VerseCut user guide

Version 3.0 · for Windows and macOS

Everything in this guide applies to both platforms. Where Windows uses Ctrl, macOS uses ⌘ Command — so Ctrl + S on Windows is ⌘ S on a Mac. The one exception is Alt, which is ⌥ Option on a Mac and does the same job.

Projects made in VerseCut 1.2 or 2.0 open in 3.0 unchanged, and a project saved on one platform opens on the other.

The screen at a glance

Projects save automatically every few seconds to Documents › VerseCut › Projects (~/Documents/VerseCut/Projects on a Mac). The project name is the box in the top bar.

Your first episode in eight steps

1. Start a project. Click New and give it a name, such as Week 29 · Genesis 29.
2. Bring in media. Click Import media and choose the teaching video, music, logo and seal. Pick several files at once with a click on each.
3. Place the main video. Double-click it in the Media bin. The main video always lands at 0:00 on V1 · Main video.
4. Cut out mistakes. Move the playhead to the start of the unwanted part and press S. Move to the end and press S again. Click the piece in between and press Shift + Delete (Shift + ⌫ on a Mac); the gap closes. Tick Ripple all tracks first if cards, titles or captions are already placed, so they stay in sync.
5. Add the logos. Hover the logo in the Media bin and click ↗ Top logo. Hover the seal and click ↘ Bottom logo. Both run for the whole video. Drag either one in the preview to adjust it.
6. Transcribe. Click Transcribe, choose Balanced, then Start. Captions appear on the Captions track and in the Captions tab, where you can correct any word. To send them on for the scripture-card sheet: Captions tab › Export… › SRT or ITT.
7. Place the scripture cards. Click Scripture cards and choose the card ZIP. Every card lands on V2 at its timecode with a short fade.
8. Export. Click Export, choose YouTube / Facebook 1080p or 4K Ultra HD, then Export. When it's done, choose Show in folder or Play video. An .srt caption file is saved next to the video for YouTube.

Projects and templates

Projects are saved automatically a few seconds after every change, and again when you close the window. New, Open and Save are in the top bar; the box between them is the project name, and you can type over it at any time.

A project file holds the edit, not the media: it remembers where each video, image and music file lives on disk, so the project stays small and your footage stays where you put it. Move or rename a source file and VerseCut says so when the project opens, listing what it could not find.

Working from a template

A weekly programme is usually the same shape every time, so the quickest way to work is to keep one project as a template:

1. Build an episode the way you like it — logos placed, music bed, title style, card track set up.
2. Save it under a name such as Weekly template.
3. Each week: Open the template, use Save with a new name typed into the project box, then swap in the new teaching video and re-import that week's scripture cards.

Re-use a template as often as you like. VerseCut tidies the project each time it is saved and opened: artwork and footage that no longer appear on the timeline are dropped from the file, and a file that ends up listed twice is folded back into one entry. A template stays the same size on its fiftieth use as on its first.

If you have a template from 1.2 that had become slow, simply open it in 3.0 and save it. It is repaired on the way in, and the log will show the project shrinking back to its proper size.

The media bin

Everything you import appears in the Media tab on the left. Hover an item for its buttons:

• ↗ Top logo / ↘ Bottom logo place a picture on a logo track for the whole programme.
• Double-click adds the item at the playhead, or at 0:00 if it is the first video.
• Drag it onto a track, or straight onto the preview picture to place it where you drop it.

A new item shows a small progress mark while VerseCut reads it. For footage the browser cannot play directly — AVI, MTS, ProRes and similar — VerseCut quietly makes a small preview copy so scrubbing stays smooth. The export always uses your original file at full quality, never the preview copy.

MISSING next to an item means the file has been moved, renamed or is on a drive that is not connected. Reconnect the drive, or put the file back, and re-open the project.

Editing on the timeline

Positioning logos, titles and overlays

• Click it in the preview to select it. A gold box with four corner handles appears.
• Drag to move it. Blue guide lines show when it lines up with the centre or the safe margins. Hold Alt (⌥ Option) to turn snapping off.
• Pull a corner to resize it. The opposite corner stays put and the proportions are kept.
• Place buttons in the Inspector (↖ ↑ ↗ ← • → ↙ ↓ ↘) snap it to a corner or edge with a tidy margin.
• X / Y offset and Scale are still there for exact numbers, and they update as you drag.
• Size mode: Original size (logos) keeps a small picture at its real pixel size. Fit to frame stretches full-screen artwork, such as scripture cards, to fill the picture.
• Drop onto the picture: drag a picture from the Media bin straight onto the preview. It lands where you drop it, at the playhead.

