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Video tools

Video assets get an editing toolbar under the player, in Sandbox and in Asset Mode previews. It covers the everyday cuts and conversions you'd otherwise round-trip through a video editor.

Note

Looking for the full timeline editor, with tracks, cuts, and a Redub or Assistant workflow? That's Video mode, a separate part of the app from the single-asset toolbar covered here.

Three rules apply to every tool here:

  • Every operation produces a new asset. Originals are never touched.
  • Every operation runs as a cancellable job with inline progress and a "Created" note naming the result.
  • Every produced mp4 or mov is web-optimized, so it plays everywhere, including inside Kitly.

No FFmpeg, no video tools

Every tool from Trim down to Re-encode runs on FFmpeg, which you install yourself. Without it they fail the moment you open them. One-line install in Set up FFmpeg. The two exceptions are further down this page: stills from the player, and the crop and pad tools on image assets.

Trim

Set the range with the brass in and out flags on the scrub bar, or press I and O at the playhead (Shift+I and Shift+O clear them). Then choose a mode:

  • Accurate (the default): a frame-exact re-encode. Your in and out points are honored to the frame.
  • Fast: an instant stream copy with no re-encode, but cuts snap to keyframes, so the result may start or end slightly off your marks.

Accurate mode also offers "Pad to:" with 16:9, 9:16, or 1:1, so a trim and a social-format pad happen in one pass.

Re-fps

Change the frame rate. Enter the target fps and pick a mode:

  • resample: same duration; frames are dropped or duplicated to hit the new rate. Use this to conform a 30 fps clip to a 24 fps timeline.
  • retime: the same frames play at the new rate, so the clip speeds up or slows down. Audio is tempo-matched to follow.

Extract Audio

One click writes the clip's audio as a 48 kHz WAV.

Crop

Draw a rectangle on the frame, adjust with the corner handles, or move it by dragging inside. "Lock aspect" with a ratio keeps it constrained. Enter applies, Esc cancels.

Pad

Pads the frame to 16:9, 9:16, or 1:1 with centered black bars, with an optional resize first. This is the letterbox and pillarbox tool for delivering one clip to several aspect ratios.

Resize

Width and height fields prefilled from the file, with an aspect lock. Halve a 4K reference to something lighter, or conform to a target resolution.

Extract Frame

One click grabs a frame-exact PNG at the playhead into images/generated, with an optional pad-to. Handy for pulling a still to paint over, or a thumbnail for a Kitly Asset cover.

Image Sequence...

Also on the video asset's right-click menu. The modal offers extension (png, jpg, webp), quality (hidden for png, which is lossless), resolution auto-filled with an aspect lock, and fps. The output is an image sequence asset. PNG sequences feed Tracking directly, with no extraction step.

Re-encode...

Also on the right-click menu. Convert the clip's format:

  • Codec: H.264 (plays everywhere), H.265 (smaller at the same quality), or ProRes (an edit-friendly format for finishing work).
  • Per-codec preset and profile choices.
  • Bitrate in Mbps; leave it blank for a quality-based default. Disabled for ProRes, which manages its own rates.
  • "Include audio": untick to strip the audio track. Disabled when the source has none.

Stills from video

The Save Screenshot and Copy to Clipboard buttons work on video too, capturing the current frame.

Image assets get a taste

Image previews carry Crop and Pad in their toolbar, with the same interactions. Format is preserved: a png stays png, a jpg stays jpg.