What's new in Cardboard

Major Features

• Smoother Chat: Pick layouts, music, and voices right where you chat, with cleaner previews while you type your next prompt.
• Smarter Auto Framing: Let Cardboard pick the right aspect ratio faster and more accurately from your media and prompt, so vertical, square, and wide cuts land without extra setup.
• Reframes That Follow Movement: Keep speakers in frame as they move around the shot, with snappier cuts the moment someone else starts talking.
• Faster Voiceovers: Generate voiceovers up to 8x faster, including longer scripts that now finish reliably.
• Faster Big Media: Import large footage up to 4x faster, so heavy clips are ready to edit sooner.

Improvements

• Clearer Compose Guidance: See better prompts before composing, with sharper music suggestions to match your edit.
• Sharper Exported Captions: Export captions at the right size without clipping, with more consistent fonts.
• Faster Templates: Start a project from a template far quicker, with previews that load instantly on repeat visits.
• Snappier Project Home: Open recent and sample projects faster, with smoother transitions into the editor.
• Clearer Upload Estimates: See more accurate time estimates while a clip uploads.
• More Reliable Background Removal: Remove backgrounds with steadier results now that it runs in the cloud.
• Steadier Sped-Up Audio: Keep audio aligned through gaps when you speed up or rearrange clips on the timeline.

And we're just getting started. A major release is landing next week.

Major Features

• Faster AI Editing: Prompts start working sooner, especially on larger projects, so there is less waiting after you ask Cardboard to make an edit.
• Smarter Speaker Reframes: Speaker-focused edits feel more natural, with quicker switches and smoother tracking as people move.
• Clearer Media Progress: When Cardboard needs to prepare clips before an edit, chat now shows which files are still uploading, preparing, analyzing, or transcribing.
• Smoother Project Home: Recent projects, sample projects, renames, and deletes are more dependable, with clearer previews before important actions.

Improvements

• Project Recovery: Reopened projects recover interrupted media work more reliably, even if the tab was closed mid-edit.
• Media Downloads: Download original media directly from the media grid.
• Caption Consistency: Captions placed by AI now line up more closely with manual editor adjustments.
• Export Quality: Caption sizing and layout are more consistent in exported videos.
• Voiceover Reliability: Longer voiceovers complete more reliably and canceled generations are handled more cleanly.

Major Features

• Speaker-Aware Reframe: Turn interviews, podcasts, and other multi-speaker clips into fullscreen edits that automatically cut to whoever is speaking.
• Faster Timeline: Move around bigger edits with smoother scrolling, clearer waveforms, tighter playhead sync, and more dependable drag behavior.
• More Reliable Exports: Export layered projects with clearer progress, better download handling, and fewer edge-case failures.
• Better Project Reopens: Come back to projects with media, transcripts, analysis, and searchable moments restored more dependably.

Improvements

• Image Imports: Add large images more easily while Cardboard keeps orientation correct across previews and exports.
• Smoother Playback: Keep playback steadier while you move around the editor.
• Export Progress: Follow export progress more easily, including from the browser tab while you work elsewhere.
• Editor Polish: Scroll media reliably in the left panel, with cleaner panel backgrounds across editing tools.
• Caption Styling: Find and apply the Pulse Cut caption preset more clearly in chat and caption styling.
• Dashboard Flow: Start projects from uploaded media with better previews and more graceful recovery when an import fails.

Major Features

• Search: Find exact moments by transcript, visible objects, on-screen text, filenames, and scene details.
• Insights: Open a media preview to see concise visual and speech context while you scrub.
• Search Segments: Preview a matching moment and add just that segment to your timeline.
• Highlight Preview: Review AI-picked highlights in a playable flyout before choosing what to keep.

Improvements

• Player Controls: Review clips faster with playback speed controls across preview players.
• Dashboard Preview: Hover or click media cards with previews that stay in sync.
• Analysis Waits: Keep AI tools moving after uploads finish, even while analysis keeps processing.
• Track Controls: Read timeline track buttons more easily with sharper icon contrast.

Major Features

• Smoother Auto-Reframe: Keep speakers and subjects framed more naturally, especially in longer clips or shots with more movement.
• More Reliable Project Opens: Reopen projects with fewer missing-media hiccups, including projects with generated voiceovers or work that started locally before syncing.

