THE EDITING ROOM / 01

1.1 BETA · OPEN SOURCE

Your footage.
Your next cut.

A good edit starts with you. Bring your recordings, choose a starting point, and make every cut your own.

  • Free & open source
  • No CUTROOM watermark
  • AI is optional

START A PROJECT

Pick your starting point.

Every path leads to an editable timeline.

New to the editing room?Workflow & AI options

A SIMPLE WORKFLOW

From recording to ready.

  1. 1

    Bring your footage

    Add a recording, or a screen and camera separately. Choose the spoken language and your layout.

  2. 2

    Shape your edit

    Let AI prepare a draft, or start manually. Review the transcript, move clips and adjust each frame.

  3. 3

    Make it ready

    Check the preview, style your captions and export. Choose your resolution and frame rate, up to 60 FPS.

NO HIDDEN TRADE-OFFS

Same editor. Your choice of AI.

Local AI

You get: private, on-device transcription and Story AI.

You need: model downloads, disk space and processing time. No AI provider fee.

Groq · Free tier

You get: cloud transcription and Story AI, free within Groq's Free-tier quotas.

You need: internet, your own Groq Free account and API key. Quotas apply; not unlimited.

Your compatible AI API

You get: a choice of Groq or a compatible provider and models.

You need: an API key, JSON chat responses and word-timed transcription. Your provider's limits and fees apply.

Local AI selected. Your footage stays on this computer. Online AI is optional; editing and export still run locally.

CUTROOM 1.1 Beta Free to create. Open to build on.

AI drafts need your review · No CUTROOM subscription

Thanks to Groq for making a free API tier available. Quotas apply. CUTROOM is independent; no sponsorship or endorsement is implied.

YOUR WORKSPACE

Keyboard shortcuts

Close this panel to use shortcuts on the timeline. Edits follow your Together / A only / B only selection. Typing fields and other dialogs keep their own keys.

Original footage

■ In edit▧ Removed

Click a section to preview it. Drag to select your own range. Use the ruler to seek anywhere.

YOUR WORKSPACE

Projects

Open an edit, give it a clearer name, or remove a project you no longer need.

PROJECT DETAILS

Rename project

Choose a name you can find easily. Your edit and media stay in place.

Apply the new AI draft?

This replaces your manual timeline with the latest AI draft. You can Undo to restore your manual edit.

REMOVE PROJECT

Delete this project?

This permanently deletes the project, its imported media copies, saved edits, previews and exports stored by CUTROOM. Your original files outside CUTROOM are not deleted. This cannot be undone.

Export

Ready to export?

Export uses the original full-quality files, not a proxy.

THE CUTROOM GUIDE

A little direction. You're in control.

New to CUTROOM? Follow the four steps, then open a topic below. You can return here from any screen.

  1. Pick the video you want to make

    Short / Reel creates a vertical draft. YouTube keeps a horizontal, chronological edit. Manual starts with the whole recording and needs no AI.

  2. Add one or two recordings

    Use one recording, including one with an embedded camera, or add your screen and camera as separate sources. Check which source supplies the audio.

  3. Choose your AI connection, if needed

    Local AI may need a one-time model download. Online AI needs your own Groq or compatible-provider API key and consent to send audio and transcript text. Groq's Free tier is free within its quotas; paid accounts may incur charges.

  4. Review, refine, export

    AI is a starting point. Correct the transcript, split and move clips, adjust the camera framing and check captions. Use “How to edit” in the editor for timeline controls and shortcuts.

Local AI: what to download and why

Open AI connection → On my computer. Local transcription turns speech into text. Local Story AI uses that text to plan an edit. Download one suitable model for each job; you do not need every model.

Story AI also needs the Ollama engine. If it is missing, use the official installation link, install it yourself, then return and Refresh. CUTROOM shows estimated download sizes and asks you to confirm before downloading a model. Progress and Cancel remain available in the same panel.

Balanced is a starting point, Lite uses smaller models, and Quality needs more resources. The available choices and approximate requirements appear beside each model. Downloading a model does not change a project's quality profile. For Hebrew speech, choose Hebrew explicitly; the configured Hebrew model is listed separately.

Cloud AI: free accounts, compatible APIs and privacy

Online — Free tier uses your own Groq Free account, free within Groq's quotas. My own API account supports Groq or a compatible public HTTPS API: JSON-object chat responses and verbose_json audio transcription with word timestamps, on the same base URL. A chat subscription alone is not compatible. Local/private-network URLs are not supported by this cloud connection.

