AI assistant editor · DaVinci Resolve

It edits with you. It asks before it touches a timeline.

Sottocut is a local-first assistant editor that lives inside your open Resolve project. It scores your footage, proposes the cut, and verifies every change it makes — by reading it back from the timeline.

Download for Mac See how it works

Apple Silicon · DaVinci Resolve 21 · 14-day free trial

project SOTTO BENCHtimeline CEREMONYfps 24✓ 8 markers placed — read back, all match

The problem

The edit isn't the hard part. Getting to the edit is.

A two-hour ceremony holds maybe six minutes that matter. Finding them — scrubbing, logging, stringing out selects — eats the day before the creative work even starts. AI tools promise help, then generate footage you didn't shoot or wreck a timeline you can't get back.

How it works

Score. Confirm. Verified.

The whole loop runs on your machine, inside your open project — and every write is governed.

01 — Score

It finds the moments

Sottocut transcribes on-device and scores your timeline for the moments that carry the story — vows, speeches, reactions — ranked and marked, ready to review.

On-device transcription · scored moments

02 — Confirm

You approve the plan

Ask the Co-Editor for a string-out, captions, stills, a render. It shows you exactly what it will do — files, frames, timecodes — and waits for your yes.

Proposal-gated writes · nothing silent

03 — Verified

It proves what it did

After every change, Sottocut reads the timeline back and shows the receipt. If Resolve did something different, you see that too — honestly.

Read-back verification · no fake green checks

See it work

A real wedding. A real timeline. No staging.

DEMO — Ceremony to recap, start to finish

DEMO — Co-Editor: propose, confirm, verify

What ships

A full assistant-editor pipeline.

◆

Moment scoring

Speech-aware scoring finds the lines that matter and marks them on your timeline — with the marker count verified, not guessed.

≋

Story Mode

Reorder scored moments into a narrative arc and compile straight to a new timeline. Your project stays additive — nothing deleted.

Captions

Styled captions generated from your on-device transcript, with a build report that admits mismatches instead of hiding them.

✂

Co-Editor chat

A full-page chat that drives 40 validated tools — and shows you a plan before anything writes. Paste a screenshot; it can see it.

⇩

Deliver

Render presets, batch queues, dual-cut archival + marketing pairs, stills at your scored moments — files read back from disk.

♪

Audio sync

Waveform sync for dual-system sound, verified per clip — because Resolve's API says "done" even when it isn't.

Local-first

Your footage never leaves. Your key, your costs.

Nothing to upload, nothing to leak

Transcription runs on your Neural Engine. The bridge talks to Resolve on localhost. Sottocut sends no analytics, no telemetry, no footage — the only network call is the one you configure: your own Anthropic API key, for the Co-Editor, billed to you at cost.

on-device whisperlocalhost bridgeBYO API keyzero telemetry

plan → stills at 3 scored moments

confirm → operator approved

write → 3 files exported

✓ read back from disk — 3 of 3 exist, frames match

quit → 0 orphan processes

Pricing

Try it on a real project first.

14 days, full access, no card. Then pick how you'd rather pay.

Launch price

One-time

$129 once

Yours forever, this major version
One editor, two Macs
All updates in v0.x
Bring your own Anthropic key

Start free trial

Monthly

$15 / month

Same app, every feature
One editor, two Macs
Cancel anytime
Bring your own Anthropic key

Start free trial

FAQ

Fair questions.

Does this replace DaVinci Resolve?

No — it lives inside it. Sottocut drives your open Resolve project through the scripting API: it organizes, scores, marks, captions, and renders in the project you already have open. You stay the editor. It's the assistant.

Can it wreck my project?

Every write is proposal-gated — you see the plan and approve it before anything happens — and verified by reading the result back from Resolve afterward. Destructive operations (deleting clips, timelines) are excluded by policy. You should still keep backups; the app makes you acknowledge that on first run, because we mean it.

Why do I bring my own API key?

The Co-Editor runs on Claude via your own Anthropic key — billed to you at cost, no markup, no middleman. Your transcripts and screenshots go from your machine to Anthropic and nowhere else. Most editing sessions cost cents.

What are the requirements?

An Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later), macOS 14+, and DaVinci Resolve 21. Transcription runs on-device via the Neural Engine — that's why Apple Silicon is required.

Is this a subscription trap?

You can buy it once — $129, yours for the major version — or pay monthly and cancel whenever. The 14-day trial is the full app with no card up front. The refund policy is the trial: try it on a real project before you pay.