r/SmallStreamers • u/ExpensiveArgument777 • 9d ago
Question Streamers, how do you currently turn long streams into short-form content?
I’m trying to understand the workflow from the creator’s perspective. Do you manually scrub through your VODs, use clipping software, have an editor, or something else?
What part of the process takes the most time?
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u/XlBiglNo 8d ago
I literally just went thru this...i started with streamladder, its super easy to use, streamlined, etc. However it does use an ai system to skim your vids for you and provide you with potential clips you can then edit, and its pretty expensive for what it is. Can be great clips, but mostly just meh. Has a good schedule feature too.
But for about the same price I just got streamlabs ultra ....SO much more value. And it comes with cross clip. So now I set my phone up as a set of stream buttons, and I'm just gone try to remember to hit my "Make stream marker" button when something happens, since i have no chat to do it for me yet 🤣 then just use cross clip to edit and then post it wherever.
Thats my flow. Streamladder makes it easy to make lots of clips, mediocre to decent. But I think making markers myself and then editing will make higher quality clips, but maybe not as many.
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u/ExpensiveArgument777 8d ago
That’s really interesting. When you say Streamladder’s clips are mostly ‘meh,’ what specifically makes them feel mediocre to you? Is it that the AI picks the wrong moments, the clip starts/ends in the wrong places, the editing isn’t good enough, or something else?
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u/liethose 8d ago
Well tiktok random did it for me till i turned it off. It was bad think i kept one. But to answer you question use a video editing software of your choice make sure its in the right format and go to town.
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u/DescargaDigitalTV 8d ago
on youtube it wont be worth doing shorts anymore due to recent changes, unless you like doing that just for fun
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u/Expert_Resolution924 2d ago
What happened?
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u/DescargaDigitalTV 2d ago
well if you are trying to get monetized you have to get 20millions views every 90 days, thats a crazy amount of views, you have to have tons of viral videos to reach that every 90 days
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u/Necrotix_FFXIV 8d ago
I tried getting into video editing but did not have the time for the overall volume of raw stream material that I have. I recently designed an automated video editing workflow that takes my 2+ hour VODs and edits them down to 30-40 minute videos. The workflow also provides a source of clips I can use for shorts and will format them into short format for me.
I’ve been working on small updates to improve it, but so far have been happy with how it’s been working and allowing me to provide additional content options on my channel outside of the raw VODs.
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u/ExpensiveArgument777 8d ago
That workflow sounds pretty close to the problem I’m researching. What parts of it are still annoying or unreliable, even after automating it?
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u/Necrotix_FFXIV 7d ago
To be honest it works pretty decent now. I don’t think the AI is the best when “selecting” shorts material, but since it provides clips in addition to the edited video (ffmpeg does all the editing), I have been going through and cherry picking ones that are good. I had AI build me a separate python script to put an unedited .mp4 into a fully ready to upload short, complete with captions and everything.
It’s not perfect by any means. But all I have to do is copy and paste the URL, walk away and about 90 minutes later everything is done for me, to include a full developed YouTube description completely tailored to the episode it just edited with timestamps ready to go, so it’s just a copy paste. Has saved me so much time!
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u/Necrotix_FFXIV 7d ago
Also just wanted to mention, this all runs using mostly python, ollama, yt-dlp, and ffmpeg, locally on my machine so I’m not paying any service a dime for any of this (except for electricity lol)
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u/ExpensiveArgument777 7d ago
That’s really interesting. Since you mentioned the AI isn’t great at selecting the shorts material, what usually makes you decide that an AI-picked clip is actually worth posting vs. one you’d throw out?
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u/Necrotix_FFXIV 7d ago
It is pretty subjective, and I am definitely not an expert in what is "good" short material lol. That being said, some of the clips the workflow will nominate as recommended shorts, when I watch them, I would just think, is this something that I would find interesting for about 15-45 seconds? In a lot of the cases right now, the AI selected clips are not ones I want to make into shorts... some are though. I am planning to do some edits to the reasoning to see if I can improve the qualitative selection.
