Fast & Easy Video Splitting ...?

Software
1

We have an online meeting that’s going to be recorded, and it’s the sort of thing where you have one speaker, then another speaker, then another speaker, etc. VERY clearly defined demarcation of who’s speaking.

We’re recording this via Zoom.

When the recording is done, I’d like to be able to load up the recording and quickly be able to click between speakers and export the different portions as separate files. Since there might be a dozen or so parts, I’d like to not have to do a bunch of “split, cut, realign the video, export” stuff for each one.

Is there an app that would make this easier?

2

Zoom supports both Cloud and Local recordings.

If you’re going to be doing a Cloud recording, I recommend going through the “Cloud recording” settings on the Zoom website:

In particular, pay attention to these settings:

Zoom Recording - Cloud
Zoom Recording - Cloud862×226 18 KB

If you’re going to do a Local Recording, take a little time to adjust the settings in Preferences > Recording. I highly recommend checking “Optimize for 3rd party video editor” if you’re going to be editing the recording. I’ve found that Zoom-generated videos don’t work very well with video editors unless this option is checked.

Zoom Recording - Local
Zoom Recording - Local1112×590 54.8 KB

I tend to use the Cloud Recording option most often as it provides me with more files to work with than are available through a Local Recording. Depending on how it’s configured, this can include a video file with the active speaker and another with the grid of speakers.

Unlike Local Recordings, Cloud Recordings are processed in the cloud. They’re available across all devices (e.g. iPad, Mac) and recordings don’t need to be processed on your device.

The downside of Cloud Recording is that you may be waiting a little while until the cloud download becomes available (I find 1-2 hours is typical) and you may need to delete the recordings after you download them if your cloud space is limited.

I recommend doing some test meetings to make sure you’re getting the results you want.

I typically use ScreenFlow for editing Zoom recordings, though pretty much any video editor would do the job (e.g. Movie or Final Cut).

I hope this helps!

1 Like
3

Tim, I think I have the recording part figured out pretty well thus far.

What I don’t want to do is all the screwing around in Screenflow to split the clip. I basically want to take a 1-hour Zoom call and split it into (for example) 13 separate files, quickly and easily.

That’s the challenge I’m running into. :slight_smile:

5

That’s an interesting idea - I’ll look into that too. :slight_smile: Thanks!

6

The way I currently do this is:

  1. Drop all of the Zoom-generated video file(s) into ScreenFlow.
  2. Add chapter markers.
  3. Export the video with the “Add Chapters Track from Markers” option selected.
  4. Use the free Handbrake app to generate a video file for each chapter.

I’m happy to elaborate further if you like.

p.s. I think you could do essentially the same thing using iMovie.

1 Like
7

AH…that sounds very workable. I have both ScreenFlow and Handbrake, so that’s probably going to be the fastest thing for me. :slight_smile:

I don’t have a test file for this yet, but I’ll have one later today. :slight_smile: If step 4 is particularly tricky, a pointer in the right direction might be nice - otherwise I’m sure I can figure it out by trial & error. :smiley:

Thanks!

8

You’re welcome. Good to hear this was helpful.

For Step 4, I manually add one chapter at a time to the queue and then click “Start” to kick off the processing. There’s likely a way to automate this to make it a bit more efficient. But, doing it manually doesn’t take very long.

Let me know if you’d like me to share additional details.

9

I was pleasantly surprised when I was forced to use my iPad recently to edit a Zoom recording. I used LumaFusion and it was super easy. Highly recommended.

1 Like