save any data stored on your microSD card before use with SteadXP devices, as the first time you insert a new microSD card, SteadXP will format it.
Warning: avoid formatting your cards with “Disk Utility” if you are working on macOS
SteadXP+ is sending a digital audio signal that should be recorded on (at least) 1 mono audio channel. You can still connect a microphone on the other audio channel, as described below.
On DSLR, MirrorLess:
We recommend this male to male cable. Since SteadXP only needs 1 audio channel, adding this Y-splitter audio separator cable (1xStereo to 2xMono), or this one, you can record 1 mono audio track. We recommend using a preamplified microphone if you cannot set audio levels individually on each track.
Warning: This Y-splitter cable must be an INPUT splitter (SteadXP needs separate tracks). Do not use a generic OUTPUT splitter, as it won’t work!
On XLR Cinema cameras:
SteadXP+ audio signal is in fact a BALANCED signal: on a cinema camera we recommend recording it on audio Stream 1 or 2, using:
Whatever the audio cable you choose to use, SteadXP software will automatically recognize the type of connection.
NB: On RED DSMC1 cameras, you can use a single 1xStereo to 1xStereo male male cable.
Warning: It won’t damage your SteadXP+, but you should disable +48V or any other phantom power in your camera settings.
To enable horizon correction, calibrate the gyros of your SteadXP on the temperature range you plan to use it with. This needs to be done only once for each SteadXP:
– first, we advise to let your SteadXP (turned OFF) in a cold (and dry) place during one night.
– then turn SteadXP ON (fully charged battery recommended) and place it on a perfectly stable surface (on the ground) so it warms up slowly (the heating up must not be too fast).
– finally, turn SteadXP OFF then ON again to finalize the temperature calibration.
After that, whenever you turn SteadXP ON, avoid shaking the device too much during the boot sequence (i.e when the LED alternates between red and orange).
To activate horizon correction in SteadXP software, simply uncheck the Roll checkbox in Preview tab.
N.B: This is for SteadXP+ and SteadXP@
SteadXP softwares
Log into your account and click on the blue DOWNLOAD link to get the latest version of our softwares.
If your computer is connected to the internet, SteadXP softwares will automatically detect new updates.
You will need around 300MB on Windows and 250MB on macOS to install SteadXP softwares.
Both softwares come with disk space management functionalities that will allow you to free disk space used by SteadXP temporary data files (proxy_tmp folders).
The SteadXP license allows you to install SteadXP softwares on as many computers as you need.
You can register as many SteadXP devices as you need on a single computer.
So you can freely cooperate with other users and exchange:
- Copy of SteadXP projects (.yxp files), which support user comments
- Copy of SteadXP working directory, to work on another computer
To sum up, you can simply exchange and share your external hard drives and licenses.
For an extended video codecs support, SteadXP will propose you to install FFmpeg. If you choose to install FFmpeg with SteadXP, it won’t affect any previous or future installation of FFmpeg you could do: it will only be used by SteadXP softwares.
High bit depth codecs are supported until 16 bits, in and out.
If you are shooting RAW (R3D, BRAW, ARRIRAW…), we advise you to apply a first pre-grade before using them in SteadXP software.
High bit depth codecs are supported until 16 bits, in and out.
You can choose to apply a 3D LUT on the proxy and/or on output rendered videos.
To add new LUT files, click on File ➞ Import LUT
For a 16 bits workflow, we recommend grading after our stabilization process, but it’s up to you.
A camera profile describes a shooting Lens+Camera recording mode (resolution/crop factor) configuration.
You can use our built-in camera profile database (170 available), or create your own ones using our SteadXP Calibration software. Before starting, be sure to take a look to our video tutorial.
SteadXP software will only display camera profiles matching the resolution of your input video.
All the camera profiles you created are located in the folder Documents/SteadXP/cameraprofiles.
If you want to share your camera profiles with other users, please send us the .zip files you will find within this directory to support@steadxp.com, tx!
The timeline in SteadXP software has 3 different modes: Trajectory, Reframing and Sync.
Trajectory is the default mode for Preview tab, showing the virtual camera trajectory for the whole sequence
SteadXP software allows you to perform single renderings by clicking on Rendering in Preview tab.
