Riverside Editor Guide: Transcript Editing, AI Cleanup and Exports

Riverside's editor comes with every plan, Free included, and it works two ways at once: you cut by deleting words in the transcript, then fine-tune on a multitrack timeline. The catch sits at export. On Free, exports top out at 720p and carry a Riverside watermark; removing it and exporting 1080p or 4K starts at Pro, which costs $35 a month billed monthly or $24 a month billed annually ^[1]. Every video export is 24 FPS with 44.1 kHz audio, whatever you recorded at. Handing the timeline to Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro is a Business feature. For podcasts and interviews, the built-in editor covers most jobs. For frame-rate-sensitive finishing work, plan on a second tool.

How transcript and timeline editing fit together

Every recording opens with its transcript beside a timeline that holds each participant on a separate track. Delete a sentence in the text and the matching audio and video go with it; transcript sections can also be cut, copied, duplicated and pasted with the usual keyboard shortcuts. Deleted text can be shown again and restored later, with one exception: material removed with Split does not come back that way. You can correct the transcript on every plan. The corrections flow into the captions and, from Pro up, into downloaded transcripts and subtitles. Editing runs in Chrome or Edge 110 or newer with hardware acceleration on, or in the Mac app.

The editor was rebuilt with Riverside 2.0 on 30 June 2026, and the changes matter if you learned the old one ^[2]. Cut sections now disappear from the timeline instead of showing grayed out. Any track can be split and moved, including text, image and video overlays and music. A collapsed view keeps tracks in sync, while an expanded view gives per-track control and sets the volume of single sections inside a track. Tracks are locked by default. Version history groups one editor's changes within about 15 minutes, and restoring an older version adds a new one rather than deleting anything.

One-click cleanup, and what each tool really does

The cleanup tools sit in the AI tools panel, and most of them work on the Free plan. Pause removal comes with a slider for how aggressive it is. Filler-word removal shows a review card per filler with a Remove all option; its categories include contextual fillers, noises, screen share and media fillers, and harsh cuts that may clip neighbouring words. Check those by hand. Smart Mute and Smart Layouts are on all plans too, though applying Smart Layouts overrides any scenes already on the timeline (it can be undone). Magic Episodes chains Smart Layouts, Smart Mute, pause removal and animated captions over a whole recording.

Audio is where the plan line shows. Anyone can try Magic Audio, adjustable from 0% to 100% per track, but exporting the enhanced result needs Pro or above. Turning it on disables the per-track Normalize audio levels and Remove background noise toggles. Every export still gets EBU R128 loudness normalization, which cannot be switched off. Riverside itself recommends Magic Audio over the noise toggle, so the toggles mainly suit people who want lighter processing or are on Free and cannot export Magic Audio anyway.

Find Fluff, on paid plans, has Co-Creator review an edit and suggest cuts such as redundant takes and chatter as comments, with the reasons explained in English. Gaze fix works only on tracks recorded in Riverside, not on screen shares or uploaded files. VideoDub, from Pro, replaces up to two words at a time with lip-synced AI audio; full sentences are not supported. Smooth cuts, also from Pro, does not work on 4K video or audio-only recordings. Smooth cuts, AI B-roll and AI Translation spend AI credits, a starting balance on paid plans that does not renew monthly; our Riverside AI guide covers what each tool costs.

Layouts, brand kit and captions

The rebuilt canvas lets you drag and resize speaker tiles into any layout; the old editor offered only predefined templates. A change can apply to This scene only or to Similar scenes with the same participants and layout, and transitions now sit between scenes. Scenes set in the studio do not carry over to the editor, so layout work starts here. Clips come in 16:9, 9:16 and 1:1, and background frames export up to 3840 x 2160 for 16:9 4K. Motion graphics such as name tags, quote cards, waveforms, stats and screen callouts are on all plans, as are logos, tile spacing and rounded corners.

