- How does video stabilization work?
- Two passes. The first pass tracks how the picture moves from frame to frame and reconstructs the camera's path. The second pass computes a smoothed version of that path, warps every frame at full resolution to follow it, and zooms in just enough to hide the moved edges. Deliberate moves such as pans survive because they are slow; shake is fast and gets removed.
- What level should I use?
- Medium is the default and suits most handheld footage. Low smooths half a second of motion, keeps some natural sway and crops the least — good for interviews and slow shots. High smooths two seconds of motion for action cameras, walking shots and long lenses, and crops the most.
- Will stabilization crop my video?
- Yes. Moving frames to cancel shake exposes their edges, so the tool zooms in enough to hide them. The zoom is fixed for the whole clip and sized from the measured motion: a mildly shaky clip loses a few percent, a very shaky clip on High loses up to about 20 % of the frame, and the crop never goes beyond that. Shoot a little wider than you need if you plan to stabilize, and trim the first seconds where you were still framing the shot — they force the crop for the whole clip.
- Why does the smoothing depend on the frame rate?
- Because shake happens in time, not in frames. The smoothing window is defined in seconds and converted with your clip's frame rate, so a 60 fps clip is smoothed over the same slice of time as a 30 fps clip. A stabilizer that counts frames instead smooths 60 fps footage only half as much.
- Can I stabilize action camera (GoPro, Insta360, DJI) footage?
- Yes, that is what High is for. If the camera already has built-in stabilization, the tool stacks on top of it. Expect a larger crop on very rough footage.
- How long does it take?
- Roughly 6 to 8 seconds of processing per second of 1080p video, and about four times that for 4K. A 30-second 1080p clip takes 3 to 4 minutes; a 5-minute clip around 35 minutes. For long recordings, trim to the part you need with our cut tool first.
- Is this video stabilizer free? Does it add a watermark?
- Processing and the side-by-side preview are free, and the result carries no watermark. Downloading the full-resolution file uses credits; free accounts receive credits every day.
- Why does my video look floaty or too smooth?
- That is a long smoothing window on footage with deliberate camera moves: High treats slow moves as motion to smooth out, so the video feels like it glides on rails. Re-run with Medium or Low to keep them.
- What can't it fix?
- Rolling-shutter wobble (the jelly effect from fast phone pans), motion blur baked into the frames, and parallax from objects close to the lens stay in the picture: stabilization moves whole frames, it does not re-render them. Very fast whip pans are followed rather than smoothed so the crop stays reasonable.
- How is this different from a desktop stabilizer?
- It is the same two-pass principle as the stabilizers in desktop editors, tuned per level and per clip, with nothing to install. Desktop tools give you more knobs and extras such as subspace warping; this is the one-click version.
- Can I also smooth the frame rate or slow it down?
- Yes — pair stabilization with our 60fps converter for smoother motion, or with AI slow motion. Stabilize first, then convert: the frame generator works best from steady frames.