To process several renderings, you can also use the rendering queue. There are two ways to add a project to the rendering queue:
- Click on
in Preview tab - Click on
in Input tab (the project must be optimized first)
To display the rendering queue, click on 
in the status bar (in the bottom right corner).
Then, the rendering queue dialog allows you to remove projects from the rendering queue, change the order of the projects, view each project export parameters, view the rendering progression…
A stabilization profile is a set of parameters (Roll, Pitch, Yaw, StabLevel, Histo & Zoom Out) controlling the dynamism of the clip to reproduce a typical look (e.g. shoulder-held camera effect …). It must not be confused with a camera profile.
Those profiles are accessible in Preview tab and can be loaded with the corresponding drop-down menu.
Tune this parameter to increase the stability of your sequence.
0: correct the rolling shutter
from 1 to 9: gradually increase the stability of the shot while keeping a shoulder-held camera effect
from 10 to 50: powerful stabilization of the shot
Histo is a pixel interpolation feature helping to get the smoothest trajectories, especially useful in 1080 to reduce the crop factor.
This interpolation happens when black borders enter the framing. Historical frames (past and future) are used to fill these black borders.
You can adjust the number of historical frames used for the interpolation.
The Optimize feature will apply historical frames for each zone depending on its color. Click in the zone on the frame to change its color:
– red to disable historical frames in this zone (typically foreground zones)
– green/yellow to allow historical frames in this area
You must click on Optimize again if you change the colors.
These colors will be represented in the timeline Reframing mode.
N.B. During the preview, historical frames will be highlighted with a semi-transparent blue color, which will not be visible during the rendering.
With SteadXP software, you can choose between 3 different blur types: Rotational Blur, Motion Blur & Multi-frames. They are accessible in Preview ➞ Advanced ➞ Motion Control.
Rotational Blur
From a cinematic point of vue, the Rotational Blur is accurate since only the rotational information of the virtual camera are taken into account. If you shot with 90° shutter angle, we recommend adding 90° Border intensity and 60° Central intensity to match cinematic look. Rotational Blur is useful for pano without moving objects, the computation time is fast.
Motion Blur
The Motion Blur is based on a frame by frame motion analysis. You can control the blur intensity in the image center/borders.
Since computation time can be important, we recommend pushing small sequences to the Motion Blur queue first, to prepare the Motion Blur frames. There are two ways to add sequences to the Motion Blur queue:
- Click on
in Motion Control - Click on
in Input tab
When motion blur frames are ready, they are drawn in the timeline, as shown here.
To display the Motion Blur queue, click on 
in the status bar (in the bottom right corner).
Multi-frames
Multi-frames will produce better results with slow motion framerates. Like Motion Blur, you can create hyperlapses while controlling the intensity of the blur. Its computation time is fast.
The Reframing tab of the timeline allows you to interact with keyframes and lets you control the framing of your clip precisely.
– Double-click on the timeline to add a new keyframe
– Double-click on a keyframe to remove it
– Left-click on a keyframe and use the joystick in the right tab to edit its orientation
– Right-click on a keyframe ➞ Copy keyframe to copy a keyframe
– Right-click on the timeline ➞ Paste keyframe to paste a keyframe
– Right-click on the timeline ➞ Reset keyframe reframing to reset all the user keyframes
– Reframe a single frame by left-clicking anywhere inside the frame (the frame will be re-centered on the position of the click)
Take a look at this video tutorial for more details.
With SteadXP software, you can set a global orientation to your whole sequence. In Preview tab, simply click on the timeline Reframing button and then on the 
icon in the right tab.
Then, use the white joystick/arrows to set a global orientation to your sequence.
To reset the global orientation, right-click on the icon ➞ Reset global reframing or right-click on the timeline ➞ Reset global reframing.
A yellow 
icon means that a global orientation is currently applied to the sequence.
Click on the blue 
icon to switch back to single keyframe reframing.
We recommend at least 8 seconds videos.
