auto-editor 24.13.1

Auto-Editor: Effort free video editing!

Auto-Editor is a command line application for automatically editing video and audio by analyzing a variety of methods, most notably audio loudness.

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Before doing the real editing, you first cut out the "dead space" which is typically silence. This is known as a "first pass". Cutting these is a boring task, especially if the video is very long.

auto-editor path/to/your/video.mp4

Installing

pip install auto-editor

See Installing for additional information.

Cutting

Change the pace of the edited video by using --margin.

--margin adds in some "silent" sections to make the editing feel nicer.

# Add 0.2 seconds of padding before and after to make the edit nicer.
# `0.2s` is the default value for `--margin`
auto-editor example.mp4 --margin 0.2sec

# Add 0.3 seconds of padding before, 1.5 seconds after
auto-editor example.mp4 --margin 0.3s,1.5sec

Methods for Making Automatic Cuts

The --edit option is how auto-editor makes automated cuts.

For example, edit out motionlessness in a video by setting --edit motion.

# cut out sections where percentage of motion is less than 2.
auto-editor example.mp4 --edit motion:threshold=2%

# --edit is set to "audio:threshold=4%" by default.
auto-editor example.mp4

# Different tracks can be set with different attribute.
auto-editor multi-track.mov --edit "(or audio:stream=0 audio:threshold=10%,stream=1)"

Different editing methods can be used together.

# 'threshold' is always the first argument for edit-method objects
auto-editor example.mp4 --edit "(or audio:3% motion:6%)"

You can also use dB unit, a volume unit familiar to video-editors (case sensitive):

auto-editor example.mp4 --edit audio:threshold=-19dB
auto-editor example.mp4 --edit audio:-7dB
auto-editor example.mp4 --edit motion:-19dB

# The `dB` unit is a just a macro that expands into an S-expression:
# '-19dB
# > '(pow 10 (/ -19 20))
# (eval '(pow 10 (/ -19 20)))
# > 0.11220184543019636

Working With Multiple Audio Tracks

By default, only the first audio track will used for editing (track 0). You can change this with these commands.

Use all audio tracks for editing:

auto-editor multi-track.mov --edit audio:stream=all

Use only the second, fourth, and sixth audio track:

# track numbers start at 0
auto-editor so-many-tracks.mp4 --edit "(or audio:stream=1 audio:stream=3 audio:stream=5)"

See What Auto-Editor Cuts Out

To export what auto-editor normally cuts out. Set --video-speed to 99999 and --silent-speed to 1. This is the reverse of the usual default values.

auto-editor example.mp4 --video-speed 99999 --silent-speed 1

Exporting to Editors

Create an XML file that can be imported to Adobe Premiere Pro using this command:

auto-editor example.mp4 --export premiere

Auto-Editor can also export to:

• DaVinci Resolve with --export resolve
• Final Cut Pro with --export final-cut-pro
• ShotCut with --export shotcut

Other editors, like Sony Vegas, can understand the premiere format. If your favorite editor doesn't, you can use --export clip-sequence which creates many video clips that can be imported and manipulated like normal.

Naming Timelines

By default, auto-editor will name the timeline to "Auto-Editor Media Group" if the export supports naming.

auto-editor example.mp4 --export 'premiere:name="Your name here"'

auto-editor example.mp4 --export 'resolve:name="Your name here"'

auto-editor example.mp4 --export 'final-cut-pro:name="Your name here"'

# No other export options support naming

Split by Clip

If you want to split the clips, but don't want auto-editor to do any more editing. There's a simple command.

auto-editor example.mp4 --silent-speed 1 --video-speed 1 --export premiere

Manual Editing

Use the --cut-out option to always remove a section.

# Cut out the first 30 seconds.
auto-editor example.mp4 --cut-out 0,30sec

# Cut out the first 30 frames.
auto-editor example.mp4 --cut-out 0,30

# Always leave in the first 30 seconds.
auto-editor example.mp4 --add-in 0,30sec

# Cut out the last 10 seconds.
auto-editor example.mp4 --cut-out -10sec,end

# You can do multiple at once.
auto-editor example.mp4 --cut-out 0,10 15sec,20sec
auto-editor example.mp4 --add-in 30sec,40sec 120,150sec

And of course, you can use any --edit configuration.

If you don't want any automatic cuts, you can use --edit none or --edit all/e

# Cut out the first 5 seconds, leave the rest untouched.
auto-editor example.mp4 --edit none --cut-out 0,5sec

# Leave in the first 5 seconds, cut everything else out.
auto-editor example.mp4 --edit all/e --add-in 0,5sec

More Options

List all available options:

auto-editor --help

Use --help with a specific option for more information:

auto-editor --scale --help
  --scale NUM

    default: 1.0
    Scale the output video's resolution by NUM factor

Auto-Editor is available on all major platforms

Articles

• How to Install Auto-Editor
• All the Options (And What They Do)
• Docs
• Blog

Copyright

Auto-Editor is under the Public Domain and includes all directories besides the ones listed below. Auto-Editor was created by these people.

ae-ffmpeg is under the LGPLv3 License. The ffmpeg and ffprobe programs were created by the FFmpeg team.