Horizon iPhone app combats dreaded ‘vertical video syndrome’

Brought to us by Evil Window Dog, Horizon is an iPhone app that helps solve vertical video syndrome (or VVS for short) where too many people are inclined to shoot their videos vertically as if they were taking pictures. This results in “the worst type of video a human being can lay eyes on,” as Horizon puts it. The Mario and Fafa puppets explain this weary annoyance best in their viral awareness campaign.

While you can tilt, turn and spin your iPhone till your face is blue, your videos will now stay horizontal. Horizon also includes real-time Instagram-like filters for your videos that can also be adjusted to different aspect ratios and resolutions.

The Scale & Rotate mode will adjust the aspect ratio and resolution according to how the iPhone is being titled.When you record a video, Horizon auto levels them using the iPhone’s gyroscope. The orientation of the resulting video then stays corrected so that it is always parallel to the ground.

There are three leveling modes available: the default called Just rotate allows you to record using a fixed frame size while Scale & rotate adjusts the frame size to its maximum viewport. Furthermore, you can adjust the video quality and aspect ration to 1080p (16:9), 720p (16:9), 640×640 (square), 640×480 (4:3) and 480×480 (square), depending on the device.

While shooting a horizontal video while holding your iPhone upright might help eliminate VVS, you’ll have to give up some video quality when in portrait mode. Horizon is available for iPhone 4S, iPod Touch 5th generation, iPad 3 and newer models carrying iOS 7.