Trailer

The Trailer node cuts a 20 to 40 second trailer from a podcast or interview recording in one step. It delivers the trailer in each social format you choose, and it can play an intro card first. It can also cut a conversation filmed on several cameras.

Inside, the node runs the same steps that you can wire by hand: Transcribe with speaker labels and word timings, Edit Plan in Trailer mode and Apply EDL. It adds Combine Videos when an intro card is connected, and one Social Media Format per format. Each step runs as its own job, so a long recording, a cancel or a failure behaves as it does in a hand-built workflow. One difference: a format that fails never stops the other formats.

• The plan picks the length. The trailer is 20 to 40 seconds of the recording's strongest moments, as Edit Plan in Trailer mode chooses them. There is no length setting. A recording with less than 20 seconds of strong moments gets a shorter trailer, and the edit's notes say so.
• The moments are joined with short crossfades that the plan sets. There is no setting for the joins.
• Every format is padded, never cropped. Each format fits the whole picture into its shape, with bars where the shapes differ. A center crop of a two-person shot would cut a speaker off.

Trailer runs its planning step on Nodaro Cloud. On a self-hosted install, connect the install to Nodaro Cloud, under Integrations › nodaro.ai or with an API key. Without a connection, the node is not offered and a run is refused before anything starts.

When to use it

• Promote a new episode on Instagram Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts, and in a square and a portrait feed post, from one run.
• Make a landscape 16:9 trailer for a website or X that opens on the show's intro card.
• Check the cut once, then render every format from it.

Use the individual nodes, such as Edit Plan, Apply EDL and Social Media Format, when you need more control over a step.

Quick start

The template marketplace has two ready workflows. Trailer + Formats is the same chain built by hand, ready to fill. Trailer + Formats in One Node is this node, with Review before render on and the 9:16, 1:1 and 4:5 formats. Its Intro card is left for you to connect.

Inputs

A recording that is longer than 3 hours, or a recording with no sound or no picture, is refused before anything is charged. So is an intro card that cannot be read as a video, a still image as the intro card, or an intro card longer than 15 seconds. For the last one, the message reads: "The intro card is too long. Use a card of 15 seconds or less."

With more than one recording, the first one in the order of the Recordings list is Camera 1. The settings panel shows a Cameras section. See Several cameras.

Outputs

Settings

Several cameras

Wire each camera's recording into Recordings. When you have the mixer or recorder track, wire it into Master audio. The run then lines the recordings up with Audio Sync, transcribes the sound, and works out which camera each speaker is on with Speaker Map. It plans the trailer over every recording and puts each moment on whoever is talking, with Camera Switch. It then adds the intro card and makes every format, as it does for one recording.

• Recordings. 1 to 6 recordings of one conversation, in order: Camera 1, Camera 2, and so on. Drag them in the Recordings list of the settings panel to change the order. On the canvas, Recordings takes video only. Wire a recorder's track into Master audio.
• Master audio. The sound of the trailer, and the clock that the recordings are lined up to. Up to 6 recordings in all, the master audio included.
• Without a master audio. The sound is the wide camera's own sound, or else Camera 1's sound, so the sound never jumps between camera microphones. With two or more cameras, this keeps one place for the sound, so up to 5 cameras.
• One camera and a master audio. The camera is lined up to the master audio and cut on that one camera. A master audio wired from the same node as one of the cameras is that camera's own sound, and the node runs as without one.
• Wide camera. The camera that shows everyone. A speaker with no camera of their own is shown on it, and it is never a speaker's camera. None by default.
• Recordings already in sync. Turn it on when every recording already shares one clock. The run then skips the line-up, so there is no Audio Sync step.
• Who is on which camera. By default, Speaker Map decides from the cameras' own microphones: the camera that hears a speaker loudest is theirs. A speaker that no camera clearly leads for has no clear camera, and is shown on the wide camera, or else on any camera that filmed them. The node then says so under its result. Set a speaker to a camera, or to the wide shot, to override the automatic choice. Speaker 1 is the first voice heard, Speaker 2 the next, and so on.
• Formats. Every format is made from the one switched cut, padded as on one recording. A format that fails still never stops the others.
• If a multicam step fails. Audio Sync, Speaker Map and Camera Switch run before every format. When one of them fails, no format is made and the run fails, and its per-run fee is refunded. Continue runs the step that failed and the steps after it.
• Review before render. On several cameras, Render final of a reviewed run runs Camera Switch again on your edited cut, then the render, the intro card and every format.

The run's result names who was put on which camera, with the notes of the line-up and of the map. Where Speaker Map is not available to you, a run in the editor or in an app reads only the first recording, and the settings panel says so.

These are refused before anything is charged:

• Two sound-only recordings, or one sound-only recording with a master audio.
• More recordings than the limits above.
• Recordings none of which has picture.
• A wide camera that is not one of the recordings with picture.
• Settings under Cameras that are not valid.
• A master audio that cannot be read as audio.

Cameras settings on a run of one recording with no master audio are ignored.

Review before render

With Review before render on, a run stops at a preview of the trailer. The render is a Preview, at the lower preview rate, and the intro card and the formats are not made yet.

1. Open the review and check the cut. You can restore what the plan removed and cut what it kept. See Reviewing a cut.
2. Click Render final on the node. The node renders the trailer at full quality with your edit, adds the intro card and makes every format, once.

