In
April 2020, GoPro announced it was acquiring the small software company ReelSteady. This was surprising in that GoPro action cams already have a very potent image stabilizer with Hypersmooth.
ReelSteady, on the other hand, works in post-processing, where it can in principle stabilize footage from any camera. However, ReelSteady can theoretically also evaluate additional data from gyro sensors or similar to significantly improve the result. About the expected synergies GopPro had
written this longer blog post. Since then, however, it has become very quiet about the integration.
Now there was a sign of life on Reddit from the ReelSteady developers, who summarize there briefly what should come soon:
ReelSteady 2.0 will be fully integrated into the GoPro Player desktop app with a new user interface, and will support all GoPro shooting modes there, including videos with HyperSmooth enabled.
Stabilized playback should always be real-time and full quality as soon as the video is loaded. This will be accompanied by batch rendering as well as advanced encoding options. These include direct output in a variety of popular formats such as 16:9, 4:3, 1:1 and more. There will also be digital lens correction. This will allow you to choose how much "fisheye" you want in the final output.
Lastly, the developers promise full optimization for Apple Silicon (M1, M1 Pro/Max). Currently, a private beta version is planned to be released in December.
However, the most interesting thing is the
linked unlisted video, which shows how much additional stabilization ReelSteady can bring to a Hypersmooth video. (Pay particular attention to the "landings"):
The question remains, if the After Effects plugin will be developed further...