AutoCut Football - Help Documentation

Overview

AutoCut Football is an AI-powered video analysis tool that automatically detects and clips individual plays from your sideline football game footage. Using advanced machine learning and OCR technology, it identifies play boundaries, reads game information graphics, and helps you create individual play clips with minimal manual effort.

Getting Started

Loading a Video

1. Click the Open Video button (or press Cmd+O on macOS)
2. Select a football game video file (MP4, MOV, or other standard formats)
3. Wait for the video to load and analysis to begin automatically
4. Note: First time use after installing a new version may take a few minutes to complete the machine learning model for your device

Game Info

The app tries to read team names from the broadcast graphics. To check or change them, click the game title at the top of the play list (it reads Game Info until anything is filled in). The Game Info window has:

• Game Date - Pick the date from the calendar, or Clear it
• Your Team - Choose Visiting or Home. This tells the app which plays are offense and which are defense
• Visiting Team Name and Home Team Name

• If you enter your team's name under Settings → Your Team, the app picks your side automatically whenever that name matches the visiting or home team. Choosing Your Team when that side's name is blank fills in your saved name.
• If the date and both team names are still empty the first time you open the play information editor, the app shows Game Info first. The editor opens after you click OK or Cancel.
• If there are no team name/score graphics in the video, type the names yourself or leave them blank

Analysis Process

Once a video is loaded, the app automatically begins analyzing it:

• A progress bar shows the analysis status
• Plays appear in the sidebar as they are detected
• You can cancel analysis at any time using the Stop button
• Analysis results are cached for faster re-opening of the same video

Understanding the Interface

Main Layout

The app uses a split-view layout with two main areas:

Play List Information

Each play in the list shows:

• Play Number - Sequential number (e.g., Play 1, Play 2). Once a play has a possession and a play type and you have set Your Team in Game Info, the number is colored: green for offense, red for defense, and orange for kicking plays (kickoffs, punts, and field goals)
• Timestamp - Video start time in MM:SS format
• Duration - Length of the play
• Down & Distance - Current down and yards to go (e.g., "2nd & 7")
• Quarter & Clock - Game quarter and time remaining
• Score - Score at the time of the play
• Marks - A yellow warning triangle for a play that doesn't follow the play before it, a green trophy for a scoring play (points entered), and a yellow flag for a play with penalty yards

Playback Controls

• Play/Pause Button - Start or stop video playback
• Speed Selector - Choose from 1x, 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x, or 2x
• Scrubber - Drag to seek within the current play
• Time Display - Shows current position and duration

Play Detection

How It Works

AutoCut Football uses a machine learning model trained to identify when plays start and end. The detection process is not always perfect due to the variable nature of football plays. However it should get your really close to your desired play cuts most of the time requiring only minor manual adjustments which the UI is designed to make easy.

What Gets Detected

Gaps Between Plays

Gaps longer than 30 seconds are listed separately on the off chance that a play was missed. If needed you can quickly scrub through it and delete it if there isn't a play in it or create a new play at the appropriate spot in the gap.

Editing Plays

Adjusting Play Boundaries

Fine-tune where each play starts and ends using these buttons or keyboard shortcuts:

Creating New Plays

Create plays from gaps or split existing plays:

• From anywhere in video: Use the timeline scrubber in the video to navigate to a missed play, press [ to set start, then ] to set end
• From a gap: Navigate to the start of a play, press [ to set start, then ] to set end
• Split a play: Seek to the split point and press S or click Split in toolbar. The list stays in time order
• Create to next play: Press I when in a gap
• Create from previous play: Press O when in a gap

Deleting Plays

Remove unwanted plays from your list:

• Select the play(s) you want to delete
• Press Delete or Backspace
• Or click the Delete button in the toolbar
• Multi-select is supported for batch deletion (useful for multiple incorrect plays from pre-game, halftime, or post-game footage)

Play Information

Record what happened on each play. The information appears in the play list, drives the play colors, filter, and Game Report, and can be exported as a CSV file.

Opening the Editor

• Select a play and click the pencil (Edit Play) button in the play header, or press Cmd+I on macOS
• The editor stays open as you move between plays, so you can work through the game play by play
• Changes save automatically when you move to another play, close the editor, switch away from the app, or quit it
• Close it with Cmd+I (or the pencil) or the X button. Esc on macOS ends typing and saves, but leaves the editor open
• Empty fields start from the previous play: the score, possession, and field position carry over, and the down moves ahead

Fields

Choosing PAT sets Type to Field Goal, and KO sets Type to Kick. Distance isn't used for PAT or KO. Complete, Incomplete, and Pick need Type set to Pass, and Sack needs Run or Pass. Fumble and Pick are turnovers. Down and Result wrap into rows of three. A run with no other result is recorded as a rush automatically, so there's no Rush button. Click a selected button again to clear it.

Yard Line is measured from the team with the ball. Enter a negative number when the ball is on that team's own side and a positive number on the opponent's side: -25 is its own 25 and 25 is the opponent's 25 (typing +25 works too). Enter 50 for midfield. Valid values are -49 to -1, 1 to 49, and 50; 0 and numbers past 50 aren't accepted, so the field is marked invalid until you fix it.

