Documentation: install, first cut and fixes

Install

PodoCut runs inside DaVinci Resolve — the free edition or Studio — on Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. You need DaVinci Resolve 21 or newer, and nothing else: the installer brings its own Python runtime and its own ffmpeg, so there is nothing to set up first. Earlier versions of Resolve cannot load that Python, so PodoCut will not open in them.

Download the installer and double-click it. It installs for your user account only, so Windows will not ask for an administrator password. If Windows says Windows protected your PC, click More info, then Run anyway.
Restart DaVinci Resolve. This is the step people miss. Resolve looks for scripts once, when it starts.
Open Workspace ▸ Scripts ▸ PodoCut. The panel opens in its own window. The installer puts a second item beside it, PodoCut Diagnostics, which prints a support report — you only need it if something goes wrong.

To remove it, use Add or remove programs in Windows settings. Your projects and timelines are untouched by an uninstall.

Sign in

The first time the panel opens it asks you to sign in. Type the email address and password you bought with. Or, if your panel has it, press Sign in with Google: your browser opens on podocut.com, and you approve the computer there. Either way signs this machine in and registers it against your licence.

If the panel says your email address is not confirmed, open the email we sent when you signed up or paid and follow its link, then sign in again. Cannot find it? Look in spam, or sign in at podocut.com and choose Send it again.

You stay signed in through updates and restarts — you should only ever do this once per machine. Moving to a different computer? Sign out from the panel’s About window on the old one while it is online, which frees its place, then sign in on the new one. If you cannot do that, or your account is already signed in on all the computers it covers, the panel names them — write to us and we will free one.

PodoCut needs to be online to start an edit. It checks the licence with the server each time, which is what keeps a licence from being shared around. Once an edit is running, detection and cutting happen entirely on your machine.

Forgotten the password? Choose Forgot your password? on the sign-in screen, in the panel or at podocut.com, and we will email a link to the address on the account. It works once and lasts an hour, and setting a new password signs you out on every computer. No email? Check spam, then write to us from the address on the account.

Your first cut

Start from a timeline that already has your camera angles on separate video tracks, in sync, with each person’s microphone audio on the timeline too. PodoCut reads the audio that is already there — it does not need separate files.

Say how many people are talking, then name them. Each gets a colour that follows them through the panel and through the progress window as the edit builds.
Point each camera at one person. The panel lists your video tracks; set the speaker each one is filming. A track you do not want used is set to Not assigned. If a mic is linked or synced to a camera, it is picked for you.
Press Create Multi-Cam Edit. A progress window opens and tells you which stage it is in. Press Cancel in that window — or close it — to stop the edit.

Ninety minutes of three-camera footage takes roughly four minutes on a typical machine. It runs at full speed by default; tick Watch the edit build in step 5 if you would rather see the timeline fill in as it goes. Single track is the exception — it always builds in one pass.

The controls

Presets

The Presets… row at the top of the panel saves everything below it except step 3 — speaker names, camera assignments, pace and output shape all come back under a name you choose. The audio sources are re-detected each time, because they are specific to the project you are in. Recording the same show every week means setting the rest up once.

Pace

Calm holds each shot longer and cuts less. Punchy cuts more often and holds less. Balanced sits between them and is where most conversation shows want to be. It costs nothing to change it and run again.

Audio for detection

By default PodoCut listens to the audio linked to each camera. If a person’s microphone lives on its own timeline track, you can point at that track instead. The panel offers the camera’s own audio and the timeline’s audio tracks; there is no option to pick a file from disk. The only requirement is that it lines up in time with the picture.

Wide shots

Tag a camera as the wide shot and PodoCut will cut to it periodically, so the edit is not only close-ups. How often is a setting of its own — Off, Rare, Sometimes or Often — and it stays greyed out until a camera is tagged as the wide shot.

You can also add wides yourself. Tick Wide shot at my timeline markers in step 4 and every marker becomes a wide, on top of the ones PodoCut places itself. It needs a camera tagged as the wide shot and at least one marker on the timeline.

What you get back

Four choices, and the panel names them exactly like this:

New timeline · stacked cameras. Every camera keeps its own track; unused shots are disabled, not deleted. Best when you want to fine-tune afterwards.
New timeline · unused removed. Like stacked, but the unused shots are deleted rather than disabled — a clean per-camera timeline. Your original is untouched.
New timeline · single track. Everything merged onto one video track. The simplest result, ready to export.
Edit this timeline. Removes the unused footage from the timeline you are already in. That timeline is duplicated first, so the original survives beside it.

What you get

Three of the four modes make a new timeline and leave the one you were working in alone. It is named after the timeline you ran it on: Episode 47 - AutoEdit 1. Run it again and you get Episode 47 - AutoEdit 2 and so on, so you can compare settings side by side. The Timeline name field in step 5 replaces that name if you would rather choose your own, and Open the result when finished beside it jumps you to the new timeline as soon as it is built.

The new timeline is created at the frame rate of the timeline you ran PodoCut on, so it matches what you are working in even when your project’s default rate is different. In a stacked edit nothing is deleted — every angle is still on its own track, still in sync, just disabled where it is not used.

A new timeline holds your tagged camera tracks and a copy of all your audio, exactly as you arranged it. Anything on a video track you did not tag — titles, graphics, b-roll — stays on your original and is not carried across.

The other two modes do remove footage: unused removed deletes the unused shots from the new timeline it makes, and Edit this timelineremoves them from the one you are in. Both are deliberate choices you have to pick, and the second duplicates that timeline first, leaving the copy in your Media Pool named “<your timeline> (before PodoCut) 1” — open that if you want the original back.

Stopping a run is clean in the three new-timeline modes: PodoCut takes the half-built timeline away again. Edit this timeline has a point of no return — once it has started rebuilding your timeline there is nothing that can undo it, so PodoCut finishes the edit rather than hand you a half-rebuilt one, and says so when it does.

When something is wrong

PodoCut is not in the Scripts menu: Restart Resolve. It scans for scripts once, at startup, so a plugin installed while Resolve was open will not appear until the next launch.
It says PodoCut’s files could not be found: The install is incomplete. Run the installer again — it repairs an existing install in place and keeps your sign-in.
It says it could not set the new timeline to a frame rate: Resolve refused the frame rate PodoCut asked for. Open Project Settings ▸ Master Settings, set the Timeline frame rate to the rate the message names, then run PodoCut again.
One speaker never gets shown: That speaker’s camera is probably not hearing them clearly, or it is tagged to the wrong person. Check the Speaker column in step 2, and set Audio for Detection to the mic that actually records them.
It will not start an edit: An edit needs a live answer from the licence server, so PodoCut has to be online and signed in. If it refuses it says which: it could not reach the server, this computer is no longer signed in, or the licence is no longer active. The first wants a connection, the second a fresh sign-in from the panel, the third a word with us.
A change in the panel did not take effect: Close the panel and open it again from the Scripts menu. If it persists, restart Resolve — it caches plugin code for the session.
Something else: Write to support@podocut.com and say what you did and what happened. The panel’s About window has the version numbers worth quoting, and Workspace ▸ Scripts ▸ PodoCut Diagnostics prints a fuller report — it also writes podocut_report.txt, which is the file to attach.

This page describes PodoCut 1.3.2. Changes between versions are in the changelog.

Everything, in the order you meet it.