Improvements

• Better Area Tracking: Area-based edits now hold onto the intended part of the frame more reliably.
• Faster Proxy Generation: Proxies generate faster, so large files get ready for smooth editing sooner.
• Better Long-Clip Handling: Reframe and analysis stay steadier on bigger clips instead of getting stuck partway through.
• Timeline Quality-of-Life: The timeline now opens at a better default zoom level, and clip context menus include a new Split option for faster edits.
• Clearer Waiting States: Chat gives better feedback when Cardboard is preparing media before it can analyze, reframe, or continue an edit.
• More Dependable Playback Prep: Background media processing recovers better from slow jobs, so previews and playback assets are less likely to stall.
• Stability Prep: We made a lot of under-the-hood stability improvements as we get ready for next week's bigger release.

Major Features

• Promotional Offers: Unlock special subscription deals with our new offer landing experience and a streamlined checkout flow.
• Faster Project Loads: Open your projects faster with a rebuilt loader that hydrates thumbnails sooner, recovers ingestion gracefully, and shows a clearer "preparing" phase while it gets ready.
• Polished Media Preview: Scrub through clips smoothly with a more reliable seek bar and watch them in fullscreen with Cardboard's playback controls always on top.

Improvements

• Mobile-Friendly Offers: Browse and claim promotional offers with a polished mobile experience.
• Smarter Reopen: Pick up where you left off with project names visible during load, faster sample media, and analysis embeddings ready to go.

Major Features

• Speaker Grid Reframe: Turn multi-person footage into polished split layouts in a single prompt. Cardboard recognizes each speaker and arranges them into per-speaker slots automatically.
• Buttery Reframe Motion: Enjoy natural, keyframe-smooth tracking on auto-reframe with cleaner subject framing on dynamic shots.
• Cleanup Strength Picker: Pick Light, Balanced, or Tight transcript cleanup right in chat and preview each option before committing. Word boundaries stay protected at every strength.
• Faster Captions Panel: Scroll through long-form transcripts smoothly, even with thousands of caption segments.

Improvements

• Resilient Chat: Keep your conversation safe even when a stream is interrupted, refreshed, or cancelled mid-response.
• Faster Sample Projects: Reopen sample projects in a snap with cached transcriptions that persist to your account.
• Reframe Progress Visibility: Watch face detection and segmentation progress live in chat so you know exactly when reframe is ready to use.
• Security: Tightened our authentication layer with the latest security patches.

Major Features

• DaVinci Resolve Export: Hand off your edit to DaVinci Resolve with rock-solid FCPXML relink, embedded camera timecodes, asset bundling, and full audio support.
• Cloud Chat History: Pick up your AI conversations anywhere. Chats now sync to your account and follow you across devices and refreshes.
• Browser Guidance: Get clear, friendly guidance when opening Cardboard in Arc, Safari, or Brave so you know exactly what to do next.

Improvements

• Per-Item Transcription Status: Track transcription progress clip-by-clip and see exactly which media is ready to use.
• Premiere XML Polish: Send projects to Premiere with cleaner export options, asset bundling, and smarter media classification.
• Bigger Imports, Smoother Loads: Import larger media batches confidently with memory-pressure protections and clearer status hints.
• Faster Thumbnails: Watch thumbnail strips appear faster as your media imports.
• Camera Timecodes: Match cuts perfectly with NLE relink for Sony FX-series and other professional cameras.

Major Features

• Cloud Proxies: Edit massive video files smoothly with automatic cloud transcoding for large media.
• Project Loading: Open projects faster with detailed progress and smarter media validation.
• Smarter AI: Get more accurate AI edits with the agent always seeing your latest timeline state.

Improvements

• Transcription Status: See per-item transcription progress so you know exactly what's ready.
• Codec Alerts: Get a clear dialog when an audio file uses an unsupported codec.
• AI Queuing: Receive AI prompts one at a time instead of overlapping dialogs.
• Voice Search: Find cloned voices and browse all voice categories reliably.
• Canvas Stability: Drag, select, and position text overlays more precisely on the canvas.
• Text Placement: Place text elements without them stacking on the same track.
• Careers: Browse open positions on the new careers page.

Major Features

• Audio Sync: Play and export long timelines with perfectly aligned audio, rebuilt from the ground up to eliminate drift.

