How to split a video at scene changes automatically

Scene-cut detection in Video by Zaweba splits a long clip into pieces automatically. It finds each place where the picture cuts from one shot to another, using FFmpeg's scene score, and splits the clip on the timeline at every one. You end up with separate clips for each shot, ready to move, trim, delete or reuse.

This is the tool for taking apart something that was edited before it reached you: a recorded TV programme, a compilation, an old exported film whose project is long gone, or a trailer you want to study shot by shot.

Running the detection

Put the long clip on the timeline and select it. Run scene-cut detection from the clip tools, and Video by Zaweba measures how much the picture changes from frame to frame. Where the change is big enough to be a cut, it splits. A two-hour recording takes longer to scan than a two-minute one, so allow time.

When it's finished, the single long clip has become a row of shorter ones sitting end to end. Nothing has moved yet, so playback looks exactly as before; the difference is that each shot is now its own clip you can select.

Checking the results

Scene detection is good at hard cuts and less sure of everything else. Slow dissolves, fades to black and fast camera moves can confuse it, giving either a missed cut or an extra split in the middle of a shot. Scrub through the result with the timeline zoomed in (Ctrl and the mouse wheel) and look at each join.

An extra split does no harm, since the two pieces still play back to back. If you'd like it gone, select the edit and use Edit > Heal through edits, which joins clips that were split from the same continuous media. A missed cut is fixed by placing the playhead on it and pressing S.

What to do with the pieces

Now the useful part. To remove adverts from a recorded programme, select the advert shots and ripple delete them with Shift+Delete so the gaps close. To pull a highlight reel from a compilation, keep the shots you want and delete the rest. To rearrange, drag shots into a new order, or copy them to a fresh timeline using the tabs above the timeline, so the original stays intact for reference.

Markers help on long jobs. Press M on shots you want to come back to, give them a colour and a comment, and the Markers tab lists them all and can jump between them.

Pairing it with other tools

Old programmes often have soft or noisy sound, so after splitting you might add noise reduction to the speech, or run a colour match so shots recorded at different times sit together. Once shots are separate clips, every per-clip tool applies to each one on its own.

If you only need a single shot from a long recording rather than all of them, the source monitor may be quicker: mark an in and out with I and O and insert just that range with F9.

One last point. Scene-cut detection only splits; it never deletes. Your source file is read and never changed, so trying it costs nothing more than a minute of waiting.