# Cutting a film in Cinema — the timeline, transitions, sound, titles and export > A guide to Cinema's Edit tab. The magnetic video track, trims that ripple, crossfades and fades, three audio tracks, four title styles, and an MP4 export rendered entirely in your browser. Published 2026-09-26 · eroq.ai — canonical: https://eroq.ai/blog/cinema-edit-timeline-and-export Rendered takes are footage, not a film. The Edit tab in Cinema is where footage becomes one: a timeline with a video track, sound, titles and transitions, and an export that produces a single MP4 without uploading anything to render it. This guide is the editor, control by control, then the export and what it costs (nothing). ## The auto cut Open the Edit tab of a film with rendered scenes and there is already a cut: one clip per scene, in storyboard order, each the scene's *picked* take. This is the **auto cut**, and it follows the storyboard — render scene five and it appears; pick a different take of scene two and the clip swaps. It stays automatic until your first hand edit. Trim a clip, move one, drop in an upload, and the cut is yours from then on: the storyboard stops rewriting it. Scene clips still follow their scene's picked take (that is what a scene clip *is*), but order, trims and additions are the editor's. ## The video track The video track is **magnetic**: clips sit end to end with no gaps, and everything after a change ripples. - **Reorder** — drag a clip left or right. - **Trim** — pull either edge. The source in/out points move; the clip cannot exceed its source, and it cannot go under a small minimum. - **Split** — at the playhead, one clip becomes two, both playable. - **Fit** — each clip is *cover* (fills the film's frame, crops the excess) or *contain* (whole picture, letterboxed). A vertical take in a 16:9 film is the case for contain. - **Volume** — each clip's own sound, or mute. - **Stills** — drop an image from the bin and it becomes a clip of 3 seconds by default, from half a second to 30. The chip *between* two clips is their **transition**. Three kinds: **crossfade** (the next shot dissolves over this one — the two clips overlap by the transition's length), **fade through black** (out, then in), and **dip to white** (a flash between the shots). The first clip can fade in from black; the film can fade out at the end for as long as you set. Fades keep the cut in place; a crossfade shortens the film by its own length, since the clips overlap. ## The media bin Everything the film can use, in one panel: - the scenes' takes — every take, not only the picked ones; - your library creations — clips, images, voice lines from any tool, any engine; - uploads — your own music, sound and pictures, added here. Drag from the bin onto a track and it lands where you drop it. A scene clip references the scene, so it follows the pick; a creation or an upload references that file. ## Audio tracks Three free audio tracks under the video. Free means clips go anywhere — they do not ripple, and they snap to cuts and to the playhead when snapping is on. Each audio clip has volume, a fade-in and a fade-out, and in/out trims of its source. Sound follows the picture through transitions: a crossfade ramps the two clips' sound across each other, a fade through black ducks it, and the film's fade-out fades everything. Music under a crossfade does not jump. Voice lines from the [Voice tool](/studio/voice) are audio like any other: render the narration there, find it in the bin, drop it under the picture. ## Titles A titles track above the video, with four styles: **Title** (big, centered), **Subtitle** (bottom, centered), **Lower third** (a name tag, bottom left), **Credits** (centered, smaller). Each has a start and a length; drag to move, pull the end to stretch. Up to 40 titles per film. ## The monitor The preview is the compositor: what it draws at any point of the timeline is exactly what the export writes at that frame — transitions, titles, fit, fades. Scrub the ruler, play from the playhead, or click a clip to jump to it. ## Export **Export** renders the cut to one MP4 in the browser — using the browser's own video encoder, with the same compositor as the monitor, frame by frame, and the sound mixed offline with the same gain envelopes the preview plays. Nothing is uploaded to render; nothing leaves your machine until you choose to save. Settings: **720p** or **1080p** (the short side; a 9:16 film at 1080p is 1080 wide), and 24 frames per second by default. The bitrate adapts to the length so the file stays under 95 MB — a long film at 1080p gets a lower rate than a short one; if you need every bit, export in parts. Then: **Download** the file, and — ticked by default — **Save to Creations**. The saved cut lands in your [Library](/studio/library) as a video, so it plays, downloads and publishes like any clip, and it counts against your storage like any library file. Free. Re-export after a change and, if the previous cut was never published and nothing in the edit uses it, it is replaced rather than piled up. A saved cut remembers the edit it came from. Change the timeline afterwards and the film shows the cut as stale, so you never publish yesterday's edit by accident. Requirements: a recent Chrome, Edge or Safari. The export dialog says so if the browser cannot encode at the chosen size — 720p works where 1080p does not. ## Publish **Publish** sends the film to the [Community](/community). A plain storyboard cut — the auto cut with no trims, titles, sound or transitions — can go out as its picked takes back to back, no export needed. Anything edited needs the export first: the saved cut is then the film, as its single segment. Title and cover as usual; the script, the look, the seed and the takes stay private. A published film is reviewed by the team before it goes live on the shelf — the film shows **pending** until then. Unpublish any time; likes, comments and views survive a re-publish. ## Limits 80 clips on the video track, 40 audio clips over three tracks, 40 titles. The whole project — script, scenes and edit — fits in 400 KB, which is far more than any film uses; media is referenced by id, never stored in the project. ## FAQ ### Does exporting cost credits? No. The render happens in your browser; saving the cut uses your storage like any library file. Nothing is billed. ### Can I put a clip from another engine in the edit? Yes. The bin lists every creation in your library, whichever tool or engine made it, and your uploads. Drop it on the track. ### Why does the film say the cut is stale? You changed the timeline after the last export. The saved cut no longer matches the edit; export again before publishing, or publish the old cut knowingly. ### Can I export at 4K? Not yet. 720p and 1080p, so the file encodes reliably in the browser and stays under the size the upload accepts. [Open a film's Edit tab](/studio/cinema) and pull an edge — the ripple tells you the rest.