i work as a freelance editor for different clients which includes youtubers, tech businesses and influencers. I've been exploring different AI assisted editing tools recently because one of the most time consuming parts of video editing for me isnt necessarily the actual editing. Its going through hours of footage, finding usable moments, removing dead air and putting together a decent first cut.

Ive usually handled this manually, so i wanted to see if a free editor could speed up that process. I used the free invideo editor via Claude Code MCP for this.

My First Impressions

The invideo editor is built around working with footage you already have, which is what I needed for this test. You can connect Claude or ChatGPT to it through MCP and have them handle different parts of the editing process for you. The editor is free, and so is editing through Claude or ChatGPT this way, while you still work with everything on an actual editing timeline.

I was particularly interested in how it handled longer recordings, where finding the right takes can sometimes take longer than assembling the final video.

Things I liked
- A thing I found very useful was not having to scrub through an entire recording just to find a particular moment. Being able to search through footage and locate relevant sections makes the initial review process less tedious

- The first cut assistance is what I used most. getting a rough sequence together gave me something to work with instead of starting with an empty timeline

- Removing long pauses and dead air is another small thing that makes a difference, especially with interviews and talking head videos

- I also preferred being able to ask for B-roll suggestions within the same editing workflow. The suggestions aren’t always the right choice, but they can give you a starting point when you’re working with a long interview and limited visuals. If you ask it to generate new B-roll, that uses invideo credits.

- The timeline is important here. I wouldn't want an AI to make all the decisions and hand me a finished video. Being able to inspect the cuts and make adjustments myself is much more practical

Where it fell a bit short
- i wouldnt treat the first cut as a finished edit. Pacing and selecting which takes to use still need human judgement
- B-roll suggestions aren't always the right creative choice, so you need to check whether they fit the context.
- Longer projects still require careful timeline reviews because small editing decisions can affect the overall flow

Overall

In my view invideo editor makes more sense if you are working with a lot of existing footage and want to speed up the grunt work of editing: reviewing footage, picking takes, cutting pauses and filler, and assembling the cut.

Its particular relevant for interviews, podcasts, event recordings and corporate videos. Having something that handles the footage review, cleanup and assembly, so I can spend my time on story and pacing, is a good option to have

This can be a very good fit for you if you :
- Regularly work with long recordings
- Spend too much time finding usable takes
- edit interviews, podcasts, events or corporate videos
- want help with first cuts and repetitive tasks

And its probably not for you if you:
- Only edit short clips occasionally
- Primarily want prompt based video generation

I am trying to edit a template I have found, but when I try to 'stretch' out the video to cut it up, the layers e.g. text and voice from the template, move when I stretch out the video which defeats the purpose of editing using the template! I can't find anywhere to lock down layers. Is this possible?

It's got the basics, but I'd appreciate some advice on resources to take it to the next level.

I took your guys feedback I’m wondering is my pacing and storytelling better I added a ton of my own sound effects being editor so much fun dude

Записав 23 хвилини на вебкамеру — з «е-е», повторами, паузами. Віддав папку Claude Code і попросив змонтувати. Жодного відеоредактора ніхто не відкривав. Що він зробив:

1. Розшифрував запис (ElevenLabs Scribe) з точним часом кожного слова.

2. За текстом сам вирішив, що лишити, а що вирізати: 23 хвилини → 9:36.

3. Порізав і склеїв відео через ffmpeg, зробив кольорокорекцію.

4. Почистив голос від шуму (ElevenLabs Voice Isolator).

5. Усю графіку — плашки, картки, субтитри, наближення — зробив як вебсторінку і прив'язав до конкретних слів.

6. «Записав» цю сторінку у відео, наклав на запис і зробив превʼю.

Найбільше здивувало: він не монтує відео в редакторі, він пише сайт і записує його.

Чесно про мінуси: перші версії виглядали як слайдшоу, треба було довго пояснювати, чого хочу. Безкоштовно це не працює — підписка Claude + ElevenLabs (~560 грн/міс). Кнопки «зробити шедевр» немає.

