Playback Now Matches Your Export Timing

Playback, the runtime timer and your XML export now agree on pauses, so the duration you hear while editing is the duration you get on the timeline.

What Changed

You'll find Pauses in the same page menu on the Cleanup, Select and Arrange screens. Keep is the default: when two lines sit next to each other in the recording with nothing else between them, playback plays them as one continuous stretch, every pause included, exactly like the XML export. Switch to Cut and playback skips straight from one line to the next, with no gap.

The Problem It Removes

Before this, what you heard while reviewing a selection could run a different length than what showed up in the exported timeline. A pause that felt natural in playback might vanish on export, or a line order that looked tight in the Arrange screen could land with unexpected gaps once it hit your editor. That mismatch meant double checking timing by ear and then again after export.

Now the runtime timer counts only the pauses the export will keep. If the timer says a selection runs a certain length, that's the length you'll get on the timeline too.

How It Works

Say you're building a highlight reel for a podcast host and you've pulled three consecutive lines from one answer. With Pauses set to Keep, playback runs them together with the natural breathing room between sentences intact, and the runtime timer reflects that full stretch. Drop in a line from somewhere else in the recording, maybe an aside the host added later, and it still jumps straight in with no added gap, since it isn't adjacent to the line before it. Flip the setting to Cut when you want a tighter cut with no pauses at all between any of the lines, adjacent or not.

Who This Helps

Anyone building a client-ready cut before it reaches the editor: podcast editors trimming an interview, documentary editors assembling a sequence of adjacent moments, or agencies pulling social clips where pacing needs to be exact before export. If you've ever sent a timeline to your editor only to find the pauses didn't match what you expected, this closes that gap.

Try it on your next selection in ScriptCut.