Trimming shaky footage

Trimming is the job that turns a folder of full clips into a timeline of usable sections. Hailo watches each clip for the parts that are steady and sharp, keeps those, and drops the shaky, soft and unusable parts. It costs nothing.

What trimming removes and keeps

For every clip, Hailo keeps the steady, in-focus windows and drops the rest. A handheld gimbal move is not judged against a locked-off wide, so deliberate movement is not treated as a mistake. Anything shorter than your shortest-clip setting is dropped even when it is steady.

It keeps:

• the steady, sharp sections of each clip, cut to their natural in and out points,
• whole clips that are steady all the way through.

It removes:

• shaky sections and camera bumps,
• soft sections, focus hunting and focus pops,
• zooms and push-ins,
• clips that are unusable from start to finish.

Nothing is deleted. The original files are untouched; trimming only decides what lands on the timeline.

How strict?

On the intake checklist, Adjust under Trim out the shaky footage offers three settings:

Setting	What it does
Lenient	Keeps more. Only clearly shaky or soft sections are dropped.
Balanced (default)	Splits each clip into its good sections and drops the rest.
Strict	Cuts more. Only the cleanest sections survive.

The same dial appears on the Trimming screen as the Trim aggressiveness slider, from Keep more to Cut more.

The four trim modes

The Trimming screen asks How should Hailo trim your clips?

Mode	What you get on the timeline
Don't trim anything	Every clip, whole, categorized by moment. You trim in your editor.
Give me all usable, non-shaky footage (default)	Every clip minus its obviously shaky or unusable sections.
Split multiple good takes within a clip	When one file holds two good takes with a shaky part between them, each take becomes its own piece.
Only give me the best take per file	One piece per file: its single smoothest, sharpest section.

Shortest clip you'd ever use?

The slider runs from 1.5 to 5 seconds in half-second steps and starts at 1.5 s. Any section shorter than this is dropped, steady or not. Raise it if you never cut with two-second shots; leave it low for fast-paced edits.

Trim-only runs cost nothing

If you untick Label the moments of the day and leave Trim out the shaky footage on, the run is trimming only. The start button reads Start processing with no token figure, and the line under it says "Trimming runs on this Mac. No analysis, no tokens." You get a trimmed timeline without moment labels.

Steady Clips and Full Clips

The name of the timeline Hailo writes tells you whether it was trimmed:

• Full Clips: a labels-only run. Every clip whole, labeled by moment.
• Steady Clips: a run with trimming. Each clip trimmed to its steady windows, shaky takes dropped.

Hailo writes one timeline per wedding. If you asked for trimming, the Steady Clips timeline is the deliverable, and re-exports update it rather than writing an untrimmed twin beside it. You can always get the untrimmed version with the Full Clips button on the results toolbar.

Reject reason badges

A clip that trimming drops entirely shows a red badge on its card saying why:

Badge	Meaning
Junk Footage	Lens cap, floor, pocket, a false start.
Out of Focus	Soft from start to finish.
Mostly Unusable	Only scraps of the clip were steady, none long enough to keep.
Very Soft	Focus never quite lands.
Focus Hunting	The lens racks back and forth through the clip.
Focus Pops	Sudden focus jumps.
Zoom / Push-in	A zoom or push-in through the clip.
Low Quality	Too noisy, dark or blurred to cut.
Not a select	Technically fine, but it did not earn a place in the selects. Select it by hand if you want it.
Borderline Quality	On the line; check it yourself before writing it off.

Rejected clips stay in the grid so you can override them: select the clip and re-export, or open it in QuickTime from the right-click menu to check.

Changing your mind after the run

You do not have to re-analyze to change trimming. Under the progress card, Reanalyze smoothness (keeps labels) re-runs only the trimming pass with your current settings, and Re-export with Current Preferences rebuilds the timeline. The trim mode is also in the Edit settings under Trim Mode. See Re-export and Re-analyzing.

Troubleshooting

Too much was cut. Move the strictness to Lenient (or the slider toward Keep more), lower the shortest-clip setting, then use Reanalyze Smoothness and re-export.

Good handheld footage was dropped. Handheld footage with deliberate movement can read as shaky. Try Lenient, or set the mode to Don't trim anything for that project and trim in your editor.

I want the whole clips back. Click Full Clips on the results toolbar to export an untrimmed timeline alongside.