Quick Trim: in-browser video trim + mute

Sometimes you don't need an NLE. You shot a 5-minute reel on your phone, you want to grab a 30-second highlight, drop it into a client gallery, and move on. That's Quick Trim. It runs entirely in the browser, no install, no Python helper, no plugin.

What it does

• Open any video from one of your albums (or upload from device).
• Drag two handles on a timeline to set in/out points.
• Toggle audio mute if you don't want the source audio.
• Hit Export. The trimmed clip uploads to a destination album you pick.

How to open it

1. Fotofolio dashboard → My Studio → Edit videos → Quick Trim.
2. Source picker. From album or From device.
3. Video loads. Timeline + handles + mute toggle + Export button.
4. Set the cut, hit Export, pick the destination album, done.

How it works

Quick Trim is hand-rolled on top of two browser APIs: HTMLVideoElement.captureStream() + the MediaRecorder API. The flow:

• Load your source into a hidden <video> element.
• When you hit Export, we capture the video element's stream, seek to your in-point, then play.
• A MediaRecorder records the stream until we reach the out-point, at which point we stop and ask for the encoded blob.
• Upload the blob to S3 via presigned PUT (same path as a regular video upload).

Real-time export — a 30-second clip takes about 30 seconds to render. Slower than WebCodecs but works in every modern browser. We picked predictability over speed because Safari + Firefox don't fully support WebCodecs for export.

Output format

We pick the best supported MIME for your browser:

• Chrome / Edge: MP4 H.264 + AAC. Plays everywhere.
• Safari (recent): MP4 H.264. Plays everywhere.
• Firefox: WebM VP9 + Opus (Firefox's MediaRecorder doesn't do MP4 yet). Plays in modern browsers; some older players prefer MP4 — heads up.

Limitations

• Trim + mute only. No crop, no captions, no multi-clip. Crop and captions are v2.
• One clip at a time. If you need to splice three clips together, Premiere / Resolve / Quick Trim's eventual v2 multi-clip.
• Output bitrate isn't configurable. We use 6 Mbps video, which looks good without being huge. Heavier compression needs an NLE.
• Doesn't work without captureStream. Very old browsers won't — we detect this on load and show a friendly "open this in Chrome / Edge" message rather than failing silently.

When to use Quick Trim vs Premiere / Resolve / Blender

Quick Trim is for fast, single-clip work — phone reel highlights, behind-the-scenes shorts, a 20-second teaser. For a real edit with multiple clips, transitions, color, or audio mixing, use one of the NLEs we integrate with. The Premiere panel and Resolve script handle the full-NLE workflow cleanly.