How to turn security footage into a highlight reel

Search solves finding one moment. Reviewing a shift or a week is a different problem: you don't want a single timestamp, you want a compiled clip that covers several moments in order, and putting that together by hand means scrubbing to each one, cutting it out, and stitching the pieces together in something else entirely. That's a real chunk of someone's afternoon for what's often a two-minute video at the end of it.

How Edits works

Edits sits in the Library toolbar and in a folder's menu, so it's reachable from wherever your footage already lives. You pick any set of your own already-processed videos, type a prompt describing the reel you want, and Svid reads those videos' frame descriptions, and transcript lines where they exist, to propose a cut list drawn from moments that actually match what you asked for. It isn't guessing at what a highlight reel usually looks like; it's working from the same descriptions that already power search.

The proposal isn't the final word. Before anything renders, it opens in a client-side editor where you can reorder clips, trim them, or delete the ones that don't earn their place. Rendering then produces one finished mp4, cut and stitched from the source footage, capped at 50 clips and 10 minutes of output. That's a limit worth knowing about going in, not a headline number: it keeps a reel a reel rather than a re-export of your whole week.

1. 01

   Select the footage

   Open Edits from the Library toolbar or a folder's menu and pick any set of your own already-processed videos to draw from.

2. 02

   Describe the reel you want

   Type a prompt in plain English, something like “the busiest two minutes at the till this week” or “every time someone used the side entrance today”.

3. 03

   Review and trim the proposed cuts

   Svid returns a cut list built from frame descriptions and, where available, transcript lines. Reorder, trim or delete clips in the editor before you render anything.

4. 04

   Render

   Render produces one finished mp4, stitched from real clips, capped at 50 clips and 10 minutes of output.

What Edits is, and what it isn't

This is worth stating plainly, given how much “AI video” now means synthetic footage that was never actually filmed. Edits doesn't generate anything. Every clip in the output is a real cut from real footage you already had, assembled by reading what Svid already knows about that footage rather than by drawing new frames from scratch. It's highlight-reel assembly, not video generation, and the distinction matters if the output is ever going to stand in for what a camera actually recorded.

It's also worth treating the proposed cut list as a starting point rather than a finished edit. Svid is good at finding the moments that match a prompt; it isn't making editorial judgement calls about pacing or which of two similar clips tells the story better. That's the part the client-side editor is for, and it's usually a few minutes of trimming rather than a rebuild.

Does Edits generate new video?

No. It assembles a cut list from real clips out of footage you've already processed. Every clip in the finished mp4 is a genuine cut from an existing recording, not synthesised.

Where do I find Edits?

In the Library toolbar, or from a folder's menu, so you can start from wherever the footage you want to draw from already lives.

Can I change the cuts before it renders?

Yes. The proposed cut list opens in a client-side editor where you can reorder, trim or delete clips before anything renders.

Is there a limit on how long a reel can be?

Rendering is capped at 50 clips and 10 minutes of finished output per reel.

Does it work on live footage?

Edits works from your own already-processed videos, so it draws from recorded footage rather than a session that's still live.