Edit Plan

The Edit Plan node reads the timed transcript of a recording and writes an edit decision list (EDL): a JSON plan that the Apply EDL node renders into a finished cut. Edit Plan reads the transcript and never the pixels, so it plans quickly and cheaply. It has four modes: Tighten cleans up the whole recording, Clips finds short shareable moments, Chapters marks chapters with titles, and Trailer cuts one short teaser.

Edit Plan runs on Nodaro Cloud. On a self-hosted install, connect the install to Nodaro Cloud, under Integrations › nodaro.ai or with an API key, and the node relays each run to the cloud. Without a connection, the node saves on the canvas but cannot run.

When to use it

• Tighten a long podcast or interview recording before you render it.
• Find the strongest short moments of an episode and render each one as its own clip.
• Generate chapter markers with titles for a long upload.
• Cut a short teaser trailer of an episode for social media.

Quick start

Inputs

The output, Edit plan (EDL), depends on the mode:

Once the node has a plan, it shows a badge: Well-formed EDL, or the number of issues. A Clips plan is checked clip by clip. Click the badge to see each issue and warning. The badge checks the structure of the plan only. Apply EDL can still refuse a well-formed plan that it cannot draw, for example one longer than 180 minutes. The badge on the Apply EDL node shows that before you run.

A plan made by a workflow run lands on the node, the same as a plan from running the node alone. This is also true when the run finished while the editor was closed.

Settings

A source with the Master audio role gives its sound to every segment of the edit, so switching between cameras never changes the sound. See Apply EDL for how the roles are rendered.

Trailer mode

Trailer builds one short teaser from the strongest moments of the recording. The moments stay in timeline order and are joined with crossfades.

• The length is fixed at 20 to 40 seconds. There is no length setting, and Number of clips and Target clip length (seconds) do not apply.
• A short recording gives a shorter trailer. When the recording has fewer than 20 seconds of strong moments, the trailer is still made, shorter than 20 seconds. A note in the plan says so.
• No usable moment fails the run. When the planner finds no usable moment at all, the run fails and the credits are refunded.

The Trailer + Formats template in the template marketplace is a ready trailer chain. It transcribes the episode, plans a trailer, renders it with Apply EDL, and adds an optional intro card with Combine Videos. Three Social Media Format nodes then pad the trailer to 9:16, 1:1 and 4:5. Make the intro card the same size as the recording, or Combine Videos letterboxes one of the two.

When Trailer is greyed out

The editor asks the server which modes it can plan. When the server cannot plan a trailer, the Trailer option is greyed out with the reason, for example needs a plugin update. A node already saved in Trailer mode keeps its mode and shows a notice. Its run is refused before anything is charged, however it starts: Trailer mode is not available on this server yet. Choose another mode, or try again after the next update. You were not charged.

On a self-hosted install connected to Nodaro Cloud, Edit Plan runs on the cloud, so the install offers the modes the cloud plans. When the install cannot reach the cloud, the option reads Couldn't reach nodaro.ai — try again later. A run in Trailer mode is then retried, and fails only when the cloud still cannot be reached on the last attempt. Nothing is charged for a failed attempt.

Multicam recordings

When a conversation is recorded on several devices, such as a microphone and two cameras, each file starts at a different moment. Edit Plan places every source on one clock, the master's clock. The master is the source with the Master audio role, or else the first source in the list.

Set the offsets by hand. Each source in the Sources list has an offset box, in seconds: how long after the master the recording started. A negative value means that the recording started before the master. The master's own offset must be 0.

Or measure them with Audio Sync. Wire every recording into an Audio Sync node and into the Sources of Edit Plan. Then connect the Offsets output of Audio Sync to the Offsets (Audio Sync) input. Use the same upstream nodes in both places, because each offset is matched to its source by node. The reference of Audio Sync does not need to be the master: Edit Plan moves the offsets onto the master's clock.

An empty offset box shows auto. It uses the measurement of Audio Sync when its Offsets are connected, and 0 otherwise. A value that you type always wins over a measured one.

Which camera each cut shows. Each cut goes on the first camera, in source order, that has picture for the whole cut. A cut that no single camera covers is split where the cameras start and stop. When a camera stops and no other camera filmed the next moment, up to half a second is held on its last frame. A longer stretch that no camera filmed is left out of the plan, and the plan lists it among its dropped cuts with the reason no-picture. In Clips mode, a clip that is at least half filmed keeps its filmed part. A clip that is less than half filmed is left out, and the next-best clip takes its place.