Improvements

• Export Quality: See fully loaded images in every export frame with no flicker or pop-in.

Major Features

• Edge Export: Export videos locally in Microsoft Edge, no Chrome required.
• Browser Check: Get a clear guidance dialog if your browser is missing graphics support.

Improvements

• Sync Status: Track upload progress across batches with accurate ETAs and a warning before you leave.
• Clean Deletion: Delete projects without leaving stale files behind.

Major Features

• Export Reliability: Enjoy more stable exports in Chrome with better audio validation and recovery — stress-tested with projects over 200 GB in size.
• Export Speed: Render videos faster with hardware acceleration, even on larger projects — our pipeline has been rebuilt from the ground up.
• Subscription Management: Cancel or manage your plan directly in settings.
• Faster Ingestion: Import larger files more reliably with lower memory usage and faster processing.

Improvements

• Mandarin Support: Transcribe, analyse, and caption videos in Chinese (Mandarin).
• Media Sort: Browse your media library with newest items shown first.
• 3:4 Aspect Ratio: Choose a new portrait-friendly canvas preset.
• Speed Presets: Pick from more speed options including 1.25x.
• Flip & Mirror: Horizontally flip any video or image clip in one click.
• Transcription: Get faster, smarter transcript cleanup for longer videos and audio.

Major Features

• GIF Export: Export any range as a GIF and pick frames with thumbnails.
• Auto Reframe: Automatically adjust clip scale and position so subjects stay in view in any aspect ratio.
• Improve prompt: Turn rough ideas into clearer edit requests in one click.
• Text Animations: Add motion to text and pick from 12 new tasteful presets.
• Text Controls: Rotate text, tune padding, and keep presets looking sharp.
• Voice Picks: Preview voice options before generating a voiceover.

Improvements

• Waveforms: See audio waveforms directly on video clips in the timeline.
• Long Chats: Auto-summarise long AI chats so they keep going without losing context.
• Chat Sync: Reopen remote projects with chat history intact across devices.
• Cloud Media: Recover synced media and thumbnails more reliably.
• Prompt Caching: Get faster agent responses with smarter prompt caching.
• Text Quality: Enjoy improved text rendering quality across the editor.

Major Features

• Chat Checkpoints: Roll back to any point in your AI chat and restore the timeline as it was.
• Pricing: Subscribe with confidence. Every plan includes a 7-day money-back guarantee.
• Sign In: Enjoy a redesigned login with a cinematic split-screen and smooth transitions.

Improvements

• Exports: Render videos noticeably faster with an optimized export pipeline.
• Long Videos: Export hour-long videos without stalls, audio cutoffs, or frozen progress bars.
• Cloud Projects: Open large cloud projects without running out of memory.
• Dashboard: Browse your projects with richer thumbnails, metadata, and inline renaming.
• Templates: Jump in faster with new film and podcast sample projects.
• Captions: Generate captions using less memory, even on longer timelines.

Major Features

• Layouts: Redesigned layout presets with drag-and-drop and custom previews.
• Uploads: File size limits increased by 2×. Upload up to 2.5GB on Creator and up to 10GB on Pro.
• Agent Intelligence: The agent now asks smarter, more targeted questions when your intent is unclear — including multi-question prompts and an interactive music picker when multiple tracks are available.
• Model Router: Intelligent model routing built into the model picker.

Improvements

• Editor Interface: Refined overall editor layout with an improved chat panel that spans full height and supports more intuitive keyboard shortcuts.
• Timeline: Can now be toggled and hidden for a cleaner viewer/player state. Also ships smoother thumbnails, clearer waveforms, and a pinned layout track.
• Beat Sync: The agent can now cut to the beat using percussion detection.
• Export & HDR: Software encoding, low-memory mode, and HDR color correction.
• Media: Scrollable dropzone, more aspect ratios, and smarter relinking. Better handling for unsupported or incompatible codecs.
• Performance: Faster ingestion, lighter dashboard, and more stable renders.
• Account & Legal: Email preferences and Terms of Service / Privacy Policy.

Major Features

• Transitions: New transitions between clips with controls right where clips meet.
• Background Removal: Remove or replace backgrounds on videos and images in one click.
• Voiceover: More expressive voiceovers that stream in as they’re generated.
• Panels: Cleaner properties panel with a smoother experience.
• Multilingual Captions: Language support for captions in multiple languages.