A paid account may incur charges, even when you select “Free tier” here. CUTROOM does not upgrade accounts or switch plans. It sends selected audio, transcript and editing instructions to your chosen provider only when you start AI processing. Video frames are not sent.

Your pasted API key lives in the running CUTROOM session. Reconnect after restarting. Changing provider or endpoint requires a fresh key and consent. Choosing cloud AI reduces local AI work, but previews and video export still run on your computer. The app is not a hosted cloud renderer.

Sources A and B, camera layouts and synchronization

A is your main recording and defines the starting timeline. B is an optional second recording. In Layout, assign which is the screen, which is the camera and which supplies the audio. Inspect sync and adjust its offset if the sources do not line up.

Stacked puts camera and screen into separate parts of the frame. Side by side, picture-in-picture and single-source options give different compositions. A camera embedded in a single file is cropped from that file; it is not a recovered independent source. Select a clip to adjust its framing only, or choose Entire edit to apply your next layout throughout.

Spoken language, transcript and captions

Spoken language means the language actually spoken, not the language you want as an output. Automatic detection can be wrong on short or noisy audio. Set the exact language when you know it. Transcription is not automatic translation.

Review the transcript after AI analysis. Select a line, correct the text, and Save. Text correction changes captions; timeline tools change the video. Caption appearance and placement are in Captions. Burned captions are permanent pixels in the exported video. Manual starts do not create a transcript or captions automatically.

Timeline: select, cut, remove, move and restore

Select / Move: select a clip and drag its middle to reorder it. Cut: click at the split point. Range: drag across a section, then remove it. These are different tools, so check the active tool before dragging.

Together edits A and B as a pair. A only or B only changes that source and may leave gaps. Trim a clip's white edges to reveal available original footage; Close gaps removes existing empty timeline time. Undo reverses an edit.

Original footage shows the complete source with included and removed areas, so you can preview a missing section and restore it. Full source preview does not switch your editing target. Zoom follows the yellow playhead. “How to edit” inside Studio has detailed controls.

Keyboard shortcuts and the editing workspace

Space plays and pauses when you are not typing. Shortcut profiles adapt CUTROOM's supported actions to familiar editing habits; they are not a complete copy of another program. Open Keyboard shortcuts to choose a profile and see its exact commands.

Use the video/timeline divider to change the space each gets. Full screen shows just the composed video. Escape returns to the editor. Tool explanations stay available in Help & guide.

Output format, resolution, frame rate and export

Short / Reel starts at 9:16. YouTube starts at 16:9. Output settings control the actual export format, resolution and frame rate. Selecting a style does not replace those choices.

60 FPS is supported. It does not invent new motion detail when your original footage is lower-frame-rate. Larger resolutions and frame rates need more processing and produce larger files. Watch the full preview, then Export and check the exported file before sharing.

Saving, rebuilds, cancellation and recovery

Project edits save automatically; check the Saved indicator before closing. Original recordings are not overwritten. A draft rebuild runs AI again and may replace its earlier choices, so review the confirmation and preserve work you care about.

Stop process cancels an edit or export. Model downloads have their own Cancel button in local setup. Closing a model panel does not cancel its download. Cloud cancellation cannot reverse provider usage already accepted.

If AI fails, read the stage and error, check the selected connection, language, available model and account quota. Do not keep retrying a paid request blindly. You can still choose a manual project. This is beta software: keep copies of important footage.

Your originals stay untouched. Export is local, and CUTROOM adds no watermark. Full English and Hebrew user guides are included in the docs folder.

AI, ON YOUR TERMS

Choose your AI setup.

Choose where transcription and Story AI run. Your editor, timeline and exports stay on this computer in every option.

Compare your options

Prepare local AI

Download once, reuse in your projects. Start with one transcription model and one Story model.

Checking the Story engine…

Story AI uses Ollama; transcription has a separate model.

Open local setup to check available models.

Which models do I need?

Transcription creates text and timed captions. Story AI plans the draft from that text. A manual edit needs neither. Local Shorts need both.

Model choices follow your project's quality profile. Lite uses smaller models; Balanced is a starting point; Quality needs more memory and time. Choosing Hebrew explicitly can use its dedicated model. Downloading a model does not change those project settings.

Sizes are estimates for model files, not the full installation. Leave additional space for downloads, source videos, previews and exports. Installed status is not a guarantee that your computer has enough memory to run a model. Downloading shares no footage.

Local AI keeps your content on this computer. Downloading requires internet; cached models can then run offline. Manual editing stays available without models. Save this choice to select local AI; downloading alone does not switch your connection.