Action Footage Player
Action Footage Player · a free, open-source alternative to the maker's app
Take back control of your action camera footage.
Love your camera, but not its app? Keep using the app for settings and updates, and let Action Footage Player take care of your footage. Open the folder on your computer and watch it all on a big screen, with the light and color as you saw them. No account, no feed, no look you didn't choose.
What you get back
Your footage, on your terms.
Your files
No account, no cloud, no feed. Plug in the card or copy the folder, and open it. Action Footage Player only reads your originals.
Your screen
Watch on your computer, not squinting at a phone. When you want a clip on your phone or TV, export it in one step.
Everything your camera saw
Your action camera sees more than its default mode keeps. Let your screen show it: a sunset, a bright day on the water, a dive, just as you saw them.
Your look, or none
Nothing is styled for you. Clips play and export natural, so you can add a look later in the editor you like. A look baked into a file can't be taken out.
Your whole archive
Years of clips play as they are, stabilized while they play, without rendering a copy of each one first.
All your cameras
One player for footage from DJI, GoPro and Insta360, instead of one app per camera maker. Support varies by model; see Cameras.
The full range
Turn off your camera's compatibility mode. Capture the scene in all its beauty.
Your camera aims for the average screen
Most cameras are built for standard screens. By default, every clip is processed to look good right away on an average phone or office screen. Modern cameras squeeze a scene's range cleverly, but they have to make trade-offs, and the clip can no longer use the extra brightness and color that most phones and TVs can show (that is what HDR means). In effect, the default mode is a compatibility mode.
The full range, now for everyone
Most of these cameras can also keep the full range, but it hides behind a pro setting called log, and getting a natural look from it on those screens used to take professional software. Action Footage Player does it as you press play, so a sunset, a sunny day, a dive or any high-contrast scene looks the way you remember it.
The trade-off, plainly
Most apps show log clips flat and grey, so you watch them in Action Footage Player or export them first. And on standard screens, even through it, log looks a little worse than the camera's default mode. You give up a little convenience and some sharing quality to keep the moment in full. A scene-aware conversion for standard screens is on the roadmap, and it will apply to the log you have already shot.
Dive footage, steady and true to your eyes
Why log and EIS-off change everything under water, what to set before the next dive, and which cameras work.
You already shoot logD-Log M, GP-Log and I-Log in HDR
What Action Footage Player does with your log clips, the export formats and the keyboard shortcuts.
How it works
Three steps, and the second one is a double-click.
-
Shoot in log
If you watch on HDR screens, set the camera to D-Log M (or GP-Log, I-Log). Under water, also turn EIS off: only then does the camera record the motion data.
-
Double-click a clip
It opens in HDR, stabilized, with the telemetry the camera recorded. Highlights you marked with the camera's button show up on the seek bar.
-
Share a moment
Press l twice to mark a part, then Shift+E. You get an HDR file that iPhones, Macs and YouTube show correctly.
What it does
Everything happens while the clip plays.
Log in true HDR
D-Log M, D-Log, GP-Log, GP-Log2 and 10-bit I-Log are converted with curves the color community measured on the cameras themselves, or with the makers' own formulas where they publish them, and shown as HDR, with no look added: the scene's brightness relationships stay as they were. Made for HDR screens: that is where log beats the camera's default mode.
Stabilized during playback
Built on Gyroflow's engine and the motion data your camera already writes into every clip. Nothing is rendered before you can watch. Three modes: stabilization with crop, stabilization with filled edges, or off.
Telemetry on screen
Depth, whether the camera is in the water, GPS and speed appear when the camera recorded them; altitude, pressure and exposure are there in the menu. Fields the clip doesn't have stay hidden.
One-key export
The part you're watching is exported as you see it, stabilization included, in one pass. You get a natural HDR file to share or to adjust to your taste. Exports slow down while you play and run at full speed when you pause.
Highlights on the seek bar
Moments you marked with the camera's highlight button become markers. Jump between them instead of scrubbing an hour of footage.
Originals stay as they are
Action Footage Player only reads your files. Exports go to a separate stabilized/ folder next to the clip.
