| name | testimonial-edit |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| description | Edit testimonial videos into polished social clips. Triggers on: 'testimonial edit', 'edit testimonial', 'testimonial video', 'cut testimonial', 'testimonial clip', 'social proof video', 'customer video edit', 'case study video'. |
Testimonial Video Edit
Transform raw customer testimonial videos into polished, short social clips with AI-driven content selection, speaker intro cards, and multi-format output.
When to Use
- User has a raw testimonial video (customer interview, case study, social proof)
- Need to cut down a long testimonial to the best 30-90 seconds
- Need multi-format output (square + vertical, or landscape + square)
- Need speaker name/title/company intro card overlay
Before Starting
Gather from User (ask if not provided)
| Context | Default | Why |
|---|
| Video file path | (required) | Source testimonial |
| Speaker name | "Speaker" | Intro card + AI context |
| Speaker title | "" | Intro card subtitle |
| Speaker company | "" | Intro card subtitle |
| Caption style | pill | Professional testimonial default |
| Target duration | 30-60s | Social platform sweet spot |
| Auto-approve? | No | Show AI cuts for review first |
Prerequisites
- FFmpeg installed (
brew install ffmpeg)
DEEPGRAM_API_KEY in .env.local (transcription)ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in .env.local (AI content selection)- Remotion dependencies installed (
npm install)
Pipeline (10 Stages)
[1] PROBE ─→ [2] TRANSCRIBE ─→ [2.5] IDENTITY CHECK ─→ [3] AI SELECT ─→ [4] SILENCE ─→ [5] CROP
↓ (review gate)
[6] APPLY EDITS ─→ [6.5] CAPTION REVIEW ─→ [7] ENHANCE ─→ [8] MANIFEST ─→ [9] RENDER ─→ [10] QA
| # | Stage | Tool | Output |
|---|
| 1 | Probe | ffprobe | Resolution, FPS, duration, aspect |
| 2 | Transcribe | Deepgram Nova-3 | Word-level timestamps |
| 2.5 | Identity Check | CLI output | Confirms name/title/company against transcript opening |
| 3 | AI Content Selection | Claude API | Scored snippets, keep/cut decisions |
| 4 | Silence Detection | FFmpeg silencedetect | Silence segments |
| 5 | Crop & Scale | FFmpeg crop/scale | Format-specific crops |
| 6 | Apply Edits | FFmpeg trim+concat | edited.mp4 + re-transcribe |
| 6.5 | AI Caption Review | Claude API | Corrected words, auto-fixes, uncertain items |
| 7 | Enhance Audio | FFmpeg filters | Denoised, EQ'd, compressed |
| 8 | Build Manifest | TypeScript | Remotion input props |
| 9 | Render | Remotion | Final MP4 (x2 formats) |
| 10 | QA | ffprobe + frame extract | Verification |
Workflow
Step 1: Gather Input
Ask the user for the video path, speaker info, and preferences. Then run:
tsx scripts/process-testimonial.ts <video-path> \
--name "Ray Lee" \
--title "CEO" \
--company "Zero2.AI" \
--caption-style pill
This runs stages 1-3 and pauses at the interactive review gate.
Step 2: Review AI Content Selection
The pipeline outputs scored snippets to snippets.json and prints a summary:
KEEP [9/10] (12.3-18.1s) We saw a 40% increase in qualified leads...
CUT [3/10] (0.0-4.2s) Hi everyone, thanks for having me...
Present the AI's edit plan to the user. They can:
- Approve as-is → re-run with
--auto-approve
- Adjust keepSegments in
snippets.json → re-run with --auto-approve
Step 3: Render
Once approved, the pipeline continues through stages 4-10 automatically:
tsx scripts/process-testimonial.ts <video-path> \
--name "Ray Lee" \
--title "CEO" \
--company "Zero2.AI" \
--caption-style pill \
--auto-approve
Step 4: QA
Pipeline auto-extracts QA frames. Open outputs in Preview:
open output/testimonials/<job-id>/output-square.mp4
open output/testimonials/<job-id>/output-vertical.mp4
Step 5: Save to Nextcloud
Copy finished videos to ~/Nextcloud/Testimonials/ with descriptive titles:
mkdir -p ~/Nextcloud/Testimonials
cp output/testimonials/<job-id>/output-square.mp4 \
~/Nextcloud/Testimonials/"<Speaker Name> - <Company> Testimonial (Square).mp4"
cp output/testimonials/<job-id>/output-vertical.mp4 \
~/Nextcloud/Testimonials/"<Speaker Name> - <Company> Testimonial (Vertical).mp4"
Naming format: Ray Lian - Sarah2.ai Testimonial (Square).mp4. Nextcloud syncs automatically.