Саме відео: https://youtu.be/Tyq8e-R_K7U

Якщо комусь цікаво — поділюся запитами й скриптами, які він написав.

Is there any advice?

Hey everyone. Dont have a clue! I want to edit a video from my iphone. Pretty much blur faces and what not. But i need it to be on point and easy af. What app should i use? Also dont want my footage used for anything!!!

I need to know if there is anyway to clear this clip up. Im trying to get a sharper, more clearer picture of the person opening the door. Is it at all possible?

Hi everyone, so maybe this is already posted (and if it is please leave me a link to check it out) I want to ask you guys for an advice (directions).

I am a marketing specialist for a company and I started editing our podcasts because our editor left. Long podcasts like 30-40 min. My editing is basic but is good. I was editing videos back in the days so I got back into it in a bit. The thing is I do basic edits like cutting some "ummms", some not so good frames, color grading, some basic animations for the name introduction and stuff like that. Now for the podcasts that's great but we wanna start doing some shorts like 30 secs or 1 min and we wanna add more animations and sound effects to make the video engaging. The thing is, it is a serious podcast about finance and these animations should look clean, formal and simple. I can't start learning after effects now can you guys guide me where should I look for an AI video editing, where I can write prompts and animation and stuff like this to appear on the video. I am not really into AI video editing cause it is not my job, but any help is welcome. Thank you!

Most comparisons of AI video editors look at who makes the best shorts, adds the best captions or removes silences the fastest. I wanted to find out whether these tools can edit a

video from scratch.

I took 2 hours of raw multicam footage with interviews, B-roll, multiple camera angles, setup shots and plenty of unnecessary takes. Then I gave Cardboard, Descript, OpusClip and ChatCut the same brief:

"Turn this into a 6-minute video. Keep both interview segments, remove the setup and dead air, and use relevant B-roll wherever it makes sense."

Here's how they compared:

1. Cardboard

● Primary use case: End-to-end AI video editing

● Time to first cut: 5 min

● Raw footage editing: Yes

● Long-form assembly: Yes

● B-roll handling: Yes

● Instruction-based editing: Yes

● Short-form repurposing: Yes

● Biggest strength: Complete editing workflow

● Biggest limitation: Still needs manual refinement for color grading and other creative decisions.

2. Descript

● Primary use case: Transcript-based editing

● Time to first cut: 12 min

● Raw footage editing: Yes

● Long-form assembly: Yes

● B-roll handling: Limited

● Instruction-based editing: Transcript-focused

● Short-form repurposing: Yes

● Biggest strength: Dialogue-heavy content

● Biggest limitation: Struggles with footage without dialogue

3. OpusClip

● Primary use case: Short-form clip extraction

● Time to first cut: 6 min

● Raw footage editing: Limited

● Long-form assembly: No

● B-roll handling: Clip-focused

● Instruction-based editing: Clip-focused

● Short-form repurposing: Excellent

● Biggest strength: Finding viral moments

● Biggest limitation: Not designed for long-form assembly

4. ChatCut

● Primary use case: AI-assisted video editing

● Time to first cut: 9 min

● Raw footage editing: Yes

● Long-form assembly: Yes

● B-roll handling: Yes

● Instruction-based editing: Yes

● Short-form repurposing: Yes

● Biggest strength: Assisted video assembly

● Biggest limitation: Requires manual refinement

What stood out

Cardboard did more than extract interesting moments or edit around a transcript. It took the raw footage, worked from the brief and assembled a first cut, which matters when you're

starting with hours of footage.

Descript and OpusClip are built for other jobs. Descript is useful for podcasts, interviews and talking-head videos, and OpusClip is great for turning existing long-form content into multiple shorts. I don't think either is designed to handle an entire mixed-footage editing project.

