Cut a talking-head program from isolated takes with retake pull
ComingTranscribes takes, clusters retakes (later take wins, false starts), builds a program from rulings using the audio energy envelope, verifies each joint by re-transcribing, composites with receipts, and can rebuild the same program as a new Resolve timeline.
Kit
video-offline-tools
You need
| Account | Why | Free or paid | Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| ffmpeg + ffprobe | Every cut, mux, loudness pass, proxy, contact sheet and platform encode. The delivery encoder uses h264_videotoolbox on Apple Silicon. | Free | Free (Homebrew build includes VideoToolbox). |
| mlx-whisper (local transcription, Apple Silicon) | Word-level transcripts for rough cuts, captions, chapter timestamps and YouTube descriptions, all offline. | Free | Free; needs an Apple Silicon Mac with 16 GB+ RAM. Model whisper-large-v3-turbo downloads once (about 1.6 GB). |
| Python 3.12 + uv | Runs every pipeline script (video gates, library export, research cache, Brain export, PDF generator, MIDI tools) inside per-project virtual environments. | Free | Free. |
| DaVinci Resolve Studio | The NLE for long-form and podcast cuts. Claude drives it through the Resolve scripting API and the davinci-resolve MCP: additive plates on V2+, offline titles, OGraf native titles, exports. | Paid | Studio (295 USD one-time) is required: the free version has no external scripting, no OGraf loader and no hardware encode options used here. Version 21.1 or newer. |
What you bring
- A single take recording, from your camera or your screen recorder
- Your word on which takes to keep
The steps
- Gate the source and transcribe takes in isolated windows
- Cluster retakes and print the take table
- Build the program from the rulings with energy-placed boundaries
- Verify every piece and every joint in isolation
- Composite to a file, or rebuild as a Resolve timeline
- Rounds: one note, one patch, receipts before the review copy
Get the full playbook
Part of: Install your video editing suite