Sound. Every cut keeps the sound of the master, whichever camera it shows. The soundtrack never switches microphones at a camera change.

Edit Plan stops before charging when the offsets would put the cut out of sync:

• Audio Sync did not measure a source, and the source has no typed offset. Wire it into Audio Sync, or type its offset: 0 if it started with the master.
• The match of a source is weak: its confidence is below 0.5. A camera without usable sound scores 0. Type its offset.
• Another source uses a measured offset, but Audio Sync did not measure the master, or matched it weakly.
• The master has an offset other than 0.
• The transcript was made from a recording that is off the master's clock. Transcribe the master, or give that recording the Master audio role. On the canvas, Edit Plan follows a Transcribe node back to the recording it transcribed, also through Extract Audio.
• The Offsets (Audio Sync) input is connected, but it carries no Audio Sync result. Run Audio Sync first, or disconnect it.

A typed offset always wins, so it fixes any single source that the sound could not line up. Edit Plan also refuses a plan that no camera has picture for at all. That usually means an offset in the wrong unit or with the wrong sign.

Reviewing a cut

A Tighten plan is a proposal. Review it before you render: read the transcript with every cut struck through, listen to any cut, restore what the plan removed, cut what it kept, and render from the same screen. Your changes are saved on the Edit Plan, and every render of that plan cuts them.

You can review a Tighten plan or a Clips plan that feeds an Apply EDL node. A plan that has not run, and a chapter list, have nothing to review.

How to open the review

• Click Review cut on the Apply EDL node. The button is there whether the node shows a Preview, a final or no render yet.
• Click Expand on the Edit Plan node. When no render uses the plan, Expand shows the plan's JSON instead.
• Right-click the Apply EDL node or the Edit Plan node and choose Review cut. A plan that feeds several renders lists one entry per render.
• Open a link. The page address carries ?review= and the id of the node, so a reload or a shared link reopens the review for anyone who can open the workflow.

When one plan feeds several renders, for example a video cut and an audio master, the arrow in the header chooses the render. Your edits belong to the plan, so they apply to every render of it.

What the review shows

• The header names the plan and the render, shows a Preview or Final badge for the take on show, and shows the render's own check of the cut as you edited it.
• The player. Preview plays the render's take. Original plays the source around a cut, with 1.5 seconds on either side, so you can hear what the plan removed.
• The transcript. Every word, in speaker paragraphs. A cut word is struck through in the color of its reason: silence, filler, false start, tangent, no picture or a manual cut. Pauses show as chips with their length. Without a transcript on the Transcript input, the review lists the cuts by time.
• Cuts by reason. One row per reason, with its count and total time. The box on a row cuts or restores every span of that reason.
• The map. A strip over the whole source that marks where the cuts fall. Click or drag it to move the transcript.
• The footer. Undo and redo, the cut length against the source length, and the render buttons with their prices.

Cutting and restoring

• Click a kept word to move the player there. Click a cut word or a pause chip to see its reason and length, and to choose Hear it, Restore or Restore all for its reason.
• Select words by dragging, or by a click and a Shift-click. Then choose Play selection, Cut selection or Restore selection. Selections snap to whole words.
• A restore can be refused, when the render could not make the result. For example, no camera filmed that moment, or the cut would pass the render's length limit. A cut is never refused.
• Undo and redo keep up to 200 steps per Edit Plan in the browser tab. A reload, or a new plan, clears them.
• Reset to plan, in the ... menu, discards your edits.

Your edits stay on the Edit Plan

• The review saves your cut on the Edit Plan as you work. The node shows an Edited chip, and its output, its badge and the Apply EDL estimate describe the edited cut. The original plan is kept, so Reset to plan always works.
• A render cuts the edited plan, in the editor and on the server.
• Edits belong to the plan they were made on. When the Edit Plan plans again, the review offers Discard them. A run that would plan again asks first, and says how many spans you restored and dropped.
• Edits lock while a run that includes the render or the Edit Plan is in progress, and on a workflow that you can only view.

When you change the cut after a Preview was made, the Apply EDL node shows Edited since this preview. Click Render final to render the edited cut. See Apply EDL.

Reviewing clips

A Clips plan is a proposal too. Open the review the same way as for a cut. The button and the menu entry read Review clips, and the review shows one card per clip instead of a transcript.