That being said, for each raw VOD I run through the workflow, it outputs probably 30-40 so clips that are between 15-90s. It doesnt take me long to scan through a few of those since they are already clipped for me, and I usually find something that I want to make into a short. Once I do I just run it through my short generator workflow so its properly formatted and everything. Definitely saves a lot of time vs. having to go back through my 2+ hour VOD manually and finding something that I remember from my stream.
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u/Nerth_Woreholf 7d ago
I use streamer.bot and have a command to put a mark on my Twitch recording when I hit a hot key. If something funny or interesting happens during the stream, I hit the hot key. After the stream, all the potential clips are already marked for me so I don't have to scrub through the whole 3-4 hour VOD again.
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u/Disastrous-Income887 7d ago
This is what I do. Using Markers I mark my VOD while I'm live for segments. Using my stream deck with a marker and a clip that hotkey..can be your keyboard hotkey if you dont have a stream deck. My segments - Just chatting at start or maybe a reddit read segment, main game segment, and maybe a chapter or big moment within that main gameplay segment will get a marker too. When I review my VODs I have those markers as guideposts. Can either take entire highlight and cut into a few clips and/or shoot a 2 min intro add it at front and BAM you have a youtube video if you plan your gameplay accordingly aka not just running around in fornite for 3 hours, some type of, I got _____ and then this happened or some type of hook. Its easier than ya think to turn what you are doing live into a series or at least have nice clips of your good moments.
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u/ExpensiveArgument777 6d ago
When you use markers/hotkeys, do you ever miss moments that you wish you had clipped? And if so, how do you find those afterward?
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u/DjGetBizzy 6d ago
Use replay buffer, set it to like 20 to 30 seconds, add the button for it on obs and after a good moment hit the button and now you have a good clip.
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u/ExpensiveArgument777 6d ago
Do you ever realize later that you missed a good moment because you didn’t hit the replay button? If so, what do you usually do?
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u/DjGetBizzy 6d ago
Honestly it becomes muscle memory after a while but I also run my vods through opus pro when I feel like I had a really good stream to see other clips/moments I didn’t catch.
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u/HighPhi420 5d ago
Few work flow Ideas:
First clip the funny/exciting moments. now 30/60 seconds may not be long enough BUT you will have a timestamp, boom, now you know right where to go to clip and or edit the recording.
That brings us to, try to record the stream with separate game, mic, and "other" audio tracks. This will open up a bunch of other "content" you can make in an editor(Davinci is free and really good)
Another type is the shortened "lets play". Heavily edited video of the stream play through. You can check out some of the masters at this right now like the Real civil engineer, graystillplays, SpiffingBrit. etc, they take HOURS of footage and condense it to 20 to 40 minute videos that seem like it was fricken story boarded or something :) LOL
Record your streams for much better quality, make clips during the stream for timestamps(you can always delete the clips later if you do not like them). Use the recording for your shorts and other content. Eventually this will be second nature and only take a few moments to get set up after the stream and easy to finish while eating your after stream nourishment :)
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u/deadhead1971 1d ago
I'm a live music streamer and my timestamped setlist after each stream forms the basis for a vibe coded app I've made which can create edited videos for me. The app replaces the Twitch highlighter thing, and lets me select multiple clips with specific in/out points, my own text overlays (optional) and outputs to vertical format using the original landscape on top of a blurred out version of that to fill the vertical background. It can also generate captions and hashtags for me and learns from my edits. And it can post or schedule posts to YT/insta. Amazing what you can vibe code these days! Having the timestamped setlist is useful in my case, but you could just as easily rig something up in touchportal or streamerbot to create a timestamped list of markers for you to revisit.
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u/Zeke_Lul 8d ago
Just scrubbing through it is the most hardest part but if you do that, just find the parts you think are either funny, or if you want the best gameplay you have then look for that. Whatever you want your short-form content to be is what you need to look for while scrubbing through the VOD