Export for each platform

Cutscript has no one-click preset for each site. It has a short list of formats, sizes and loudness targets, and a few combinations cover nearly every upload. This page maps the common destinations to those choices and says why. Treat them as starting points, and check each platform's own current upload guidance for limits such as file length and size. Those limits are not in Cutscript.

The quick table

Leave Quality on High, the default, for all of these. Leave Encoder on Hardware. The shipped Cutscript has no software H.264 or HEVC encoder, so that choice is already made for you.

Choose the shape first

Set the shape before you style anything, because zooms, captions and graphics are laid out for it. The aspect menu above the preview, and Aspect & crop in the Screen panel, offer Source, 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 4:3, 4:5 and 16:10. The home screen's Aspect menu names the usual homes:

• 16:9: landscape, YouTube.
• 9:16: vertical, Shorts, Reels and TikTok.
• 1:1: square, feeds.
• 4:5: portrait, Instagram feed.

Cutscript has no separate LinkedIn shape. Pick the one that suits how you want the post to sit in a feed. With Auto reframe on, the frame fills the new shape and follows the recorded cursor. Without cursor data it stays centred. See Captions for vertical video.

Pick the format

Under Export, the Video tab lists four formats:

• MP4 H.264 plays almost everywhere, and every platform in the table takes it. It is the default.
• MP4 HEVC makes smaller files at similar quality, and not every player or site accepts it. Use it only when you know where it will play.
• MOV ProRes makes very large files meant for editing in another app.
• WebM VP9 is for the web, and it is the slowest to export.

With motion effects, only MP4 H.264 is available. Zooms, the cursor overlay, the camera bubble, padding, rounded corners, a shadow, a background, a crop, a fixed aspect, overlays and speed changes are all drawn frame by frame, and that route produces H.264. The other formats are greyed out with the reason. A new recording opens with padding, corners and a shadow, so most projects export as H.264. Because every frame is drawn, these exports take longer than a plain cut.

Size, frame rate and file weight

Resolution is named by the short side, so 1080p in 9:16 is a 1080 by 1920 frame. Cutscript never scales up, and a size above your source is greyed out. Source keeps the recording's own size.

Frame rate starts on Source. A recording can run at up to 60 fps. For a talk or a screen demo, 30 fps is enough, and the size estimate falls with it. Keep 60 for fast motion.

The preview card at the top of the Video tab shows the finished length and an estimated file size. Change Quality, Resolution or Frame rate and watch the figure move. That is the quickest way to find a size you can live with.

Captions: burned in, or a file

Burn in captions draws them into the picture. They travel with the file and the viewer cannot turn them off. Use it for vertical video and for any place where sound may be off. It needs a transcript. Style them first in the Captions panel.

For a long YouTube video, a subtitle file is often the better choice, because the viewer can switch it off. Export one from the Subtitles tab as SubRip Titles (.srt) or Video Text Titles (.vtt). The defaults are 42 characters per line and 2 lines per card. You can set 10 to 80 characters and 1 to 4 lines to suit the site you upload to. See Transcripts and subtitles.

Loudness

Normalize volume is under Advanced. It is Off until you change it. Pick one target and keep it for every upload. -14 LUFS is a common target for online video, and -16 LUFS suits speech-led content. These are conventions. They are not Cutscript rules, and a platform may adjust the level again. See Get clean sound.

YouTube extras

Direct my video can make chapter markers for videos of about five minutes or more, and a YouTube chapter list to copy. The first chapter starts at 0:00, which YouTube needs for chapters to show. Press Copy on the Done card and paste the list into your description.

Several files at once

For a batch of shorts, make each version a composition and use Export all clips, or the composition export, which writes one MP4 H.264 per composition, named after it, into a folder you choose. See Turn a long video into shorts.

Related

• Export a video
• Captions
• A fast editing routine