Clean up a video in one pass

Filler words, long pauses and dead air each have their own tool. The Improve panel runs them all at once and adds two more searches: takes you said twice and false starts. You choose what to cut from one list, apply it as one step, and then check each cut.

Everything runs on your Mac, from the transcript and the audio, and nothing is uploaded.

Find what to cut

1. Open a project with a transcript. If it has none, the panel offers Transcribe.
2. Click Improve, the robot head at the foot of the rail on the right. The panel is headed Improve this video.
3. Click Look for improvements. Rooster shows each search as it runs.

The list groups what it found:

Row	What Rooster looks for
Filler words	Ums, uhs and the other hesitations Remove filler words finds
Long pauses	Pauses between words over one second, shortened to 0.2 seconds
Silence at the start and end	Silence before the first word and after the last
Said twice	A sentence or phrase said, then said again. The earlier take is the cut
False starts	A start abandoned and restarted, or a word said twice by accident

Each row says how many it found, or which ends have silence, and how much the ticked ones save on their own. Rooster looks for takes said twice and false starts only in an English transcript, and not in a script you typed or aligned yourself.

Choose and apply

Everything starts ticked. Untick a whole row to keep all of its kind, or press its arrow (Show each one) to list each item and untick just the ones to keep. Clicking an item moves the playhead there, and selects its words in the script when it has any.

If the main recording does not have Studio Sound yet, tick Studio Sound to clean up the audio in the same step. It renders before anything is applied, which can take several minutes for a long video.

Press Apply. The button says how many changes it makes and how much shorter the video gets. The whole batch is one step: one Undo (⌘Z) puts it all back, Studio Sound included.

Check each cut

After Apply, the panel shows one card per cut, with the words either side and what was removed struck through, or a ¦ marker where a pause or silence was cut. A take said twice or a false start says why Rooster picked it.

• Play plays across the cut as it now sounds.
• Keep keeps the cut and moves to the next card.
• Restore puts that cut back.
• Undo all puts back every cut you have not kept.
• Done closes the review. The cuts stay, and each can still be restored from its marker in the script.

If you edit the project while a list or a review is open, Rooster sets it aside rather than act on an edit that has changed. Click Look for improvements again for a fresh list.