Output Format (Adaptive)
| Input Aspect | Primary Output | Secondary Output |
|---|
| Vertical (9:16) | 1080x1080 square | 1080x1920 vertical |
| Landscape (16:9) | 1920x1080 landscape | 1080x1080 square |
| Square (1:1) | 1080x1080 square | — |
Auto-detected from ffprobe. AI face detection (face-api.js 68-point landmarks) extracts a frame at 2s and computes crownY, chinY, faceCenterX, faceCenterY, leftEarX, rightEarX.
For vertical→square crops: the crop window is positioned so the crown touches the top of the frame. Full source width is preserved (no horizontal cropping, no blur background). This produces a tight, professional framing where the speaker's head fills the top of the square. Override with --crop-y.
AI Content Selection Rules
High-Value (Keep)
- Specific results: numbers, metrics, dollar amounts, timeframes
- Emotional impact: genuine enthusiasm, surprise, relief
- Social proof: client names, revenue figures, team adoption
- Problem/solution: "before" state, comparison to alternatives
Low-Value (Cut First)
- Introductions and sign-offs
- Filler and hedging ("um", "you know", "I think maybe")
- Repeated points (keep stronger version)
- Tangents and off-topic segments
- Generic praise without specifics
- Program pricing / cost details — NEVER reveal what the customer paid to join (e.g. "$1,500", "entry price", "how much it costs"). This is proprietary sales info that should not appear in public testimonial clips.
Sentence Completeness (Critical)
- Every kept segment MUST end on a complete thought
- If a sentence trails off mid-phrase ("I hope you believe...", "and he's really..."), either cut it or ensure it merges with the next segment
- The last kept segment is especially important — the video must end cleanly, not mid-sentence
- Review each kept segment's final words to confirm the thought is finished
Constraints
- Achieve 50%+ reduction from original
- Minimum 20s output (configurable with
--min-duration)
- Maximum 90s output (configurable with
--max-duration)
TestimonialIntroCard Component
| Property | Spec |
|---|
| Background | Transparent (overlays video) |
| Name | Big Shoulders, 68px bold, white, uppercase |
| Title / Company | Manrope, 32px, #E0E0E0 |
| Accent bar | #ED0D51, 4px height, beneath name |
| Position | Always centered (both axes, all formats) |
| Animation | Fade in 0.3s + slide up 20px, hold, fade out 0.3s |
| Timing | Starts at 1s, duration 4s (configurable). Captions show alongside intro (NOT suppressed). |
Brand System
| Element | Value |
|---|
| Background | #0D0D0D (near-black) |
| Accent | #ED0D51 (hot pink) |
| Headline font | Big Shoulders (bold, uppercase) |
| Body font | Manrope |
| Caption style | Pill (default for testimonials) |
| Caption safe zone | Bottom 15% |
| Music volume | 0.08 (lower than talking-head — voice clarity priority) |
| Audio normalization | -16 LUFS (two-pass loudnorm) |
Audio Enhancement Pipeline
- FFT Denoise:
afftdn=nr=12:nf=-25:tn=1
- Highpass 80Hz: Remove room rumble
- Lowpass 12kHz: Remove hiss
- EQ 200Hz +1dB: Warmth
- EQ 3kHz +2.5dB: Clarity/presence
- EQ 6.5kHz -2dB: De-essing
- Compressor: Smooth dynamics
- Loudnorm: -16 LUFS (two-pass with limiter)
CLI Reference
tsx scripts/process-testimonial.ts <video-path> [options]
Options:
--name "Speaker Name" Speaker name for intro card (required)
--title "CEO" Speaker title
--company "Acme Inc" Speaker company
--caption-style pill Caption style (pill|pop|karaoke|tiktok|subtitle-bar)
--no-captions Skip captions entirely
--no-music Skip background music
--no-silence-removal Keep all silences
--auto-approve Skip interactive review of AI snippets
--transcript <path> Use existing transcript (skip Deepgram, saves ~$0.01)
--crop-y <0-1> Manual crop Y position (0=top, default: 0.25)
--min-duration <sec> Minimum output duration (default: 20)
--max-duration <sec> Maximum output duration (default: 90)
--output <dir> Custom output directory
--render-only <manifest> Skip to render with existing manifest
Output Directory Structure
output/testimonials/<job-id>/
transcript.json — Word-level transcript (Deepgram)
transcript-edited.json — Re-transcribed after edits
transcript-reviewed.json — AI-reviewed captions (corrected words)
snippets.json — AI content selection (scores + reasons)
edited.mp4 — Trimmed video (AI cuts + silence removal)
enhanced.mp4 — Audio-enhanced version
cropped-square.mp4 — Cropped for square format
cropped-vertical.mp4 — Cropped for vertical format (if vertical input)
manifest-square.json — Remotion manifest (square)
manifest-vertical.json — Remotion manifest (vertical)
output-square.mp4 — Final rendered square (1080x1080)
output-vertical.mp4 — Final rendered vertical (1080x1920)
qa/ — QA verification frames
Cost Estimate
| Stage | Service | Cost |
|---|
| Transcribe | Deepgram Nova-3 | ~$0.01 (3min video) |
| AI Selection | Claude Sonnet | ~$0.02 |
| Caption Review | Claude Haiku | ~$0.005 |
| Render | Local (Remotion) | Free |
| Total | | ~$0.03/video |
Autonomy Rules
- Don't ask permission between pipeline stages (except the AI review gate)
- Auto-detect aspect ratio — only ask if ambiguous (very close to 1:1)
- Default to
pill captions for testimonials (professional, clean)
- Always pause at AI content selection for review unless
--auto-approve
- Skip re-transcription if
--transcript provided
- If video is already under 30s, skip AI content selection entirely
Known Gotchas
| Issue | Root Cause | Fix |
|---|
| 0% reduction / 1 giant sentence | Deepgram word-level data has bare words (no punctuation). Punctuation-based sentence splitting (/[.!?]$/) never matches. | Use pause-based splitting (gaps > 0.7s between words) + 30-word safety cap. Already fixed in testimonial-analyzer.ts. |
| Wrong speaker name on intro card | Deepgram phonetically transcribes names — "Ray Lian" becomes "ray leon", "Sarah2.ai" becomes "serra two dot a i". Must verify against transcript. | Pipeline shows identity check (stage 2.5) when not using --auto-approve. Always compare transcript opening against --name / --company flags. |
| Program pricing leaks into clip | Customers often mention what they paid ("$1,500", "entry price"). This is proprietary sales info. | AI analyzer prompt has explicit rule to cut all pricing/cost segments. |
| Last sentence trails off mid-thought | Pause-based chunking can split mid-sentence if there's a brief pause. Last segment is most visible. | AI analyzer prompt enforces sentence completeness — especially for the final kept segment. |
| Captions hidden during intro card | Previous implementation suppressed captions for first 5s. User wants captions visible alongside intro. | Caption opacity wrapper removed from index.tsx. Captions render from frame 0. |
| Stale snippets.json reused | --auto-approve loads existing snippets.json if present. After changing analyzer rules, old snippets persist. | Delete snippets.json before re-running when analyzer logic changes. |
Files
| File | Purpose |
|---|
scripts/process-testimonial.ts | Main pipeline orchestrator |
lib/video/testimonial-analyzer.ts | Claude API content scoring |
lib/video/caption-review.ts | AI caption review — fixes STT errors, flags uncertain names |
lib/video/face-detection.ts | face-api.js 68-point landmark detection → FacePosition |
lib/video/testimonial-crop.ts | FFmpeg crop/scale (crown-at-top for vertical→square) + edit plan |
remotion/compositions/talking-head/components/testimonial-intro-card.tsx | Speaker intro overlay |
remotion/compositions/talking-head/schemas/manifest.ts | Extended with TestimonialIntroConfig |
remotion/compositions/talking-head/index.tsx | Renders TestimonialIntroCard layer |
Reused (not modified)
| File | What |
|---|
lib/video/transcribe.ts | Deepgram Nova-3 transcription |
lib/video/silence-detection.ts | Silence detection |
scripts/render-short.ts | Remotion rendering + loudnorm |
