Action Footage Player
Free video player for action-camera footage · Mac and Windows
Your action-camera clips, in color and steady. Just double-click.
Action Footage Player plays footage from GoPro, DJI and Insta360 cameras on your computer. Clips shot in log, your camera's richest color setting, play in full color instead of flat grey. Shaky clips play steady, even under water. And the moment worth sharing is ready for your phone with one key.
Diver or snorkeler? Your dives, steady and true to your eyes → Back with hours of clips? Keep the moments that matter →
Back from the trip
The camera caught it. Getting it on screen is the hard part.
You come home with hours of clips and a few minutes you care about. Shot in log, they look grey everywhere you open them. Shot under water, they shake. And by the time you've found the good minute, nobody's waiting for it.
Grey everywhere
Log clips look flat in Finder, in Quick Look and in every editor, until someone grades them.
Log clips look flat in File Explorer, in its preview pane and in every editor, until someone grades them.
Too shaky to watch
Under water, the camera's own stabilization can't keep up, and with it off, the clip wobbles.
Hours to go through
The highlights you marked on the camera are in the file, but nothing shows them.
Shared too late
Friends want the clip tonight. The edit, if it happens, comes weeks later.
What it does
Double-click a clip. It plays the way you remember it.
No import, no editing, nothing to wait for. It all happens while the clip plays.
In color, not grey
Log clips open in full color, with the bright sky and the dark shadows both kept. No grading, no look added.
How it works →Steady, even under water
With the camera's stabilization off, the player steadies the clip as it plays, from the motion the camera recorded. Old trips too, with nothing to render.
How it works →Your highlights, a key away
The moments you marked with the camera's button sit on the timeline. Jump to the turtle instead of scrubbing an hour of blue.
How it works →Keep the best parts
A part you keep becomes a small file in a _Moments folder, in color in Finder and Quick LookFile Explorer and its preview pane.
Share the same evening
Mark a part and press one key: you get a file that looks right on iPhones, iPads and Macs.
Mark a part and press one key: you get an HDR file for your phone, your TV or YouTube.
How it works →On to your editor, later Coming soon
Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro get your moments and marks, on the original files.
How it works →What the camera measured: depth, speed and GPS on screen, when the camera recorded them.
Step by step: Log footage · Stabilization · Library · Photos · All features, in detail →
How it works
One camera setting, one double-click, one key.
By default, your camera squeezes bright skies and deep shadows so a clip looks fine on any screen. Its log setting keeps all of it, but the clips come out grey, and making them look right used to take editing software. Action Footage Player does it as you press play.
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Set the camera once
Choose log as the color setting: D-Log M on DJI, GP-Log on GoPro, 10-bit I-Log on Insta360 (in the player, Ctrl+l picks I-Log by hand). Under water, also turn the camera's stabilization off; on DJI, keep the Wide field of view.
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Double-click a clip
It plays in color, steady, with your highlights on the timeline.
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Share or keep a moment
Press l at the start and the end, then Shift+E to share it or k to keep it.
Clips you shot in the normal mode play as they always did, with your highlights, moments and one-key sharing.
Does it work?
Built on dive trips, on proven open-source tools.
Action Footage Player is used every day with a DJI Osmo Action 6 by the diver who made it, and is checked on a GoPro HERO12 Black. Its stabilization comes from Gyroflow's open-source engine. Under water it also corrects for how water bends light: on a test clip, that left about eight times less jitter than stabilizing as on land.
Who makes it
A diver in Geneva, with one camera in one hand.
I'm Anton Belkin. I've traveled for twenty years and dived for fifteen. I made this player for my own footage: to see it as it looked, without grading every clip, and steady under water, where divers told me digital stabilization could never work. Then I made it work for other cameras, and opened it to everyone.
Find your way in
Two ways in, depending on how you shoot.
Your dives, steady and true to your eyes
What to set before the next dive, why the camera's stabilization gives up under water, and which cameras work.
For people with hours of clips, log shooters includedKeep the moments that matter, then take them to your editor
Highlights on the timeline, moments you name and keep, and a way into Final Cut Pro, Resolve or Premiere.
Questions
Before you download.
Which cameras are supported?
