Everything, in the order you meet it.

Install

PodoCut runs on Windows, inside DaVinci Resolve — the free edition or Studio. You need Resolve 18.6 or newer, and nothing else: the installer brings its own Python runtime and its own ffmpeg, so there is nothing to set up first.

1. Download the installer and double-click it. It installs for your user account only, so Windows will not ask for an administrator password.
2. Restart DaVinci Resolve. This is the step people miss. Resolve looks for scripts once, when it starts.
3. Open Workspace ▸ Scripts ▸ PodoCut. The panel opens in its own window.

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 for the email address and password you bought with. That signs this machine in and registers it against your licence.

You stay signed in through updates and restarts — you should only ever do this once per machine. If you move to a different computer, sign out on the old one first from the panel’s About window.

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? Use the reset link on the sign-in screen; it emails you a new one.

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.

1. Say how many people are talking, then name them. Each gets a colour that follows them through the panel and into the finished timeline.
2. Point each camera at one person. The panel lists your video tracks; set the speaker each one is filming. If a mic is linked or synced to a camera, it is picked for you.
3. Press Create Multi-Cam Edit. A progress window opens and tells you what it is doing. You can stop it at any time with Esc.

Ninety minutes of three-camera footage takes roughly four minutes on a typical machine. Watching the timeline fill in as it goes is optional — turn it off and it runs as fast as the machine allows.

The controls

Saved layouts

The row at the top of the panel saves everything below it — speaker names, camera assignments, pace, output shape — under a name you choose. Recording the same show every week means setting it 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 somewhere else — its own timeline track, or a separate file — you can point at it instead. 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. You can also place wides yourself: put markers on the timeline where you want one and PodoCut will use those instead of choosing.

Stacked or flattened

Stacked keeps every camera on its own track and disables the shots that are not used, so you can switch any of them back on afterwards. Flattened gives you one video track with the cuts baked in — smaller and simpler, with less room to adjust later.

What you get

PodoCut always makes a new timeline. Your existing timeline and any edit you have already made are not modified. Run it again and you get AutoEdit 2, AutoEdit 3 and so on, so you can compare settings side by side.

The new timeline is created at your project’s frame rate, so it matches whatever you are working in. Nothing is deleted: in a stacked edit every angle is still on its own track, still in sync, just disabled where it is not used.

If you do ask PodoCut to cut into a timeline you are already working in, it saves a full copy of the project first.

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 the library could not be found

The install is incomplete. Run the installer again — it repairs an existing install in place and keeps your sign-in.

The cuts are time-squeezed, or there are gaps

Your project frame rate and your footage frame rate do not match. Set the project to the footage rate and run it 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 you are online and it still refuses, the licence may be signed in on two machines already — sign out on the one you are not using.

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 a version number and a diagnostics report worth attaching.

This page describes PodoCut 1.3.1. Changes between versions are in the changelog.