The brand kit needs Pro or above. It stores logos, colors, text styles, caption styles, media, intros and outros, and on Business the owner and admins can lock it so editors apply the brand without changing it. Open captions are built from the transcript on all plans, with word timing most accurate in English. You can hide a word from the captions without removing it from the transcript. Saving caption presets, which can become the default for Magic Clips, needs Pro. Zoom effects need Pro as well and work on image overlays, video overlays and participant tiles, not on text.

The media library adds license-free music, a sound effects library, free Pexels photos and royalty-free video overlays. One rule catches YouTube publishers. Music from Riverside's library needs an attribution line in the YouTube description, using a code generated in the export panel. Each code covers a single video, and a later editing session issues a different one, so copy it at export time.

Review links, comments and a second editor

Share for review, on Pro and above, sends a link where reviewers comment on the edit without a Riverside account. Protecting that link with a password or an expiry of 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days is Business only. Comments live inside the project. They are not saved into an exported edit, and duplicating an edit does not copy them across, so resolve feedback before you branch versions. Markers added during recording with the M key appear as comments in the editor, and Business users can carry comments and markers into a timeline export.

Inviting someone to edit is a separate cost. Pro is for one person and sharing a login is not allowed; on Pro, Grow and Webinar each outside editor needs the Editor seat add-on at $19 a month or $168 a year, while Business adds editors at no extra cost ^[3]. The seat cannot be bought during a trial. By our arithmetic, Pro plus one editor comes to $54 a month billed monthly or $456 a year billed annually. Pro billed annually at $288 a year beats paying $35 a month once you keep it nine months or more.

The 14-day trial needs a card and charges automatically on day 15 unless cancelled. The published refund policy covers Pro and Grow: a full refund on request within 24 hours of a monthly purchase or 14 days of a yearly one. Otherwise fees are non-refundable; our Riverside pricing guide has the full billing rules. An editor on the add-on can view, download and remove recordings, use the editor, publish to YouTube, and use AI Voice, VideoDub and AI Translation when credits remain. The same seat can invite guests and producers, start and stop recordings, adjust studio settings and top up AI credits. Riverside's help page lists no member management. That suits a trusted freelance editor, since the seat can spend credits. It is not a workspace with roles.

Exporting, and handing the edit to another tool

Video exports are MP4, with audio-only exports as WAV HD or MP3 at 44.1 kHz; uploaded external audio files export as mono WAV or as MP3 at 64 kb/s ^[4]. One export can run up to 4 hours. Each participant's resolution is limited by their camera, though the composited frame can exceed it. You can keep editing while the file renders, and an email arrives when it is ready; on Business only the member who exported gets it. Exports, not raw recordings, can be saved to Google Drive on every plan. Export links expire after 7 days. The 24 FPS rule holds even when Business records at 25 or 29.97 FPS, because the higher rate reaches only the raw tracks.

Timeline export is the Business route out. The package carries an XML or AAF file, aligned and raw WAV tracks per participant, aligned constant-frame-rate MP4 video, Media Board files, comments and markers. Trims, cuts (including filler and pause removal) and chapters survive; other AI tools, inserted media and overlays do not. Premiere Pro reads markers but not chapters, while Final Cut Pro keeps chapter markers. The ZIP link also expires after 7 days. On self-serve plans the alternative is downloading separate tracks, which counts against monthly separate-track hours: 15 on Pro, 20 on Grow, 25 on Webinar.

Editing on a phone

Mobile editing is basic. On iOS you edit through Co-Creator, asking it in text to remove a word or phrase; Split is not available on mobile, and trims come as presets of 15, 30 or 60 seconds. Edits started in the app can be continued on a computer, but edits made on a computer open view only on iOS. Android has no Co-Creator: you can create new edits but not change ones started on a computer. Keep heavy edits on the desktop.

The bottom line

Riverside's editor earns its place for spoken-word video: transcript editing, cleanup tools and captions work on every plan, and the rebuilt timeline fixed the rigid layouts of the old one. Its limits are fixed and worth knowing before a deadline. Exports are 24 FPS at 44.1 kHz, Free stops at 720p with a watermark, and a hand-off to Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro needs Business. Start on Free to learn it. Move to Pro when the watermark, 4K, the brand kit or review links matter, and budget an Editor seat for every outside collaborator.