From raw footage to a broadcast-ready cut AI that shows its work.
Most AI editing tools are black boxes: a cut appears and nobody knows why. RoughCut ingests your footage, understands it in ten dimensions, and assembles a timeline you can direct in plain language every decision explained, every edit reversible.
Exports into
Trusted by broadcasters, sports networks, and content operations teams worldwide
34%
of editing time already saved by AI assistance
47%
productivity lift reported by teams using AI editing
68%
faster time-to-publish with AI video workflows
60%
less time hunting clips with metadata-driven search
The edit doesn't start when creativity starts
Before the first creative decision, someone watches, logs, tags, and assembles. The industry is automating that prep — fast.
“Yet most AI editing tools are black boxes: a cut appears, nobody knows why, nothing flows back into your library — and the output is an MP4 your finishing suite can’t use.”
Ends where your finishing workflow begins
RoughCut doesn't replace your NLE it feeds it. One export dialog, eight professional formats, frame-accurate.
AAF
01
NATIVE BINARY
Avid Media Composer
XML
02
FCP7-FORMAT
Adobe Premiere Pro
FCPXML
03
V1.11
Final Cut Pro
XML
04
FCP7-FORMAT
DaVinci Resolve
EDL
05
CMX-3600
Universal edit list
OTIO
06
OPENTIMELINEIO
Pipeline automation
CSV
07
CLIP LIST
Spreadsheets & MAM
JSON
08
RAW
Custom tooling
Every export can carry AI markers · editor notes · SRT subtitles · color metadata. Plus enterprise foundations: AWS Cognito authentication, org isolation, elastic cloud ingest, a live jobs dashboard, and a choice of leading or fully local AI models for data- sovereign deployments.
Four steps from card to cut
01
Ingest
Drop in the rushes. RoughCut builds a rich index while your team keeps working.
02
Understand
Every frame gets context: people, scenes, dialogue, mood, and story role.
03
Compose
Describe the cut in plain language. The Co-Pilot makes a proposal you can direct.
04
Deliver
Send a living timeline into the tools your editors already trust.
Your footage, understood in ten dimensions
Every ingest runs a parallel AI pipeline. The result is a library where every second is described, classified, and searchable.
01
Scenes & shot types
Close-up, wide, aerial, POV, two-shot, interview
02
Frame-accurate transcript
Click a line, land on the moment
03
People & faces
Cast detected across the whole project
04
On-screen text (OCR)
Scoreboards & graphics become data
05
Mood & emotion
Neutral, tense, celebratory, energetic
06
Objects & audio
What's in frame; dialogue vs crowd vs music
07
Engagement scoring
Every segment rated for viewer pull
08
Narrative analysis
Exposition → climax → resolution, auto-detected
Search by meaning, not by keyword
Metadata-driven search alone cuts clip-hunting time by up to 60%. Semantic search finds what was never logged at all.
Meaning-first retrieval
Finds moments no one ever logged mood, action, and context, not just words in a transcript.
Professional filters
Constrain by shot type, engagement score, and project.
Script-match mode
Paste a script; RoughCut finds candidate footage for every line.
Results that act
Every hit carries thumbnail, description and timecode add straight to a bin or the timeline.
USER PROMPT
“Create a one-minute highlight video with audience reactions as
the main content.”
AI EDITORIAL REASONING
Rebuilt the timeline around audience and spectator-focused clips to hit ~1 minute total. Removed putting-heavy clips and replaced them with wide, aerial and POV shots featuring visible crowd energy.
Retained one short putt at 12s as a story beat — the reactions need a cause.
Ends on the celebration, as requested.
— actual Co-Pilot reasoning from a RoughCut session
TIMELINE DECISION
1:00 / 24 clips / reversible
Transparency
Editorial AI that shows its work
- Compose by conversation
Describe the cut. Refine with follow-ups: “make it end on a celebration instead.”
- Project memory
The AI holds your entire footage library in context not just the last prompt.
- Full transparency
Every decision explained in writing. The conversation stays with the timeline.
- Undo / redo AI actions
Every AI edit is reversible. You are always in control of the cut.
THE EDITORIAL ROOM
A real timeline. A real review room.
Multi-track editor
- Video track plus synchronized metadata lanes transcript, speakers, faces, objects, scenes, shot types, engagement
- Split, trim, duplicate, reorder and clean up by hand AI proposes, the editor owns the cut
- Instant preview; bins collect candidates from search, transcript, or the shot library
Built-in review & approval
- Producers scrub the cut and drop timecoded comments exactly where they apply no edit seat required
- Open / resolved tracking turns feedback into a punch list, not an email thread
- Five-tier role-based access: Viewer, Editor, Manager, Admin, Super Admin
BUILT FOR TEAMS WHO SHIP
For teams where the time between receiving footage and beginning the creative edit matters.
Sports highlights
Turn a full day of coverage into a searchable bank of moments.
News & current affairs
Find the moment a name was said across everything you have ingested.
Documentary
Bring whole-library intelligence to even the highest shooting ratios.
Promo & social
Surface the most celebratory moments, under four seconds each.
Corporate & brand
Move from town halls to highlight packages with review built in.
Post facilities
Give craft editors a clean AAF or XML with notes attached.
THE ROUGHCUT DIFFERENCE
More than a faster first pass.
Typical AI Tools
Roughcut
Typical AI Tools
Roughcut
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