• Each card shows the clip's number, length, title, place in the source and hook, a Keep switch, and the state of its take: no preview yet, rendering, failed or final. Click the picture to play the clip.
• Only the clips the render receives get a card. When the connection selects some clips, a line counts the clips that are not sent.
• Show filters All, Kept and Dropped clips. Keep all and Drop all set every clip.
• Keep off drops a clip. Render final leaves it out and does not bill it.
• Hooks are text only. Edit a clip's hook in its card, and choose Reset to restore the planner's hook. Editing a hook does not re-render the clip. The title cannot be edited.

The footer names what Render final runs, and the button shows the price. It renders the clips you kept, and only those. A second Render final re-renders and bills every kept clip again, changed or not, and the footer says how many have not changed. Render final waits, and says why, when nothing is kept, when the render's check refuses a clip, or when a newer run has finished that the canvas does not show yet.

Credits

Edit Plan is priced per started minute of the recording, at the rate of the tier. A 44-minute 12-second episode counts as 45 minutes. The count runs from 1 to 180 minutes.

Clips and Trailer modes add the same flat amount once per run, so a Trailer plan costs the same as a Clips plan of the same recording and tier. Tighten and Chapters have no flat amount.

Rendering the plan with Apply EDL is priced separately, per minute of output.

The estimate before you run

The cost on the node, on the Run button and in the run confirmation is an estimate. It uses the recorded length of the master source: the source with the Master audio role, or else the first source in the node's order.

• Uploaded audio and video, and generated video, carry their length, so the estimate counts the real minutes.
• A YouTube link extracted with Reference Audio records the length of the extracted file, so the estimate is right too.
• A source with no recorded length, such as a direct audio link, is estimated at the maximum, 180 minutes. Extracting a YouTube source again records its length.

The estimate never takes the length from the wired transcript. That transcript comes from the previous run, and after you swap in a longer episode it would under-quote the new one. When the length is unknown, the estimate deliberately quotes high, so that a run is refused up front instead of failing halfway after earlier nodes were charged. Whatever the estimate shows, the charge is checked against the real length of the recording. The server measures the master source before it reserves credits, and a run whose master cannot be measured is refused and refunded.

A published template, app or component has no recording to measure. Its listed price shows Edit Plan per minute of the recording: the flat amount of Clips and Trailer as a fixed figure, plus the tier's rate per minute, rounded up to a whole credit. A run of a recording that long is charged no more than that, because a run's rate is not rounded per minute.

Tips

• Wire the full chain. Connect Transcribe to Transcript, add Silence Detect to Silence for Tighten, and connect Edit plan (EDL) to Apply EDL.
• Render many clips from one plan. In Clips mode, one Edit Plan node feeds many renders through a single Apply EDL node.
• Review before the final. Open Review cut or Review clips to fix the plan by hand before you pay for a final render. See Reviewing a cut.
• Draft on Economy. Use Economy for a fast first pass, and Premium for the final plan.
• Tighten in one node. For one recording and one tightened cut, Tighten Episode runs Transcribe, Silence Detect, Edit Plan and Apply EDL for you.
• Name the master audio. When you record with several cameras and one good microphone, give the microphone source the Master audio role.

From the API

The MCP plan_edit tool and POST /v1/edit-plan run the same planner with 1 to 6 media sources. The API also accepts a platform name, which the plan stores in meta.platform as a label. The planner does not read it: the pacing and the length come from the mode, the instructions and the clip settings. The finished plan is in the job result, ready to pass to apply_edl. See the MCP tools and Run a single node.

POST /v1/edit-plan takes mode, transcript and sources, with an optional planTier that defaults to standard.

GET /v1/edit-plan/capabilities lists the modes the server plans, as { modes, source, perMinute }. The SDK method is client.edit.editPlanCapabilities. A mode that is not one of the four, for example a misspelled "Clips", is refused before anything is charged, and the message names the mode. It is never planned as Tighten.

Over REST, each source carries its own offset in milliseconds, as sources[].offsetMs. Apply an Audio Sync result to the sources before you call the route. A raw offsets field answers 422 offsets_not_applied. An offset on the master, or on the source named by transcript.sourceId, answers 422 master_offset. Both refusals come before anything is measured or charged. The MCP plan_edit tool takes the Audio Sync result as offsets, applies it to the sources for you, and runs the checks of Multicam recordings.

These are refused before anything is charged too: