Manual cutting

The Manual cutting tab cuts a piece out of a video file that you choose, between two times that you type. Nothing is automatic: you pick the file, you pick the start and the end, you pick the name.

When you need it

Automatic cutting handles a normal event without help. Manual cutting is the fallback for the cases it cannot handle:

If you find yourself doing this for many contests, stop and fix the cause instead — almost always a wrong Cutting Start Mode, a wrong scene key on the FR Recorder, or clock drift between the machines. See Troubleshooting.

Before you start

• Automatic cutting must be stopped. You cannot switch tabs while it is running.
• You need to know which file to cut from. That is the hard part; see Finding the right source file.
• You need to know the times. Watch the recording and note them down.

The tab

Step by step

1. Choose the source file

Click Select File and pick the long recording. It is read straight from wherever it is, including a network share on an FR Recorder.

Once loaded, its path appears in the Source File box and the first frame appears in the preview panel.

2. Type the start time

In From, type where the clip should begin, counted from the start of the source file — this is an offset into the file, not a time of day.

Three formats are accepted:

Click Show next to From to jump the preview there and check that you have the right moment.

Working out the From value

The recording usually starts when the mat opened in the morning, so the moment you want may be hours in. Subtract one time of day from the other:

   moment you want to start   13:59:39
   recording started at     − 13:57:22
   ─────────────────────────────────────
   From                     = 00:02:17

FR Recorder shows the start time of every recording in its Recordings list, which is where the second number comes from.

3. Type the end time — or the duration

Fill in either To or Duration, not both. The tab enforces this: typing in one clears the other.

To is usually easier: you watch the recording, note the two times, and type them in. Duration is handy when you want a fixed length — twenty seconds around an incident, say.

Click Show next to To to check the end position.

A complete worked example

You want 20 seconds starting at 13:59:39, from a recording that began at 13:57:22:

Both ways produce exactly the same 20-second clip.

4. Type the output file name

This is where care pays off. The clip goes into the output directory set on the Automatic cutting tab, under exactly the name you type here.

Use the same naming pattern as automatic cutting, so the file sits alongside the others and anyone can see what it is:

<contest code>__<mat>__<camera angle>.mp4

For example:

cont_cup_jun_mac2026_0007_m_p100_0009__mat1__Front.mp4

Note the double underscores between the three parts, and the .mp4 at the end.

For something that is not a contest at all — a ceremony, an incident — any descriptive name will do, as long as it ends in .mp4. It will not be recognised as a contest anyway.

5. Press Start Cutting

The fields grey out, a progress bar appears, and the log reports what is happening. When the clip is finished the log says Cutting <name> finished. and the form unlocks.

Stop Cutting cancels a cut in progress. A partly written file is deleted rather than left behind, so you cannot end up publishing half a clip.

If something is missing, a Validation failed box lists it — a missing source file, a missing From, neither To nor Duration, or an empty output name.

After cutting: the Video Ingester

This is the part people forget.

Manual cuts get no companion .json file. Automatic cuts get one, and it is what tells the Video Ingester which contest the video belongs to. A manual cut has no contest attached to it, so the Ingester cannot know.

What that means in practice:

1. The Ingester notices the new file and creates a job.
2. Because there is no companion file, the job sits at status pending and does not upload.
3. You have to enter the contest data yourself.

To do that in the Video Ingester:

1. Click the pending job in the job grid.
2. Click the Contest data button that appears.
3. Enter the contest code without the camera angle, for example cont_cup_jun_mac2026_0007_m_p100_0009.
4. Choose the angle — front or rear.
5. Confirm.

The job then moves on and uploads normally. See the Ingester's manual mode for the full description.

Finding the right source file

Usually the hardest part of a manual cut.

The recordings live on the FR Recorder machines, in a shared folder. You can reach them from Windows Explorer by typing the recorder's address in the address bar:

\\192.168.1.60\

If Windows asks for credentials, see Checking the FR Recorder shared folder by hand.

You are looking for the recording that covers the moment you need, for the right mat and the right camera. FR Recorder's own Recordings list is the reliable way to find it: it shows each recording with its session, scene (mat), angle and start time.

Once you have the file, the second problem is working out where inside it your moment is. The recording usually starts when the mat opened in the morning, so a fight at 14:30 might be five hours in. The quickest method:

1. Note the time of day the fight happened.
2. Note the time of day the recording started (FR Recorder shows it).
3. Subtract one from the other — that is roughly your From value.
4. Use Show to check, and adjust.

Manual cutting and the queue

Manual cutting uses its own dedicated cutting processor, separate from the ones used for automatic cutting. That is why it has its own progress bar and its own log.

It still uses the same two engines described in the two cutting engines. For a manual cut, the CutterV2 decides which one by checking whether the source file is still being written:

• If there is no half-written working file beside it, the recording is finished → FFmpeg, which is fast.
• If there is one, but the recorder has not added a frame for more than 30 seconds → FFmpeg.
• Otherwise the recording is live → MediaLooks, which is slower but safe on a growing file.

You do not choose; it is decided for you. It only explains why cutting an old recording takes seconds and cutting one that is still rolling takes considerably longer.