• Render final uses the settings of the preview. To change a setting, such as the formats, run the node again.
• You can render final again. After a Render final has finished, edit the cut again and click Render final. The render and the steps after it run and are charged again, with no fee. Rendering the same edit a second time is refused, and only one Render final runs at a time.
• In a published app, the node shows its preview on the app's page with a Render final button, as an Apply EDL render does. Once a final is made, another Render final of the same run is refused. See Render final in an app.
• The nodes after it run on the preview. On Nodaro Cloud, the node stops at its preview, but the nodes connected after it run on the preview and are charged. They run again on the trailers at Render final.
• Someone has to review. A run with nobody to review it cannot pass the node. That includes a run started from the API, the SDK, the MCP run_workflow tool or a trigger, and a run inside a component. The nodes before Trailer run and are charged. The node then fails with preview_review_required, with nothing charged for it. Turn Review before render off for those runs.

The MCP tools make_trailer and continue_use_case are reviewed by the AI assistant that calls them, so they can use Review before render.

If a run fails

• A format that could not be rendered. Every chosen format is tried, on the first run and at Render final. A format that fails never stops the others. The run completes with the formats that rendered and keeps its fee. The node names the formats it could not render, for example "Could not render: 1:1". A format that failed is not charged. The run completed, so it has no Continue. There are two ways to get the missing format:
  • The same trailer, with no fee. Render the Edit (EDL) output yourself. Wire it into an Apply EDL node, then, if you used an intro card, a Combine Videos node with the card first. Finish with a Social Media Format node set to the missing format, with Resize Method set to Pad (fit, add bars). Each step is charged at its own rate.
  • A new run. Run the node again with only that format ticked. Every step is charged again, including the per-run fee, and the new plan may pick other moments.
• A run with no format rendered fails, and its per-run fee is refunded. The steps that finished stay finished. Their results, such as the transcript, the edit and the trailer render, are kept and are not charged again. Press Continue on the node: only the step that failed and the steps after it run again.

Not once per list item

A Trailer takes the recording of one conversation, and its result is already a list, one trailer per format. A Trailer fed by a List is refused before any of its runs starts, with nothing charged. The message reads: "Trailer takes the recordings of one conversation. Use a separate workflow run for each episode."

Credits

Trailer charges each step at its own rate, the same as the node it stands for, plus a small per-run fee. The node shows the full estimate, fee included, before you run.

• The per-run fee is charged once per run. A Render final after a review is not charged the fee again. A failed run's fee is refunded, and Continue holds it again. A run that keeps some of its formats is charged the fee.
• You are charged for the trailer's own length, not for the estimate.

The estimate before you run

The estimate prices a run at 40 seconds, the longest trailer the plan cuts. That is one minute of render, and Combine Videos on those 40 seconds plus the intro card. After the preview, Render final is quoted on the trailer that the run cut, with your review edits, plus the intro card. A recording with no known length is estimated at Edit Plan's 180-minute ceiling. How Edit Plan counts the minutes is explained on Edit Plan.

Nodes after Trailer

A node wired to the Trailers output on an Each connection runs once per format, and is charged once per format. For example, an Add Captions node after a three-format Trailer is charged three times. A node priced by the length of the video it is given, such as Trim Video, Loop Video, Combine Videos or Video SFX, is estimated at the trailer's 40 seconds plus the intro card. It is charged at the length that was rendered.

Tips

• Steer the moments. Use Instructions, for example open on the funniest moment or no spoilers from the last ten minutes.
• Review once, render everywhere. Turn on Review before render to check the cut before every format is rendered.
• Post each format once. Wire Trailers into a publishing node on an Each connection.
• Match the intro card. Make the intro card the same size and shape as the recording, so neither of them is letterboxed.

Troubleshooting

From the API

POST /v1/episode-trailer starts a run and answers 202 with jobId and executionId. The body takes mediaUrls (one recording URL, or up to six of one conversation in order), and optionally masterAudioUrl, cameras, introCardUrl, formats ("9:16", "1:1", "4:5" and "16:9"), reviewBeforeRender, planTier, instructions and styleGuide. Poll the job with GET /v1/jobs/:id/status.

• Leave formats out for the three default formats. An empty list answers 400 validation_error ("Choose at least one format"), and so does a list that names a format twice.
• cameras is { wide?, synced?, speakerCameras? }. wide is the recording number of the wide camera, or null. synced: true skips the line-up. speakerCameras maps a speaker number to a recording number, where 0 is the wide shot. See Several cameras.
• Over the API, one of the recordings may be sound only. The run needs at least one recording with picture.
• Several recordings, or a masterAudioUrl, need Speaker Map. Where Speaker Map is not available to you, they are refused with 403 node_not_available before anything is charged.
• The job's output_data carries the trailers (formats, a list of { format, url } in format order) and the first one as videoUrl. It also carries the formats that could not be rendered (failedFormats, only when there are some), the edit (json), the transcript (transcript) and quality (proxy for a preview, final otherwise). A run on several recordings or a master audio adds cameras: each speaker, the recording number of the camera it got (null for the wide shot), and the notes of the line-up and of the map. A preview has no formats yet: its formats is empty and videoUrl is the preview. A failed run keeps what completed and names the failed step in failedStep.
• An Idempotency-Key header makes a retry of the same request answer with the same jobId and "deduped": true, and start nothing.
• POST /v1/episode-trailer/estimate takes the same body and answers { data: { totalCredits, stepsCredits, feeCredits, durationSec } }, without starting anything.
• POST /v1/episode-trailer/continue with { jobId, mode } continues a run. "mode": "from-failed" runs what a failed run did not complete. "mode": "render-final" renders a review run's final, with an optional editedEdl. A Render final of a run that was not a preview answers render_final_not_preview, and one of an edit already rendered answers render_final_already_rendered.

The SDK (client.edit.episodeTrailer, client.edit.estimateEpisodeTrailer, client.edit.continueUseCase), the CLI (nodaro edit episode-trailer, with --estimate for a quote, and nodaro edit continue-use-case) and the MCP tools make_trailer, estimate_use_case and continue_use_case call the same routes. See Run a single node, Editing in the SDK and the MCP analysis and EDL tools.