Introducing Video Share

Wow, it has been some time since last post. But this new feature is so awesome that it will make all this waiting worthwhile. With the 2.8 update to Control iOS we added the ability to create short videos of your track!

In orienteering, sharing your best or worst moments for others to see is a bit difficult. Viewing a static image only gets you half of the way. You can see what route you chose, how far did you go before you reached the control but you cannot clearly see how long it actually took time-wise. With a video you can definitely see more clearly how long did it take and how much you stopped while looking at the map and figuring out where to go.

Now you can create these kind of short videos directly from Control. Just select Share video from the share menu (that is also renewed for this release) and a video editor opens up. You can select the starting point and a length on the track and you have a video. We also included a tail which you can configure for certain length. Pretty familiar if you have seen Routegadget or GPS-seuranta from orienteering sports broadcasts. Here is how it looks like.

Video contains a banner on top which shows your current time as well as distance traveled, heart rate and elevation. Video runs currently at a hard-coded 24x speed. (We might introduce a setting for this later if requested by audience)

There is also a small effect when you reach a position where you have marked a control point.

You can preview the video before sending. Video is cropped square for better compatibility on different social media platforms.

The user interface for creating a video is currently pretty straightforward. Select the starting point with the scrubber & tap the length to select the track length from the starting point. Length can be set currently from 30 seconds to 30 minutes. Note that the longer the length, the longer it will take to create the video.

Tail length can also be configured from none to 5 minutes.

You can also change video smoothing setting if you like. Current recommended setting is High which produces the best quality video but it also takes longer time to create. If you cannot stand the waiting, you can change it to lower setting or even remove the smoothing completely.

You can share the videos to friends or to social media. Or just save for your own use on the device.

If you do share on social media, remember to refer our accounts on Twitter: @controlorientr & Instagram: @controlorienteering & FB: Control App

Video creation feature requires iOS 14 and is not yet available on Android but we are working on that as well.