Automatic Trimming (Ripple Delete) of Silent Audio
When producing and editing a recorded session, there are a lot of "gaps" in the recordings where I have no audio being spoken. In order to produce this screencast, I must go through and ripple delete all of these "gaps".
As a user, I would like to be able to have a selected clip and trigger the gaps to be ripple deleted automatically. It would be helpful if there were configuration options of
- maximum dB threshold to be an identifying factor for detecting silence
- configurable padding (leave 1/4s, 1/2s, 1s) of silent audio before and after cut
- option to retain silent audio but just a slice is made instead
In the example image attached, the blue highlighted area is what I need to Ripple Delete, but there could be 50 of these on this particular video clip. The end result is what you see to the left of the blue highlighted area.
This would greatly reduce the amount of work I have to do on ever video and would save me 10+ hours each week. This would be a HUGE feature for me.
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In the meantime, as a workaround, I use ffmpeg to trim all the silence out of my audio:
1. Record the audio in screenflow, remove background noise and export in .aiff format
2. Run the ffmpeg in the command line to trim the silence:
./ffmpeg -i input.aiff -af silenceremove=start_periods=1:start_duration=0:start_threshold=0:stop_periods=-10:start_threshold=-50dB output.aiff
3. Import output.aiff back to screenflow
To install ffmpeg, visit https://www.ffmpeg.org.
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Dave Kimura Correct! I tried to edit my post to make it clear but looks like editing gets disabled after some time.
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I would greatly appreciate automatic ripple delete of silent audio and have up voted this.
However, I noticed this request is a year old. If this feature is too challenging or too much work for the devs (or just not enough of a priority), perhaps a halfway solution would be to automatically ripple delete all "tagged" or labeled clips. I go through my clips and label all the ones I want to delete in ORANGE color (for example). Then I go back and manually ripple delete each grouping of orange colored clips. It would be amazing if I could just tell Screenflow to automatically ripple delete all clips that are colored orange instead!
Would an automation feature like this be simple enough to add in?
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Ben Thanks for those suggestions. The developers and product manager are certainly aware of the interest but must consider the best approach for a long term solution.
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Please. This feature is SUPER important. Particularly with the rise of YouTube and webcam recording.
We really need this :)
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I've found the tool https://getrecut.com/ that can trim silence from the video and can export right to ScreenFlow. However it can't import the ScreenFlow files, only .mov or .mp4 that can take the quality lacks because of double export.
For ScreenFlow developers. I will not upgrade to SF10 while you don't implement the really needed features that will speed up editing like trim silence or whole timeline speed. Start to give what the community wants and take my money!
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Alex said:
it can't import the ScreenFlow files, only .mov or .mp4 that can take the quality lacks because of double export.ScreenFlow exports Apple ProRes MOV which is near-lossless. Granted the files are big but that would avoid the quality hit.
Alex said:
I will not upgrade to SF10Sorry to hear that, despite this feature not being implemented there are many others the community asked for that are badly needed now possible in 10 which can't be done in 9.
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In our cases - we'd almost prefer to give the program a span of room tone (just some silence being recorded) - and have that filled in somehow. Taking out the spots in between talking - also has its own problems because you need to fade them - and in headphones, you can totally tell when there's no sound - and when there is - and feel all of those cuts.
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Perpetual Education I use a program called Krisp. It works as a virtual microphone that you set ScreenFlow to use as the microphone. It is almost magical: silent parts are totally silent and there is no noise what so ever in the background. I used to capture some silence and then use Audacity in post production to grab the noise profile from the silent part and remove noise using Audacity's noise filters but Krisp is like a whole new level plus I don't have to do manual work any more.
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Perpetual Education In addition, when I use the Mac's internal microphone, ScreenFlow's audio track sometimes is flat, even though there is clearly a person talking in that part. But with Krisp, I get a well-defined waveform which is visually easy to use to spot where the words start and end.
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Henno Täht Checking it out. Have you noticed any side effects or blips?
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Perpetual Education Please vote as the developers are looking at that number.
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CraigS We can't really vote for this - because we believe it's a low priority. For quality editing / this isn't a win. We'd be 100x more interested in many of the other suggested additions.
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CraigS I would recommend the developers, before implementing this feature, to test these tools with a video clip where someone talks with long pauses between words (as I tend to talk):
1. https://jumpcutter.com/
2. https://www.timebolt.io/
3. https://screencast-o-matic.com/blog/editing-narration-silence/Just so that you can see, what is good and what is bad about them, so that you can include the good and avoid the bad.
One more thought would be to collaborate with these tools. They allow the user to export the cuts' metadata as XML file. The problem for now is that ScreenFlow does not enable the user to import these XML files.
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Henno Täht said:
One more thought would be to collaborate with these tools. They allow the user to export the cuts' metadata as XML file.I'll let the developers know but there's currently no way to make ScreenFlow .scc recorded files compatible with XML. It carries metadata that is unsupported in XML. Ideally, ScreenFlow would have this function built-in. Otherwise, ScreenFlow might have to generate a sort of MP4 proxy of screen recordings to be uploaded to software that does this.
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CraigS If possible, I would prefer ScreenFlow to make L-cuts when cutting out silent parts. (more info about L-cuts here: https://youtu.be/p2BqEvoiX04?t=306 )
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Henno Täht an L cut is a decision an editor must make as people need them or not depending on the content.
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CraigS I am editing right now a screencast with voice over and there are a lot of pauses after every few words while the screen is static. I would like to be able to make a clip of that specific part (where the screen is static) and then tell ScreenFlow to cut out all the pauses within that clip. Would be a great time saver!
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Henno Täht said:
Would be a great time saver!
@Henno Täht Yes that would.
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We did a bunch of tests with some programs that do this - but it's not as great as we'd expect. It would really need advanced AI to remove the sound in a way that didn't still need just as much editing - if not more.
The fastest way to deal with this - is to become a better speaker. -
Perpetual Education said:
It would really need advanced AI to remove the sound in a way that didn't still need just as much editingThat's a challenge with these functions and implementation since "silence" may need timing and level thresholds. There are coughs and breaths and room sounds and the possibility that some pauses are deliberate to be left in for timing.
Perpetual Education said:
The fastest way to deal with this - is to become a better speaker.😉 👍
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Do we have an ETA for this feature? CraigS
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Nicolas Schurmann We generally don't give dates on new features and improvements since the development timeline and feature priority is subject to change until a feature update nears release. Sorry.
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+1
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Voted - I need this feature. I record gigs and want to cut out all the gaps between songs. So some kind of threshold needed
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Dan Barrow said:
VotedDouble-check. I don't see you on the voted list yet. Just Following.
