OtterStudio: trim, layer and export video in your browser

Because we never kept them. The project is a small record of what you did, saved in your browser; the video itself stayed in your folder. When you open the project again, point at the same files and it checks they are the ones you used. In Chrome and Edge, if you added a file through the file picker, an Open the files button can ask the browser for them with one permission prompt. Skip a file and its clip stays on the timeline as a grey placeholder until you supply it.

Editing and playback work in any current browser. Exporting needs the browser to have a video encoder, which Chrome, Edge and recent Safari do, and Firefox does not yet. If your browser cannot export, the page says so before you start.

Whatever your device can play. 4K footage from a phone or drone is fine; the preview is drawn at the size of your screen, so it stays smooth, and the export renders at the size you choose. A long 4K export takes a while, roughly as long as the video itself on a laptop, and you can watch it go.

It is re-encoded, so not bit for bit. At Standard quality most footage looks the same to the eye and the file is often smaller than what came out of the camera. Pick High for something that will be re-encoded again by whoever you send it to. The size the dialog shows is a ceiling: the encoder spends less on still scenes.

It listens to the quietest moments of an audio clip, takes them as a picture of the background noise (hiss, hum, room tone, a fan), and turns those frequencies down everywhere else. Speech stays where it is. The cleaned copy lands on a new track under the original, which is muted rather than deleted, so you can compare them and undo. It needs a quiet moment somewhere in the clip to learn from.

Yes. The round red button next to Play opens the camera or the microphone, with a live picture and a level meter. Press Record and the timeline plays from the playhead while you talk or react; press Stop and the take lands on the timeline where you started, as a video track and an audio track. The recording is a file like any other: in Chrome and Edge you are asked where to save it, elsewhere it is downloaded, and it is never sent anywhere. Wear headphones if the timeline is playing, or the microphone will hear it.

Yes. Every edit is saved in this browser as you go, and the Projects button lists what is there. Save project downloads the same record as a small file you can keep or move to another computer. Either way the media stays yours to supply.

That clip’s file is not loaded: the lane shows File missing with a Choose button. Pick the file and the picture comes back. Exporting with a missing file gives you a grey box and silence for that clip, and the export dialog says so first.