GoPro Max
Also known as: Max, GoPro 360 camera
The GoPro spherical camera, which records every direction at once and leaves the framing to be chosen afterwards in software.
Updated
What it means
The Max is GoPro entry in the spherical category. Two opposing lenses cover the whole sphere, and what a viewer eventually sees is a flat window carved out of that recording later.
It can also behave as a conventional very wide camera using one lens, which makes it two cameras in one body and complicates deciding what any given clip actually is.
The trade is the usual one for 360 footage: enormous flexibility in where to point, and a delivered window drawn from a fraction of the pixels the specification quotes.
How it works in practice
Deciding the mode before filming saves a great deal of confusion later, because spherical and single lens clips need completely different handling once they are off the card. Sorting them afterwards means opening files one at a time.
Spherical clips need a reframing pass before anything else can use them, and 360 reframing is a deliberate editorial step rather than a conversion that can be automated away.
Keeping the subject off the join between lenses is the one framing rule that still applies, since anything crossing the Stitch line distorts no matter how the window is aimed later.
What to watch out for
File sizes and processing demands are both far higher than conventional footage, and the reframing pass has to complete before any analysis or cutting can begin.
Mixed sessions are the practical headache. A card holding both spherical and flat clips looks uniform in a file browser and is not, which is discovered at the worst moment.
Reframing also tempts constant movement. Because the window can point anywhere, a shot that pans continuously is easy to produce and much harder to watch than one that simply holds, which is a failure of Pacing rather than of the camera.
How RawClip handles it
Spherical files are handled as a separate step rather than treated like ordinary clips, because each needs a reframing decision first. A reframed export in a normal aspect ratio is what the analysis actually works from, which keeps spherical and conventional footage comparable inside the same order.