Instagram Adds Video Recording: Up Close On How It Works

Look out, Vine. Instagram, as expected, has added support for recording short video clips of up to 15 seconds. There are 13 filters that can also be applied. A new “Cinema” feature is available to help turn shaky videos into a more stable appearance. The new video feature is available today for iOS and Android. Below, how it all works.

To record a video, people can select a new video option next to the camera button:

You have to record at least three seconds and can go up to 15 seconds. “It’s the right balance between not too short, that constrains your creativity, and not too long where you have to wait for a download,” said Instagram founder Kevin Systrom.

To record, just hold the video button down. You can pause to record multiple scenes. Each scene will be shown as a “chunk” below the video. If you don’t like the most recent segment recorded, you can use the delete button to eliminate just that chunk:

After making your video, you can apply one of 13 filters. There’s also a camera button just above the filters. By default, this shows that the “Cinema” image stabilization feature will be used, processing to make video content seem less shaky. Tap on that to disable this (and the camera lens will change to a circle with a slash to indicate it is off). Finally, you can share your video just like you can share a picture:

After you share a video, it will appear in Instagram feeds similar to a picture. As you scroll to a video, it will show a video icon in the top right corner briefly, then automatically play. It will play only once. You can then tap the video when paused to restart it (when paused, a play icon appears in the top right; when playing, a pause button appears):

As with photos, once you shoot a video, it’s also available on the web (see my example here). However, unlike with Vine, there’s no ability to embed videos into a web page. Also unlike Vine, videos won’t natively play if they are tweeted (just as Instagram pulled photo display support from Twitter).

Want more? Instagram has a video (appropriately enough) here that you can watch:

There’s also one on the Cinema stabilization feature:

There’s also a new help section at Instagram about the video feature.

About The Author

Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, MarTech Today and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.