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.
Your camera will be compatible with SteadXP+ if it has:
- all internal stabilization systems deactivated (IBIS, OIS, EIS : SteadyShot on Sony cameras)
- an Ext MIC input
- a flash mount
IBIS technology limitation:
On some IBIS cameras, even when IBIS is deactivated, the sensor will still freely « float » inside the camera body.
SteadXP cannot take those sensor movements into account, therefore it will not work with SteadXP (ex: Sony A7III, Sony A7R series, Panasonic GH5… Non exhaustive list).
However, since it depends on the IBIS technology, we can guarantee that it will work with the Sony A7SII, A7SIII and Nikon Z6.
If you plan to use your camera on an FPV drone (high vibration environment), please contact us for more details.
Audio recording limitation:
Please note that your selected recording mode (resolution + framerate) must record at least one audio track.
Panasonic BGH1, S1H and S1 cameras will not work with SteadXP either since a strong audio filter is applied by the camera, preventing the detection of SteadXP audio signal.
Lens limitation:
The design of Sirui lenses prevents keeping a fixed focal length: when the focus varies the focal length varies, which prevents using SteadXP.
N.B: If you are shooting RAW, you must first convert your RAW files before using them in SteadXP software
When buying a SteadXP+ device, the following accessories must be purchased separately:
- Connection: output mini-jack stereo TRS 3.5mm (recommended cables: mini-jack, balanced XLR or unbalanced XLR) — More info on audio configuration —
- Battery: recommended Li-ion Battery 1180mAh for GoPro® HERO3* for a 10-12h autonomy
- Memory card: microSD or microSDHC, from 1 GB up to 32 GB — More info about microSD cards —
SteadXP software is included with the purchase of any SteadXP device.
It is available as a x64 (64 bits version) and is compatible with:
- Windows 10, 8.1, 7
- macOS 11 Big Sur, 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:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, 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
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.
IBIS / OIS / EIS
Every other 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.
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 many 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 low amplitude 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 many 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 low amplitude wrist movements on the pitch axis, like explained at the start of this video tutorial
NB: If you are inside, point the camera toward a wall/ceiling junction
Common issues
We can help you if you have troubles creating a camera profile. You can send it to SteadXP for evaluation:
- launch SteadXP or SteadXP Calibration software
- click on File ➞ Export Camera Profiles
- select the camera profiles that you want to export
- click on Export and select where to create the .zip file containing the selected camera profiles
- send this .zip file to software@steadxp.com
When saving a camera profile, the calibration frames used for the calibration analysis are also saved. SteadXP will use these calibration frames to evaluate the camera profile quality. The calibration frames will of course not be released publicly.
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 videos, SteadXP software will first analyze audio tracks for each video, looking for our digital audio signal.
Recording this audio signal sent by SteadXP+ (at microphone level) is mandatory to 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”).
If your camera audio gain is set to MANUAL, we recommend to adjust audio levels close to saturation (80% is fine).
Bad stabilization results can be explained by several factors.
If you see jitter in your renderings, please check the following points:
1. IBIS / OIS / EIS were not disabled
Every other stabilization system on your camera / lens must be disabled for SteadXP stabilization to work properly.
Unfortunately, videos filmed with other stabilization systems enabled cannot be recovered by SteadXP software.
2. SteadXP+ was not perfectly aligned with the optical axis
- The cold shoe is not perfectly aligned with the optical axis, this is especially important when using long focal length.
- The lens mount is physically damaged, there is some play. Even a slightly moving lens will produce bad stabilization with SteadXP.
3. The camera profile is incorrect
Generally speaking, SteadXP is very sensitive to focal length. Using an incorrect camera profile will result in bad stabilization results:
- Make sure to select the exact camera profile corresponding to the lens used when filming.
- With a zoom lens, the focal length must exactly match the value used when creating the profile (only at min/max focal length).
If you need help, SteadXP can help you validate your camera profiles.
4. The synchronization value is wrong
If the synchronization analysis was performed on a foreground object, you should select a different frame with mainly background visible and click on Retry to relaunch the synchronization analysis.
This can be avoided by doing a proper synchronization movement at the start of your video.
If you forgot the synchronization movement when recording, don’t worry it will still work. If you do it, you will save time in post when derushing many videos at once: the auto-synchronization will be perfect right away.
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), 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!
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: You should disable +48V or any other phantom power in your camera settings since it could damage your SteadXP+
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
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, Cinema RAW Light…), you must first convert your RAW files (to ProRes or DNxHR for eample) 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 lens + camera recording mode (resolution/crop factor) configuration.