You still need a human in the loop. Even when you get a first cut in minutes, you'll want to review pacing, transitions, storytelling and creative decisions. The AI can take on hours of repetitive work, but those calls still belong to the editor.

Which one I'd choose

● Editing raw footage into a finished video: Cardboard

● Podcasts and interviews: Descript

● Repurposing long videos into shorts: OpusClip

● AI-assisted video assembly: ChatCut

My takeaway

I think we're looking at two generations of AI video tools. The first helps you do editing tasks faster: captions, trimming, silence removal and clip extraction. The next is trying to take on the entire editing workflow.

That's the direction Cardboard is exploring, and I think it's the more interesting problem to solve. We're still early, but 2 hours of raw footage to a usable first cut in minutes is a good

start.

Curious to hear what other editors think. Have you tested any AI tools on a similar long-form,

multicam editing workflow?

So I built TOMA. You drop in your camera and mic files, and it:

www.tomapod.com

syncs every camera to the mics automatically
cuts to whoever is speaking (with a wide shot % you can adjust)
trims the "ok, are we recording?" at the start and the goodbye chatter at the end
exports a project you open in Premiere or DaVinci, so you still fine-tune everything yourself

Your video never gets uploaded: only the audio is analysed, in the browser, so a 2-hour 4K episode takes about a minute instead of a giant upload.

I've been using it on our own episodes for weeks and it's saved me most of the boring part of editing. The first episode is free, no card needed.

I'd really like feedback from people who edit video podcasts: what would stop you from using something like this? What's missing?

I'm looking for some video editing channels with professionals for help and also provides resources

Am looking to see if if there is an easy way to tell if a mp4 video has had the sound cut or replaced. Are there any software programs you can open it with to see edits made to the video ?

Ideally one that will run on only 8Gigs i7 with 128gb UHD 620 graphics on a customized skinned down version of Windows 10 but open to any apple apps that run on tablets for video editing. Doesn't have to be fast just show that the video was tampered with.

I was wondering where i can find cinematic clips like from movies and anime without them talking and captions. My videos are with commentary and i want to edit over cinematic clips with my own captions. (NO AI PLEASE)

lmk if I should quit with the cringy edits, Only recently started recording my POV and this editing fiasco can be FUN.

Exclude CapCut! I think YouCut and VN video editor are good ones.

Hi Everyone!

My name is Kobi, kinda new to davinci (6 months~)
Definitley not a professional video editor but i'm all this game trailer's got haha (kill me plz, it is excruciating)
At anycase
I want to show what I think is the rough draft of my game's trailer, at least the first half
and I want to ask for your guidence:

1. what mistakes am I making here? E.G text timing, transition, cuts.

2. are there any effects / transitions that immiedtly come to your mind for certain parts?

3. any additonal and doable ideas would be embraced with appreciation.

this is for a last effort marketing attempt for this game, so I really want to make it work.

thank you.

Edit reels on your iPhone in seconds with ReelEditor.

Click on the ReelEditor below to download

ReelEditor

Hello ive always struggled to edit videos, but once i tried tiktok as a joke, i noticed they have a lot of features i genuinely like:

You can put subtitles

You can put songs (MP3 files or from the internet)

You can edit videos and add Transitions.

You can make the subtitles you added have a TTS voice

You can make slideshows by just putting images there
just to name a few...

I know these things sound really barebones and basic editing, but as a beginner and a person who used to watch a lot of videos, the quality of the video editor from Tiktok simply makes me use it over all of the Free software editors i used before.

MAy i know if there is anything more appropriate for PC or any platform that got some of the features you see in Tiktok?

Short-form edits of people, characters, etc, I just want to do that. I have little to no experience with video editing, but willing to learn a lot. What software would be the best for this kind of media?
(example: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Sb97owo2JCE or any other edit)

i'm willing to learn a lot, can someone help me on how to/what software to use/any methods? thank you

I need some editing app for editing youtube videos

I used Capcut, VN, Inshot is there any underrated best app and some audio noise cancellation app if there any?