Your archive
Old trips play stabilized, without re-rendering anything.
Stabilizing footage usually means rendering a new copy of every clip first. Here the stabilization is applied as the video plays, so a folder of old dives is ready to watch as it is.
| You want to | Render-first workflow | Action Footage Player |
|---|---|---|
| Watch an old dive, stabilized | Open the clip, render a copy, wait, open the copy | Open the folder and press play |
| Go through a terabyte of footage | Hours of rendering, and new files that take extra space | Nothing is rendered; the originals stay where they are |
| Find the moment you remember | Render first, then search | Scrub through footage that is already steady |
| Get a file to share | You always end up with a copy | Only for the parts you export |
The stabilization itself comes from Gyroflow, which does this beautifully. Action Footage Player adds playback in real time, HDR from log and telemetry on top, so you can skip the render step when all you want is to watch.
Under water
Steady footage below the surface.
You already know in-camera stabilization falls apart under water. Turn EIS off, keep shooting, and let Action Footage Player stabilize from the motion data, with a correction for how water bends light through the lens.
Tuned for water by default
The default preset accounts for refraction at the camera's flat lens cover. On the Osmo Action 6 it follows the camera's own in-water flag, so a clip that goes in and out of the water is corrected only where it's in. Above water, DJI's own EIS works well; for EIS-off clips shot in air, Ctrl+u takes the lens out of the water.
Depth where the camera records it
The Osmo Action 6 logs depth and water status (in a dive housing, only the water status). Turn the readout on and off with Ctrl+t.
No color fringes from the water
Water bends blue more than red, so red and blue land apart towards the frame's edges. Wherever the lens is under water, each color is put back where it belongs. Ctrl+a leaves the fringes as recorded.
Frame-to-frame jitter, one test clip
Measured on a single EIS-off clip from an Osmo Action 6, before and after stabilization.
- refraction index
- 1.33
- smoothing
- 0.5
- max zoom
- 140 %
- horizon lock
- off
Cameras
What works today.
Action Footage Player is developed against real footage from the DJI Osmo Action 6 and checked on a GoPro HERO12 Black. Everything else is supported in code and waits for someone to try it on their own clips.
| Camera | Log | Stabilization | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| DJI Osmo Action 6 | Verified D-Log M | Verified EIS off | Used daily on macOS by the author. |
| DJI Osmo 360 | Expected D-Log M | Expected EIS off | Single-lens MP4. |
| GoPro HERO12 Black, HERO13 Black | Verified GP-Log | Verified | Checked on a HERO12 Black. GP-Log from firmware 1.20. |
| GoPro MISSION 1, MISSION 1 PRO | Expected GP-Log2 | Expected | |
| GoPro MAX2 | Not yet GP-Log | Expected | Its GP-Log is exposed two stops brighter than the HERO's and needs a conversion of its own; meanwhile Ctrl+l applies GP-Log by hand, too bright. |
| GoPro HERO8 Black to HERO11 Black | No log | Expected | |
| GoPro HERO5 Black to HERO7 Black | No log | Expected HyperSmooth off | |
| DJI Osmo Action 4, Action 5 Pro, Pocket 3, Osmo 360 II… | Expected* D-Log M | Expected EIS off | * D-Log M by hand, with Ctrl+l. |
| Insta360, single lens | Expected* 10-bit I-Log | Expected FlowState off | * I-Log by hand, with Ctrl+l. 8-bit I-Log is not supported. |
| DJI drones | Expected* D-Log M, D-Log | Expected* Gyroflow project | * The curve by hand, with Ctrl+l; the stabilization from a Gyroflow project made for the clip. |
Verified played in the player on real footage. Expected built for it from the maker's published metadata or sample clips, but not yet checked on real footage. Expected* the same, with a step by hand, explained in its row. Not yet doesn't work yet.
Have one of the cameras marked Expected? A short sample clip in a GitHub issue is the fastest way to move it to Verified.
Keyboard
The keys you'll actually use.
Questions
Before you download.
Do I need an HDR screen?
Yes, if you want the benefit. Log pays off when you, and most of the people you share with, watch on HDR screens: recent iPhones, MacBook Pros, HDR TVs and monitors.