You can use our built-in camera profiles (266 profiles available), or create your own ones using our SteadXP Calibration software. Before starting, make sure to take a look at our video tutorial.
You can import/export camera profiles by clicking on File ➞ Import Camera Profiles or File ➞ Export Camera Profiles
SteadXP software only displays camera profiles matching the resolution of your input videos, because the camera profile must have the same resolution as the input video in order to apply our stabilization.
The camera profiles that you created are located in the folder Documents/SteadXP/cameraprofiles.
If you want to share your camera profiles with other users, please export them (File ➞ Export Camera Profiles) and send them to support@steadxp.com, thank you!
An input item represents an input video found in the current working directory (image 1).
In this input item you will find the camera profile and XPD data file associated to the video, as well as general video parameters (duration, framerate, resolution…). The input item also lists the SteadXP projects (.yxp files) and renderings associated to this video.
Placing the mouse cursor over a video/project/rendering name will display the video/project/rendering information. You can also open a context menu for each video/project/rendering by right-clicking on the given video/project/rendering.
Image 1
Image 2
- Proxy player: Once the proxy is ready, click on the thumbnail to switch to the proxy player (image 2). You can play the proxy video (with sound) and set In/Out points to save projects. Click again to switch back to the thumbnail.
- Proxy video progression.
- Advanced fast access actions (must be enabled in Preferences ➞ Input). Allows you to perform tasks like synchronization, optimization or adding to the Rendering Queue directly from Input tab.
- An external microphone was detected. Click to mute/unmute the proxy player.
- Add the project to the Motion Blur Queue.
- Add the project to the Rendering Queue.
Each item representing a video, project or rendering also has its own context menu (right-click to display it).
It offers additional information as well as actions like opening the parent folder of a file or playing a video.
Input tab uses colors to highlight important elements:
- the video/project currently loaded in Preview tab is in bold white
- the renderings of the current software instance are in yellow
- the renderings of the last rendering operation are in bold yellow
Image 3
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
Reframing is a zoom around the cursor, allowing you to create, edit and remove keyframes
Sync is used for the synchronization between the video and the motion data in Sync tab
In Trajectory and Reframing modes, the timeline also has a context menu (right-click in the timeline to show it)
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…
For a given SteadXP software session, the project settings are the stabilization and export parameters loaded by default for all the videos. They can be changed at any moment in Preview tab.
When creating a camera profile, you can optionally select project settings in the Save Camera Profile dialog in SteadXP Calibration software:
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.
Adjust this parameter to control the stability of your sequence.
- 0: correct the rolling shutter only
- from 1 to 24.9: gradually increase the stability of the shot while keeping a shoulder-held camera effect
- from 25 to 50: powerful stabilization of the shot
For hyperlapse sequences, we recommend a StabLevel of 50 before optimizing.
NB: Using the digit after the decimal point, the StabLevel control is very accurate (especially <25).
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 
button.
Then, use the white joystick/arrows to set a global orientation to your sequence.
To reset the global orientation, right-click on ➞ 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 keyframe reframing.
You can now optionally control the zoom of your sequence. The purple spline in the timeline represents the zoom variation in the sequence, initialized to Zoom Out constant value by default.
You can also modulate the zoom value all along your sequence:
– to create a dolly zoom effect in a few clicks with very high precision
– if you plan to apply a speed ramping in your NLE
To control the zoom variation, when the timeline is in Trajectory mode:
– Double-click to add a zoom keyframe (which is represented in purple)
– Right-click on a zoom keyframe to edit its zoom value
– Double-click on a zoom keyframe to remove it
– Right-click in the timeline ➞ Reset zoom keyframes to remove all the zoom keyframes
The optimization algorithm will take these zoom keyframes into account to reach smoother trajectories in specific parts of the video.
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 of the framing dead zone (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 videos in the 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: show In/Out points of projects/renderings listed in Input tab
– Enable advanced fast access actions: to perform actions for each video (sync validation, optimize, add to Rendering Queue) directly from 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
– h264 bitrate: adjust the bitrate of the h264 output codec (approximate values)
Default Project Settings:
– Stabilization profile: pre-select a default stabilization profile to use automatically in Preview tab
– Resolution: pre-select a default output resolution to use automatically in Preview tab
– Ratio: pre-select a default output ratio to use automatically in Preview tab
– Codec: pre-select a default output codec to use automatically in Preview tab
The chessboard is included in SteadXP Calibration software, to display it click on Display Chessboard in Input 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.
The higher the audio levels, the better the stabilization quality (this is particularly true for high vibrations environments).
Documentation
Video tutorials are available here. You can also use the Documentation menu in both softwares.