Exporting your videos the right way

TrackStat is a standalone web app. It doesn’t plug into your phone’s camera roll or sync with an app in the background — you upload a video file to the website, then mark it up there. That means the one thing that matters before you start is getting a clean, full-quality clip out of your phone or camera. Here’s how.

Why the export step matters

Phones are helpful in a way that works against you here: when you share a video, they often compress it to save space or data. A compressed clip loses the fine detail between frames — exactly the detail you need to read contact and flight times accurately. The fix is simple once you know it.

iPhone

Two things to get right on iPhone:

1. Export unmodified / full quality. When you share or save the clip, choose the option that keeps the original — on iPhone this is “Export Unmodified Original” (via the Files app or a share sheet). Don’t AirDrop or message it to yourself, as that re-compresses it.
2. Turn off the slow-motion ramp. Slow-mo clips on iPhone have a built-in “filter” — the speed ramps in and out, shown by the little bar/handles in the editor. Drag those handles so the entire clip plays at full slow-motion speed, with no normal-speed sections. Otherwise part of your rep is recorded at the wrong effective frame rate.

GoPro

GoPro is easier:

• It doesn’t compress the way phones do, so you can use the file more or less straight off the card.
• It records at a genuinely constant frame rate, which keeps your timing honest.
• Just copy the file off via the app or an SD reader — no special export setting needed.

Trim to the rep

Whatever you filmed on, trim the clip down to just the rep:

• Cut out the walk-up, the waiting around, and the walk-back.
• Keep a second or so either side of the steps you care about.
• A shorter clip means a smaller file, a faster upload, and less to scrub through when you’re marking up.

Quick checklist

• Exported at full / unmodified quality (not shared/messaged)
• Slow-mo ramp removed — whole clip at slow-mo speed
• Trimmed to just the rep
• Smaller, clean file ready to upload

Get this right once and it becomes second nature — and every analysis you do afterwards is built on solid footage.