Verified on the DJI Osmo Action 6 and the GoPro HERO12 Black. Built for other DJI, GoPro and Insta360 models and waiting for someone to try their clips.
| Camera | Log | Stabilization | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| DJI Osmo Action 6 | Verified D-Log M | Verified EIS off, Wide FOV | Used daily on macOS by the author. |
| DJI Osmo 360 | Expected D-Log M | Expected EIS off, Wide FOV | Single-lens MP4. |
| GoPro HERO12 Black | Verified GP-Log | Verified HyperSmooth off | GP-Log from firmware 1.20. |
| GoPro HERO13 Black | Expected GP-Log | Expected HyperSmooth off | |
| GoPro MISSION 1, MISSION 1 PRO | Expected GP-Log2 | Expected | |
| GoPro MAX2 | Not yet GP-Log | Not known yet | 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, Wide FOV | * 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. |
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.
Do I need an HDR screen?
No. Log shows its best on HDR screens: recent iPhones, MacBook Pros, HDR TVs and monitors. But on Apple devices it looks good on ordinary screens too, in the player and in the clips you export from it.
On some other phones, computers and TVs, an exported clip can look a little flatter than one recorded in the camera's normal mode. If that's where you mostly share, the player has looks made for ordinary screens, for watching and for exporting; for DJI's D-Log M, the camera maker's own is among them.
Do I have to change my camera settings?
No, but one setting gets you the most. Choose log as the color setting once: D-Log M on DJI, GP-Log on GoPro, 10-bit I-Log on Insta360. I-Log isn't recognized by itself: in the player, Ctrl+l picks it by hand. Under water, also turn the camera's stabilization off: the camera then records how it moves, and the player steadies the clip from that. DJI cameras record it only with EIS off and the Wide field of view.
Clips you shot in the normal mode play as they always did, with your highlights, moments and one-key sharing.
The catch with log: other apps show those clips flat and grey. So you watch them here, or share a clip you exported from here.
Does it change my original files?
Only if you ask. To cut a spoiled part out of a clip (Ctrl+x), the player rewrites the clip without it, with nothing re-encoded, and the original goes to the Trash. Otherwise your originals stay as they are.
What it makes goes into the trip's project folder, which you pick once in the side panel's Project tab: _Moments for the parts you keep, _Clips for a preview of each clip, _Exports for the videos you export, and _ActionFootagePlayer for its own notes. Your own marks and a clip's Gyroflow project are small files beside the clip. On a locked card or a folder it can't write to, the project folder goes in Documents instead.
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.
Which computers does it run on?
Mac: Apple Silicon with macOS 15 or later. Windows: 10 or 11, on 64-bit Intel or AMD, or on ARM. The Mac app is the one in daily use. The Windows app works too, but it's an alpha with little testing so far: the Intel and AMD version has been tried on a PC, the ARM version only by the automated builds.
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.
What does an exported file look like?
An HDR video file that iPhones, Macs, most HDR TVs and YouTube show as HDR. Exported on a Mac in the HLG+DV look, the one clips start in on a Mac screen without HDR, it also carries Dolby Vision information, which iPhones, iPads and Macs use to show it well on screens without HDR. Exported in NBCU's or the camera maker's SDR look, it's a standard SDR file (Rec.709) instead.
The file has no look added, so it is a natural starting point: adjust it to your taste in an editor that handles HDR, 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: it converts log directly, keeps the scene's light as it was 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 steadies clips while they play.
Who needs the stabilization in the player?
If you shoot above water with the camera's stabilization on, you probably don't: it does a good job in air.
It's for clips shot with the camera's stabilization off. Under water, where the camera's own fails, that is the way to shoot. It also covers clips where you turned it off for the widest view, and archives full of such footage. The camera still records how it moves (on DJI, only with EIS off and the Wide field of view), and Action Footage Player uses that while the clip plays.
A clip shot with the camera's stabilization on, HyperSmooth included, plays as it was recorded: stabilizing it twice would make it worse. To steady one anyway, make a Gyroflow project for it (Ctrl+e opens it in Gyroflow), and the player plays it with that.
Plug in the card. Double-click a clip.
Free and open source, for Macs with Apple Silicon and for Windows 10 and 11. No account, and nothing changes your originals unless you ask.
Have a camera marked Expected? A short sample clip in a GitHub issue moves it to Verified. And tell a diving friend: most people who need this have never heard of it.