A rough view of your shoot in seconds, before the AI starts
Basecut 4.1.1 measures every clip first. Plain measurements for shake, focus, exposure and repeated takes run in the first seconds of an import, and the results appear as a rough view while the AI is still working: how many clips look usable, shaky, soft, dark or blown out, or like a repeat of another take.
Basecut is our product. Measured on 2026-10-24.
What you see, and when
The rough view appears in the import card while the AI runs, and clips with a flag get a small marker on their card. You can start checking the flagged clips while the AI is still working.
On a 20-clip test shoot of 4K DJI footage, 449 seconds in total, the first clip result appeared after about 6 to 10 seconds. The measurements for all 20 clips finished in about 108 to 111 seconds and used about 0.5 to 0.6 GB of memory at the peak. A second run over the same clips is much faster, because Basecut reuses the saved measurements.
The 6 second figure is the app on a cold start. The 10 second figure is a measurement-only run of the same 20 clips. Your numbers depend on your computer and your footage.
What it measures
| Flag | What is measured | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| Shaky | How much the picture moves from frame to frame, and which stretches stay steady. | A deliberately handheld action shot will be flagged. You decide. |
| Soft | Sharpness across sampled frames of the clip. | Our test shoot had no truly out-of-focus clip, so we have not yet proven how well this flag catches real soft footage. |
| Dark or blown out | Overall brightness, and the share of overexposed pixels. | A scene that is dark on purpose will be flagged. |
| Duplicate | Near-identical takes, matched by a small visual fingerprint of sampled frames. | Repeats are matched on the picture alone, so two similar shots can be grouped. |
| Test pattern | Color bars and similar test patterns. | A test pattern is not a shot you can use. |
When the measurement and the AI disagree
On technical facts the measurement wins. If the math says a clip is shaky and the AI says it is steady, Basecut shows the shaky flag and shows the AI's label as a note beside it. On content, such as who is in the shot, what happens and whether it belongs in the film, the AI decides. Neither one picks your selects for you.
What the rough view does not do
- It does not rate or rank clips. Hero, keeper, maybe and skip still come from the AI.
- It does not replace the AI pass. It gives you something to look at while that pass runs.
- A flag is a measurement, not a verdict. Decide for yourself whether a shaky clip is shaky on purpose.
- It does not find the best moment in a clip. That is the AI's job, and then yours.
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Questions people ask
What is the rough view in Basecut?
Before the AI starts, Basecut measures every clip for shake, focus, exposure and repeated takes, and shows a rough view of the shoot (usable, shaky, soft, dark or blown out, duplicate) while the AI is still working. On a 20-clip test shoot of 4K footage, the first clip result appeared after about 6 to 10 seconds. The measurements run on your computer. On shake, focus, exposure and repeats the measurement wins over the AI label, and the AI still judges content.
How soon does the rough view appear?
On a 20-clip test shoot of 4K DJI footage (449 seconds in total), the first clip result appeared after about 6 to 10 seconds, and the measurements for all 20 clips finished in about 108 to 111 seconds. Your time depends on your computer and your footage.
Does the rough view replace the AI cull?
No. The rough view is a set of measurements. It does not rate or rank clips. Hero, keeper, maybe and skip still come from the AI, and the creative pass stays yours.
What happens when the measurement and the AI disagree?
On technical facts, which are shake, focus, exposure and repeated takes, the measurement wins and the AI's label is shown as a note beside it. On content, such as who is in the shot and what happens, the AI decides.
Does the rough view send my footage anywhere?
No. The measurements are computed on your computer, on the same machine that runs the import. The AI step that follows depends on the engine you chose: Argus runs on your computer, and Basecut Cloud or your own Gemini key send reduced-size sections to Google.
See it on your own shoot
Point Basecut at a real card dump and watch the rough view fill in. 14-day free trial, 5 free exports, no card.
Watch the demo