On a standard screen, a log clip looks worse than the same scene recorded in the camera's default mode. That is true whether macOS tone-maps it automatically or, for D-Log M, you switch to DJI's official SDR conversion (its Rec.709 LUT) with Ctrl+s. The camera makers' own processing adapts to each scene and keeps bright what most likely matters in it. Getting the same result from log takes professional grading software and a colorist.
So if you mostly watch and share on standard screens, record in the default mode. If you and your audience have HDR screens, record in log.
For clips you mainly share to standard screens, you can still use the camera maker's app. A scene-aware SDR conversion in Action Footage Player is on the roadmap: squeezing the range always takes decisions, and the aim is to keep the result as close as possible to the full-range version rather than add a look of its own. When it lands, the log footage you have already shot gets better too.
I dive and snorkel. Do I need this?
Yes. Under water, log played in HDR is clearly better than the camera's default mode, especially on recent cameras. The difference is night and day. A dive scene runs from bright light at the surface to dark blue at depth, and the default mode has to squeeze all of it into a standard screen, with trade-offs along the way.
On top of that, you get stabilization that works under water (turn EIS off when you shoot) and the depth readout, if your camera records it.
Who needs the stabilization in the player?
If you shoot above water with the camera's stabilization (EIS) on, you probably don't: in-camera EIS does a good job in air.
It's for clips shot with EIS off. Under water, where in-camera EIS fails, that is the way to shoot. It also covers clips where you turned EIS off for the widest view, and archives full of such footage. The camera still records its motion data, and Action Footage Player uses it while the clip plays, with a choice of stabilization with crop, stabilization with filled edges, or off.
One exception: on GoPro HERO8 and newer, you can leave HyperSmooth on under water. Its result won't be perfect, and the player stabilizes it further from the same motion data. On HERO5, HERO6 and HERO7 Black, HyperSmooth has to be off. (This follows Gyroflow's camera notes. GoPro footage in the player is verified on a HERO12 Black.)
Which computers does it run on?
Mac: Apple Silicon with macOS 15 or later. Windows: 10 or 11 on 64-bit Intel or AMD. The Mac app is the one in daily use; the Windows app carries the same plugins but hasn't been tried on a real PC yet.
Neither app is signed by a developer account yet. On a Mac, allow it once in System Settings, Privacy & Security, Open Anyway. On Windows, SmartScreen shows a warning on first launch: More info, Run anyway.
Does it change my original files?
No. Action Footage Player only reads them. Exports are written to a stabilized/ folder next to the clip, and a clip you open in Gyroflow gets its project as a .gyroflow file beside it; the video file itself is never written to.
What does an exported file look like?
An HEVC Main10 file tagged as HLG, which iPhones, Macs, most HDR TVs and YouTube display as HDR. If you edit afterwards, the command-line export can write ProRes 422 HQ instead.
The file has no look added, so it is a natural starting point: adjust it to your taste in an HDR-capable editor such as iMovie. A look that is baked into a file can't be taken out again: shadows pushed to black stay black.
Why not just use the camera maker's app?
Use it if you like its look. Phone apps are great for quick edits, and some can now show and export log as HDR. That HDR tends to be styled for social media: exposure that shifts as the scene changes, brighter mid-tones, strong local contrast, deep shadows pushed to black.
Action Footage Player does the opposite: a direct conversion from log that keeps the scene's brightness relationships and adds no look of its own, so the clip looks the way the scene did. You can always add a look later; you can't take one out.
It also runs on your computer, plays your whole archive as it is, works with footage from several camera makers, and stabilizes while it plays.
Is it really free?
Yes. It's open source under GPL-3.0, and the code is on GitHub.
Nothing is locked, and there is no account to make.
Help it grow
It gets better with your footage.
Test your camera
Open an issue with your camera model and a short sample clip. That is how cameras move from Expected to Verified.
Open an issue on GitHubTell a diving friend
Most people who need this have never heard of it. A message in your dive club's chat does more than any ad.
Share the projectStar the repository
Stars help other people find the project when they search for log, HDR or Gyroflow.
Star on GitHub