u/whity2773

I shoot long unscripted single-camera stuff, 1–3 hours per session, sometimes several sessions before I sit down to cut. By the time I start editing, days or a week has passed cause I travel around a lot so when i get the chance i try to record but then by the time I want to edit it would have few days or weeks later. This lead me to have lost all memory of what's actually in the files. Not the details — the whole shape of it. I couldn't tell you if the usable material is at 00:20 or 01:40, or whether a given session had anything usable at all.

So every project opens the same way: a full logging pass where I watch the whole thing to build a list of what happened and when. On a 3-hour source that's most of a day before the first cut exists. It's the least enjoyable part of the job and it's the biggest single block of time.

I am curious to how people scrub or like skip the rewatching a recording that like hours long . Cause I seen like twitch VODs that like 5 Hours long get cut into like 20 mins videos on youtube for moments . Is rewatching the whole recordings and bookmarking it manually is the only way?

I record in one block (usually 1–3 hours, sometimes a couple of sessions in a week) and don't edit until the weekend. By then I've genuinely forgotten what happened. Not "forgot the details" — I mean I can't remember whether the good bit was at 40 minutes or 1:20, or whether that session even had a good bit.

So every edit starts the same way: I scrub through the entire recording again just to rebuild a mental map of what's in it. That's an hour+ of watching before I've made a single cut. On a 3-hour recording it's most of my editing time gone before editing starts.

Things I've tried:

- Taking notes while recording — breaks my flow, and I forget to do it exactly when something good is happening.

- Hotkey/marker while recording — same problem. I'm in the moment, not thinking about the edit.

- Scrubbing the waveform for loud spikes — finds shouting, misses everything quiet and good.

- 2x playback — still watching the whole thing, just faster and worse.

- Chat replay / clip timestamps — only works if people were watching live. Mine mostly aren't.

What I actually want is to sit down Friday and already know what's in the file: a list of what happened and roughly when, including the boring stretches so I know what to skip.

For those of you who edit days or weeks after recording — what's your actual workflow? Do you have a system, or do you also just rewatch everything and accept it?

https://preview.redd.it/uubwjyej9weh1.png?width=2839&format=png&auto=webp&s=1a960ba4e09e6d0b296acc5d94e1949e77512e32

Would you guys be interested in this ? Would it help people with your editing time?

the reason I built it cause I usually record and then a week or so later i edit, which means i need to go back and rewatch my recordings before i get any sense of idea what it was about or where to cut. This tool is just that, it goes through frame by frame with a VL model, that will then has a set profile setup it so it know what kind of content i want extracted, for this example was me playing palworld, so i want any parts of new discoveries, Progress (level up, new pals etc), Drama (fights, actions, conversations with npc) and funny (comedic scenes, deaths, ragdolls etc) . Then it bookmarks and creates notes for each scene it find relevant and arranges them from high score to low.

For now this is my personal project, open for ideas to make it better or share of interest on it. Thanks :D