Improvements

• Behind the Subject: The AI can analyze depth and put text behind subjects.
• Music: The AI understands your music better for relevant suggestions.
• Ingestion: You see progress sooner while your media is analyzing.

Major Features

• Layouts: New layout presets to jumpstart your edits with common compositions.
• Auto-Cleanup: Remove silence from recordings with transcript-based take selection.
• Domain: We have a new home at usecardboard.com
• Background Sync: Projects automatically back up to the cloud without interrupting your workflow.

Improvements

• Chat Input: Choose your canvas aspect ratio (16:9, 9:16, 4:3, 1:1) and select different AI models directly before you start editing.
• Upload Recovery: Failed uploads automatically retry with exponential backoff.
• GIF Support: Animated GIFs now play correctly on the timeline.
• Storage Warnings: Proactive alerts when your browser storage is running low.

Major Features

• Agent-First Dashboard: New home screen lets you start projects directly from a prompt.
• Redesigned Timeline: Rebuilt timeline with smoother clip dragging and precise trimming.
• Music and SFX: Browse and add music and SFX from a curated library.
• Subscriptions: Removed the waitlist and added subscriptions with a free trial.

Improvements

• Copy & Paste Clips: Cmd/Ctrl+C and Cmd/Ctrl+V now work on timeline clips.
• Mute Shortcut: Press M to toggle mute on selected audio or video clips.
• Unified Audio Cards: Music and SFX share a consistent behavior.
• Effects Panel Polish: Cleaner layout with better codec detection feedback during import.
• Native Text Copy: Text selection in the editor now uses native copy behavior.

Major Features

• Stacked Captions: New caption animation that reveals text line-by-line.
• Product Demos: Enhanced support for creating product demos.
• Large File Support: Edit videos up to 5GB.

Improvements

• UI Refresh: Polished panels for backgrounds, properties, export, and media.
• Smarter Search: Upgraded embeddings for better semantic media search.
• Missing Media Relink: Reconnect files that moved since your last session.
• HEIC/HEIF Support: Import iPhone photos directly without conversion.
• Crop Controls: Crop clips with preset aspect ratios on the canvas.
• Featured Fonts: Satoshi, Clash Display, Gambarino, and Playfair Display.
• Export Frame: Save the current preview frame as an image.
• Fullscreen Preview: Press F to toggle fullscreen mode.
• Duplicate Shortcut: Cmd/Ctrl+D duplicates selected items instantly.
• Captions Scroll: Panel follows playhead but pauses when you scroll.
• Export Reliability: Timeout guards and fallbacks prevent stalling.

Major Features

• Voice Library: Browse hundreds of voices, filter by gender, age, accent, and language.
• Voice Cloning: Clone any voice by uploading or recording a sample.
• Search: Find media by writing vague sentences, not just words or filenames.
• Inline Suggestions: The agent now offers clickable suggestions during conversations.
• Ripple Delete: Delete clips and automatically close the gaps left behind.
• Voice Cleanup: Automatically remove filler words and pauses from voice overs.
• Transcription Languages: Support for 10+ languages with auto-detection.

Improvements

• Track Management: Mute, lock, and manage gaps directly from track menus.
• Keyframe Transforms: Adjust position, scale, and rotation with keyframes on canvas.
• AI Text Styling: The agent can now style captions and text elements.
• Prompt Suggestions: Quick-start prompts appear when the chat is empty.
• HDR Video Support: Import and work with HDR footage.
• Browser Compatibility: Improved browser support for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
• Unsaved Changes Warning: A warning appears when leaving the project without saving.

Major Features

• Voiceover Generation: Create professional voiceovers with different voices.
• Token Usage Indicator: See AI token consumption in chat input for cost transparency.
• Preview Controls: Pan, zoom, align, and rotate with guides and snapping.
• Sample Projects: Get started fast with new explainer and montage templates, ready to use.
• Spatial Intelligence: The agent now understands what's happening inside your frame and places captions and overlays where they won't block the subject.

Improvements

• Waveform Virtualization: Faster, more efficient handling of long audio tracks.
• Caption Presets: Style captions with new golden-serif and minimal-modern preset options.
• Timeline Zoom: Zoom now anchors around the playhead position for better navigation.
• Volume System: Simplified volume control from decibels to intuitive percentage (0-200%).
• Multi-Item Operations: Improved drag and move behavior.
• Timeline UI: Hide trim handles and clip names for narrow timeline items to reduce clutter.

