Clips and editing
Review your clips
What a clip's score means, the four factors behind it, what counts as a complete thought and how clips are ranked.
Updated
When a video is ready, Reeltopus shows its clips ranked best first, each with a score and the reasons behind it. This article explains what the score means, the four factors and how clips are picked and ranked.
The clip list
The clip list sits on the left of the editor, under Clips · best first. Each entry shows:
- Its number in the ranking, like #1
- Where it starts in the original video, and how long it is
- Its score, out of 100
- Its title
- Its status, such as MP4 ready, Exporting…, Posted or Scheduled
Clips you added with Find a moment… show "Found for" and what you asked for. Dubbed versions sit under the clip they came from. Press Alt ↑ or Alt ↓ to move between clips.
What the score means
The score is out of 100. It's how likely viewers are to watch the clip to the end. Above the preview, next to the clip's length, you'll see the score and a short reason. Press Why? next to the score to see the full breakdown.
The score is set when the clip is found. Edits you make afterwards don't change it.
The four factors
Why? breaks the score into four factors. Each is rated out of 10, with one sentence about this clip in particular:
| Factor | The question it answers |
|---|---|
| Hook | Do the first seconds stop the scroll? |
| Flow | Is it one complete thought, with no slow patches, ending on its payoff? |
| Payoff | What does the viewer get: an insight, a laugh, a surprise, a story's end? |
| Shareable | Would people send it on, comment on it or save it? |
The bars are green for strong factors and coral for weak ones. A low factor is a hint about what to fix. A weak hook might mean starting a sentence later. A weak payoff might mean ending later, so the punchline is in.
Clips found before the factors existed show only the one-line reason.
What "complete thought" means
A clip is a complete thought when it has both its setup and its payoff. A viewer who hasn't seen the rest of the video can follow it, and it doesn't stop before the point lands.
Reeltopus checks this for every clip and ranks complete thoughts first. A clip that isn't a complete thought only fills in when a video has few complete ones.
How clips are picked
Reeltopus reads the whole transcript and looks for moments that work on their own. For each one, it checks the setup and payoff, adjusts the start and end, writes a title and an on-screen hook, and scores it.
A few rules shape the final list:
- Whole sentences. Clips start and end on sentence boundaries, so they don't cut someone off mid-word. A weak opener like "Um," or "Anyway," is trimmed.
- Length. Clips are between 10 seconds and 2 minutes. Clips between about 25 and 60 seconds score best. Shorter or longer ones are gently marked down.
- No near-duplicates. If two clips overlap by more than half, only the better one is kept.
- Up to 12 clips per video.
Once you've posted enough clips, scores can be nudged a little toward what your audience responds to, such as clip length and the kind of hook. The nudge is small, and without enough posts, scores are left as they are.
When you want something else
The ranking is a starting point. If the moment you want isn't in the list, use Find a moment… above the clips to ask for it. See Find more moments. To change a clip's start or end, see Edit a clip.