Transitions

Click the clip after a cut. In the Inspector, under Transition in, choose:

Set the Length (1 second is a good default). Shortcut: press T to put a 1-second cross-dissolve on the cut nearest the playhead. A gold ⋈ mark shows on the clip.

Scripture cards

Click Scripture cards and choose the card ZIP, or a folder of card images. VerseCut works out when each card should appear, in this order of preference:

Before placing them you can:

• Choose the track — V2 · Scripture cards by default.
• Set an offset in seconds, for when the teaching video does not begin at 0:00 on the timeline.
• Replace what is on the track now, which is what you want when re-running a corrected set.

Cards land with a short fade in and out. Each one is an ordinary clip afterwards, so you can nudge it, trim it, or drag it in the preview like anything else.

Re-importing the same ZIP does not duplicate anything: VerseCut recognises artwork it has already read, so the same cards keep the same identity however many times you import them.

Titles

Titles tab › choose a style › Add (or drag it onto the Titles track). Edit the text, second line and size in the Inspector. Styles: Scripture card (APM), Lower third (APM), Center title, Name tag, Plain text. Titles are drawn at the export resolution, so they stay sharp in 4K.

Captions

• Transcribe works offline. Fast uses the small base model, Balanced is recommended, and Most accurate is slower.
• Correct the text in the Captions tab. Click a time to jump there.
• Import SRT/ITT brings in captions made elsewhere.
• Export… saves SRT (YouTube, Facebook), ITT (Final Cut Pro) or WebVTT.
• On export, choose whether to burn captions into the picture or only save the .srt. For YouTube auto-translate, use the .srt.

Sound

The Audio tab controls the final mix:

• Loudness normalize: YouTube's −14 LUFS, so every episode plays at the same volume.
• Voice cleanup: removes low rumble and background hiss.
• Duck music under the voice: music on the Music track dips automatically whenever someone speaks.
• Music level: the overall music volume.

Per-clip Volume, Mute and Fades are in the Inspector.

Exporting

Encoder: VerseCut encodes H.264 with the encoder built into your operating system. On Windows that is Media Foundation, Intel Quick Sync, NVIDIA NVENC or AMD, whichever the machine has; on a Mac it is Apple VideoToolbox. Audio is AAC from the same operating-system encoders. Hardware encoding is much faster on long videos. VerseCut picks the best one your machine has. If it fails part-way, VerseCut moves to the next one and carries on, and tells you in the progress message.

If the video would start with black, VerseCut asks whether to remove it first.

Your licence

Click Licence in the top bar to see your plan, when it renews, and the Machine ID for this computer.

The plans

A one-time licence never expires and covers the 3.0 release line: every 3.0.x update is included, while 3.1 and later are not. A subscription always gives you the newest version while it is running.

The trial

Every new installation starts with 14 days of Creator. There is no account to make, no card to enter and nothing to cancel. When the 14 days are up VerseCut carries on as Free — your projects are still there and still open.

Activating

1. Click Licence in the top bar.
2. Either paste the licence text from your email (everything from -----BEGIN VERSECUT LICENCE----- to -----END VERSECUT LICENCE-----) or click Choose file… and pick the licence file.
3. Click Activate. The plan changes straight away.

VerseCut verifies the licence's signature on this computer, against a key built into the application. There is no activation server, no account and no online check, so activation works on a machine that has never been connected to the internet.

The Machine ID

Under This computer you will see an ID like VC-4J7Q-2M8T-95XD, with a button to copy it. It is a one-way hash of some hardware details: it contains no name, serial number or address, and it stays on this computer unless you send it to us. You only need to do that if you want your licence locked to specific machines, or if you are asking support to move a seat.

If a subscription lapses

An annual or monthly licence keeps working for 14 days past its renewal date, with a reminder in the top bar, so a payment that arrives late never interrupts an edit. After that VerseCut steps down to the Free plan: 1080p export, no watermark, and 3 saved projects. Nothing is deleted. Your projects and exports remain yours, they stay on your disk, and they open again in full the moment a licence is entered.

Keyboard shortcuts

On a Mac, use ⌘ Command wherever the table says Ctrl, and ⌥ Option wherever it says Alt.

If something goes wrong

Checking the installation (Windows). Double-click Verify-VerseCut.bat in the VerseCut folder. It runs a self-check and ends with All checks passed. if everything is sound. On a Mac the installer runs the equivalent checks as it goes.

Log files. If you need to send us something, these two tell the whole story:

Privacy

VerseCut has no account, no analytics and no telemetry. It never uploads media, and it does not update itself. After setup it makes no network connection — including when you activate a licence. (If setup could not finish downloading the speech model, VerseCut fetches it the first time you click Transcribe.) It runs a small engine on your own computer at 127.0.0.1 that only the VerseCut window can use.