How to quickly edit a zoom recording to create engaging clips from it

Editing a zoom recording is almost always a good idea especially if you plan on sharing it publically for others to see later on.

Zoom recordings can be webinars, meetings, or even video podcasts and other forms of virtual events that have content. 

Maybe you’re not just looking to trim the start and end.

Maybe you’re looking for how to edit the middle of a zoom recording, add subtitles to it to repurpose and create clips for social or simply shorten it down.

Perhaps your zoom recording needs to be edited because it’s long-form in nature and you’re planning to distribute it to your audience via social media, embed it in a blog, or even share it as part of a newsletter or email sequence. 

Either way, it’s no surprise that humans officially have the attention span less than that of a goldfish.

Having said that, if you want to improve your chances of properly resonating and engaging your audience with the recorded video, it pays to trim or edit your zoom recordings down to where the key moments are.

You can use chopcast to quickly trim your zoom recordings to create highlights based on the key moments for social media or wherever your audience is. 

How to edit zoom recordings

1. Upload your zoom recording to chopcast
2. Get automatic zoom recording highlight clips
3. Create your own zoom clips based on keyword or topics
4. Trim and generate subtitles to your zoom recording clips
5. Edit your zoom recording clips
6. Export and repeat

Read on to learn exactly how to do all of the above. Since you don't need to download chopcast, this process will work for both Mac and PC users.

1. Upload your zoom recording to chopcast

Start by uploading your zoom recording to chopcast. You can create an account in 2 minutes for free. If your zoom recording is on YouTube, you can also just copy the YouTube URL to it. 

Once uploaded, chopcast will take a few minutes to analyze your zoom recording and create meaningful clips for you as well make it easier for you to trim and edit your own clips (more on that below).

2. Get automatic zoom recording highlight clips

Once your video has been fully analyzed, you can head over to Assets > Clips to review the auto-generated clips based on the key moments that were picked up.

You can export any of those clips as mp4 directly with the subtitling on them. You can also export the .SRT (subtitle files) separately if you wish.

3. Create your own zoom clips based on keyword or topics

Want to edit your zoom recording for specific parts yourself? That too, my friend, is a walk in the park.

In chopcast, head over to Video > Start Chopping

This will open up the video editor flow that will allow you to trim your recordings as needed.

Pro Tip: These steps work with other videos too, not just zoom recordings (!)

If you already know exactly what you want to trim, you can hit Next to manually select the start and end time on your zoom recording.

If you are looking to create clips based on keywords or suggested topics (recommended) read on!

The easiest way to get clip ideas from your zoom recordings that you can edit further is using the suggested topics feature.

It’s the bar of topics you see at the top of the video, and you can hit Shuffle to keep seeing new topics.

Simply click on a suggested topic to preview it below

These topics can give you ideas on what was mentioned and create clip suggestions from your zoom recordings. You can edit them further in the next page.

If you already know what topic or keyword you’re searching for, go ahead and type it in the search bar to scan your zoom recording for it.

For example, if I’m search for the word “powerpoint”, chopcast will share all available clip ideas revolving around this topic that I can now edit and fine tune further in the zoom recording.

Mark all the clips from your video that you want to edit further on the left side.

When you’re done, scroll back to the top of the page. In the right hand corner, click Next.

4. Trim and generate subtitles to your zoom recording clips

Now comes the fun part!

Here is where you can fine-tune each clip you create by resizing the start and end points, review the auto-generated subtitles, and more. We’ll cover the basics here.

First of all, you can resize the start and end time of the clip by dragging the yellow clip handles on the left and right side of the timeline.

You can preview the clip at any time by clicking the big black play button on the left side of the timeline.

At the same time, if you scroll down you will notice the clip has already been subtitled for you.

Tweaking the start and end of the clip will show you the subtitles for your exact selection.

If you’re missing a few words, you can drag the clip selectors a bit more till you’re happy with it, or simply click to add your own text.

5. Edit your zoom recording clips

You can also edit your zoom clips further by using the Title, Subtitle, Aspect Ratio, Logo, and Intro/Outro tabs at the top.

As an example, let’s edit the subtitle styling to match the look and feel of your brand.

Head over to the Subtitles tab

Edit the background and font colors using the color selectors. You can also choose from 3 background modes as shown.

As always, you can preview the clip by clicking the black play button to the left of the timeline.

Using the clip selector, you can now repeat this process for all the other clips.

6. Export and repeat

You’re almost there. When you’re done with everything, click Next to head to the export screen.

Select all the clips you want to export.

Once they’re ready, you’ll be able to access your newly edited zoom recording clips in the Clips section just like you did the auto-generated clips in step 2.

So, can you edit a zoom recording?

You absolutely can edit it using chopcast.

We’ve covered how to generate automatic clips, as well as to create your own - both manually and based on key topics and keywords that matter to you and your audience. 

Have fun editing your zoom recordings!

Ready to get started? Sign up for chopcast today and don't let another zoom recording key moment go by without chopping it.