Use cases · Webinars, courses & lectures
How to turn a long webinar or lecture recording into a short edit
The short answer
FirstCut shortens long recorded talks by editing from the transcript. Give it the webinar, course session or lecture and a target length, and it selects and orders the key explanations into a coherent shorter cut. You can tighten pauses, remove repeated takes, adjust the result in plain language and export an editable timeline to your NLE — without uploading the video.
Step by step
1. Add the recording
Screen recordings and camera files both work, up to 2 hours per file. Only the audio is uploaded for transcription.
2. Set the length and purpose
A 5-minute recap, a trailer for the course, a tighter version of the full session — say it in the brief.
3. Tighten it
Use Clean up repeats to drop restarted sentences, and the Pace dial to remove fillers and quiet gaps. Both are reversible.
4. Export
Download the timeline for Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro or Media Composer and add graphics there.
Why FirstCut for this
- Lectures and webinars are almost all speech, so a transcript-driven cut captures what matters.
- Pace changes are free edits that carry through to the exported timeline, not just the preview.
- No install, which makes it usable on locked-down work machines.
Questions
Can it cut a recording longer than two hours?
Each file can be up to 2 hours. Split longer recordings into parts before importing.
Does FirstCut upload my video?
No. Your browser extracts only the audio track and uploads that for transcription — about 115 MB for two hours of typical AAC audio. The video stays on your disk, and the cut plays back from your local files.
Which editors can I finish the cut in?
FirstCut exports FCPXML, FCP7-XML, CMX3600 EDL and OTIO, which open in Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Avid Media Composer. The timeline points back at your original media with real in and out timecodes.
Try it on your own footage
FirstCut is free to try with no install and no credit card. Start a rough cut → · See pricing or other use cases.
Updated 2026-09-14