Tap or click a selected choice again to clear it. On macOS, when a row of choices has keyboard focus you can type its first letter or number to pick it. Punt uses T because P is Pass, and OT uses O.

Voice Commands

Say what happened on a play instead of typing it, and move through the game with your voice.

Using the Microphone

• Select a play, then click the microphone button in the play header (or press Cmd+D on macOS)
• The first time, allow microphone and speech recognition access. Speech is recognized on your device, in English
• The button turns red and pulses while it is listening. Words the app hasn't used yet appear in a small bubble
• Pause briefly after each phrase. The app applies it and keeps listening, following you to the next play
• Click the microphone again to stop. It also stops on its own after about 12 seconds of silence

Entering Play Information

Say any of these in one phrase. Only the fields you mention change.

Points aren't set by voice. Enter them in the editor.

Controlling Plays and Video

Filtering Plays

Show only the plays you want to review. Filtering hides plays from the list but never deletes them.

• Click the Filter button in the play list toolbar. On Mac and iPad the filter opens beside the video, on iPhone in landscape it covers the video, and on iPhone in portrait it opens as its own page
• Choose any of Possession, Down, Type, Result, and Points. Pick several in one group to match any of them. Down includes PAT and KO chips, and Result has Sack, Fumble, and Pick
• Drag the Distance (1 to 30+ yards) and Gain (−30+ to 30+ yards) sliders to limit those ranges. Plays with no value for that field are hidden once you move its slider
• A play must match every group you use. The list header shows how many plays are visible (for example "12 of 58 Plays"), and the Filter icon turns blue
• Closing the filter (or pressing Esc on macOS) keeps it applied. Click Reset to clear it. Opening another video clears it too

Game Report

Once analysis is complete, click the Game Summary button in the toolbar to open the Game Report. It is built from the play information you entered, so the more plays you fill in, the more complete it is. Click Back (or press Esc on macOS) to return to your plays.

Reports and the Filter

When a filter is on, the report counts only the plays that match it and says so at the top (for example "Filtered · 12 of 58 plays"). The score by quarter always shows the whole game. You can open the Filter from the report's toolbar on Mac and iPad.

Sharing the Report

Click Share Report to share the report as a PDF. It includes the Summary for the team you picked and the Head-to-Head pages, and is named like "Visitor vs Home 2026-10-16 Report.pdf" (with "(Filtered)" added when a filter is on).

Keyboard Shortcuts

Press / or ? at any time to show the keyboard shortcuts overlay (macOS).

Playback Control

Navigation

In/Out Points

Editing

General

Exporting Clips

Export Modes

Export Process

1. Click Export or press Cmd+E
2. Choose your export mode (Separate Files, Single File, or EDL (CMX 3600))
3. Select an output directory (Photos or a Files directory)
4. Review the play count and total duration
5. Click Export to begin
6. Monitor progress with the real-time progress bar. Exports with no fade (None) and no burned-in score bug are not re-encoded, so they will be ready fairly quickly; turning on a Single File fade or Score bug → Burn in re-encodes the video, so that export takes longer.

Score Bug

Under Options, the Score bug menu adds each play's score, down and distance, and quarter and clock to video exports:

• Off - No score bug
• Burn in - Draws the score bug into the video itself
• Caption file .srt - Leaves the video untouched and saves a caption file next to it. It's named after the video, for example "Game1_Highlights.srt" for a Single File or "Game1_Play_001.srt" for Separate Files. Separate Files also saves "Game1_Plays.srt", one caption file for all the clips laid end to end, for editors like CapCut. Available only when saving to Files, not Photos

The score bug uses the information in each play's editor, with team names from Game Info. Lines you haven't filled in are left out. EDL exports have no score bug or caption file.

Play Info CSV

Turn on Play Info CSV under Options to save a spreadsheet of every play alongside your export. It has one row per play with the play number, offense/defense/kick, and all the play information fields, and is named after your video (for example "Game1.csv"). Available only when saving to Files. PAT and KO plays show PAT or KO in the Down column with a blank distance, as they do in the play list.

Settings

Your Team, Clip Timing, and Play Length

Play length warnings only flag plays for a second look. They never change where a clip starts or ends.

Subscription

Subscription Management

• Upgrade: Tap "Upgrade to Pro" to view subscription options
• Manage: Access "Manage Subscription" to modify or cancel through the App Store
• Restore: Use "Restore Purchases" to restore a previous subscription on a new device

Tips for Best Results

Sending Feedback

Use Send Feedback in the app to file aBug Report, Enhancement Request, or Improve Training submission. The in-app picker labels these as Bug, Enhancement, and Training. Email is required so we can follow up if needed.

You can optionally turn onInclude the current video for any of those three types. Open a video first if you want to attach it. When a video is included, you confirm you have the right to share it and agree it may be used to improve AutoCut play detection, including future training. Videos can be up to 14 GB. Keep the app open until the upload finishes.

Feedback types

• Bug Report (Bug): Tell us what went wrong so we can fix it. Including the current video is optional.
• Enhancement Request (Enhancement): Tell us what you'd like AutoCut to do next. Including the current video is optional.
• Improve Training (Training): Submit a video whose play list you have corrected so we can train better detection. This type requires the current video and its play list. Correct all plays before submitting.

Troubleshooting

Quick Reference Card