GoPro Launches QuikStories, A New Feature That Edit Videos Automatically

Action camera maker GoPro has launched QuikStories, a new feature for the GoPro Android and iOS app. The QuikStories feature can generate custom made movies by importing content from the Hero5 or the Hero5 Session.

“QuikStories is our biggest leap forward since the invention of the GoPro itself,” GoPro founder and CEO Nick Woodman said. “QuikStories is the simple storytelling solution our customers have been dreaming about for years. It's an absolute game changer.”

QuikStories natively lives within the GoPro app for Android and iOS devices. Making a QuikStory is made easy as long as users pair their Hero5 or Hero5 Session camera to their phone with the GoPro app.

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After capturing enough footage, users will simply have to drag down on the GoPro app and QuikStory feature will automatically copy the videos to the user's phone. The GoPro footages will then be automatically be edited into a movie, complete with special effects, filters and music.

Users are also free to further edit and customize automatically generated QuikStories. They can add text, different music and filters, and even adjust the length of the movies. Also, any stored footage on the user’s phone can also be added to a QuikStory video.

GoPro already has the Quik app, a separate app where user can easily edit their GoPro footage into short shareable videos. The advantage of using QuikStory is that it’s available right on the main GoPro app and it is able to create movies by itself, as pointed out by Engadget.

Users can just keep capturing GoPro footage while their phone is paired with their camera, and the GoPro app’s QuikStory feature will do its thing in the background. This of course will only work if users turn on Auto Mode under the settings.

Although QuikStory seems like it works well for short clips, there’s a margin for error when users are recording longer footage. The feature might create a movie that doesn’t necessarily have the specific portion of a video that a user wants, for example.

There’s also a catch in using this feature. GoPro warns users that they should make sure that their Hero5 cameras have more than 20 percent battery left, according to The Verge. If users aren’t mindful of their camera’s battery, the Hero5 could turn off in the middle of transferring videos. One solution for this is to simply turn off automatic transfers, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the QuikStory feature itself.

This new video editing tool might be part of GoPro’s strategy in encouraging more of its users to share videos on Snapchat and Instagram. The “Stories” feature from both of those apps could fit in well with GoPro’s QuikStory videos.

“You can say this is the biggest thing we’ve done to simplify the experience of sharing video since the invention of the GoPro itself.”

- Nick Woodman, Founder and CEO Of GoPro

“Our customers [had] a bottleneck to actually transforming clips into an exciting video that they could enjoy themselves and share with others,” Woodman told TechCrunch.

“QuikStories is the uncorking of that bottleneck and the opening of the floodgates and making it easier for customers to easily take advantage of the GoPro in the form of a story that’s easily generated on their phone.”

READ: GoPro Layoffs: Camera Company Will Reduce 15 Percent Of Its Workforce​

By simplifying everything from capturing videos to editing them, GoPro cameras can now have a broader appeal among consumers. The GoPro Hero5 and Hero5 Session cameras are selling well, but 2016 was a terrible year for the company financially. The company already had three rounds of layoffs since the beginning of 2016, as pointed out by The Verge.

By focusing its efforts towards software and its video editing tools, GoPro might be able to turn things around. QuikStory is available now, and users will simply have to update the GoPro app for iOS or Android.