The preferences are accessible in the software menus:
– on macOS: SteadXP ➞ Preferences
– on Windows: Help ➞ Preferences
There are 3 categories in SteadXP preferences:
– General: general options about SteadXP software
– Input: options about auto derush and Input tab
– Rendering: rendering options
General:
Options:
– Auto update check: automatically check for software updates at startup
– Sound notification: play a short sound when SteadXP sends a notification
– Framing dead zone opacity (%): adjust the opacity outside the framing area in Preview tab
– Blur: GPU acceleration: enable GPU acceleration for Rotational and Motion Blur calculations
– Close after rendering queue: close the software when a rendering queue is over
– Close after Motion Blur queue: close the software when a Motion Blur queue is over
– Hide sync validation: hide the message box displayed when clicking on Validate in Sync tab
– Confirm close: ask for confirmation before closing the software
– Author: specify an author (used for projects, camera profiles, stabilization profiles…)
Input:
Memory Card:
– Media auto detection: automatically look for videos/XPD files when plugging new media (USB drive/SD card…)
– Always import all videos: import all videos from the new media (USB drive/SD card…) that was plugged
– Auto import videos from: when importing from a new media (USB drive/SD card…), automatically search for videos in the listed folders
Other:
– Default sorting: default sorting mode for the videos listed in Input tab
– Always display project list: automatically show the project list of each video in Input tab
– Highlight in/out points zone: show in/out points of projects/renderings listed in Input tab
Rendering:
Rendering Management:
– Rendering auto naming: name the rendering automatically or type a name
– Default naming: append “_seq” to the rendering name
– Custom naming: include the selected stabilization parameters in the rendering name
– Rendering queue auto show: display the rendering queue when pushing a new project
– Play sound after single rendering: play a sound notification when a single rendering is over
– Keep hyperlapse audio: keep the audio track for hyperlapse renderings
Default Export Parameters:
– Stabilization profile: pre-select a default stabilization profile to use automatically in Preview tab
– Ratio: pre-select a default output ratio to use automatically in Preview tab
– Resolution: pre-select a default output resolution to use automatically in Preview tab
– Codec: pre-select a default output codec to use automatically in Preview tab
To select videos in SteadXP Calibration, you can either:
– select a single chessboard video, where all the angles were filmed
– select multiple chessboard videos, each one of them filming one angle at a time
If you choose the second option, SteadXP Calibration will merge those multiple chessboard videos into one single video. Go with this option if it is easier for you to film one angle of the chessboard at a time, each of them in a short video.
To learn how to film the chessboard, please refer to our calibration video tutorial
Video & Data files
No, it is not possible to change this timestamp.
SteadXP software will automatically find the .XPD file corresponding to your video.
No, .XPD data files should not be renamed.
It is not recommended, since SteadXP software uses the GoPro file naming format to detect matching .XPD data files.
Camera
When creating a camera profile, only the lens ends can be used (for example @16mm & @35mm for a 16-35mm). Using gaffer helps fixing the lens.
Yes, as long as your input video metadata are correctly set by the camera, SteadXP software will desqueeze it for you without any additional steps.
If not, you will need to desqueeze first before importing.
On a DSLR or MirrorLess camera, the auto-gain setup will set your audio gain properly.
Always check your VU-meters before recording, if the level is too low, your camera is probably set in audio manual mode. Then simply adjust your audio gain to 80%, close to the saturation.
Common mistakes
If the LED of your SteadXP is blinking 3x red and 3x green (SOS signal), it means that the microSD card of your SteadXP is either:
- full
- defective
- wrongly formatted (use the SD Memory Card Formatter to format it correctly, in FAT16 or FAT32)
When importing new input videos, SteadXP software will first analyze audio tracks on each video, looking for our digital audio signal.
Recording this audio signal sent by SteadXP+ (at microphone level) is mandatory to later stabilize your shots with SteadXP software.
So always control your audio Vu-Meters at setup time! Another common mistake resulting in an “Audio analysis failed” error is a wrong audio cable insertion (be careful to plug your SteadXP+ on “MIC In”, and not on “Headphones In”).
Once plugged, most DSLR and Mirrorless cameras will automatically adjust audio gain properly to work with SteadXP+ (when camera was set to AUTO audio gain).
If your camera audio gain is set to MANUAL, we recommend to adjust audio levels close to saturation (80% is fine).
Documentation
Video tutorials are available here. You can also use the Documentation menu in both softwares.