Major Features

• Keyframe Animations: Animate timeline items with keyframe-based animations.
• Playback Speed: Create slow-motion or time-lapse effects.
• Backgrounds: Add background (gradient, color, and macOS wallpapers) to your video.
• Settings Tab: New settings panel for configuring application preferences and options.
• Remote Project Management: Cloud-based project storage and media uploads for collaboration and backup.

Improvements

• Audio Volume Control: Manage audio levels and mute functionality.
• Director Agent: Redesigned AI agent with improved tool execution and workflows.
• Text Drag-and-Drop: Drag text directly onto the canvas and timeline.
• Import Hotkey: Import media files with a hotkey.
• Performance Optimizations: Canvas pooling and shadow/blur caching.
• Export Performance: Faster, more reliable exports.
• Audio/Video Separation: Separate audio from video items on the timeline.
• Memory Management: Fixed memory leaks and improved compositor pooling.
• Text Reconstruction: Improved text media item reconstruction.
• Aspect Ratio Handling: Consistent aspect ratio calculations and proper content fitting.

Major Features

• AI-Powered Video Understanding: Director can see your content better. Get intelligent suggestions based on what's actually in your footage — scenes, actions, text, and more.
• Music Library: Browse and add royalty-free tracks by genre and mood to your timeline.
• Crop Tool: Precisely crop videos and images directly on canvas.
• LUT Preview on Hover: Instantly preview color grades before applying.
• Captions from Director: Ask the AI to generate and place captions automatically on your timeline.

Improvements

• Background Exports: Exports now continue at full speed even when the browser tab is in the background.
• Smarter Ingestion: Revamped media processing with progress tracking, audio chimes on completion, and parallel transcription.
• Waitlist Flow: New users hit a waitlist with a clean sign-up experience.
• Text Properties: Added letter spacing, line height, and other style options.
• Audio Prefetch: Music tracks preload on hover for instant playback.
• Timeline Polish: Cleaner colors, fixed playhead jank, and smoother clip interactions.
• Better Search: Find footage by describing more abstract concepts — Director can search your media using natural language.
• Key Bindings: Use key bindings such as Option, Option + Shift, while resizing/cropping etc.

Major Features

• Transcription: Automatic transcription for video and audio files with searchable text and timestamped captions.
• Agent Overhaul: Redesigned Director chat with new tools, multi-model support (Bedrock, Vertex AI), improved messages, and a model picker.
• Canvas-Based Editing: Direct manipulation of timeline items on the canvas—drag, scale, and position clips visually with real-time preview.
• Effects Panel: Unified effects panel with transitions moved from timeline to effects, supporting both audio and video transitions.
• Multi-Selection: Select multiple timeline items at once using drag selection or CMD+Click for batch operations.
• Premiere Pro XML Export: Export projects to Adobe Premiere Pro XML format for seamless workflow integration.

Improvements

• Smoother Playback: Audio now preloads before playback for gapless, stutter-free audio.
• Fast Previews: Frames load faster and seek smoothly when hovering over the timeline.
• Responsive Timeline: Improved scrubbing and item placement with collision handling.
• Media Feedback: Notifications when media files finish processing.
• Visual Polish: Updated selection colors and styling for better clarity and consistency.

Major Features

• Transitions: Add fade, scale, and fly transitions between clips.
• Text Elements: Add styled text overlays and presets with typography controls.
• Shot-Level Semantic Search: Find video moments with natural language and get timestamped thumbnails.
• Theming: New color system with dark theme, and landing page.
• Hotkeys: Keyboard shortcuts for common timeline actions (space, arrows, delete, etc.).
• Chat Panel: New chat panel called "Director" with persistent conversations and easy switching.

Improvements

• Timeline Undo/Redo: Undo or redo any timeline change.
• Media Ingestion Pipeline: Automatic background shot detection, embedding generation, and thumbnail processing.
• Track Management: Rename, Move and delete tracks.
• Video Source Cleanup: Renderer now prunes stale video sources for improved memory management.

Major Features

• Timeline & Layers: Improved scrubbing, snapping, and clip accuracy, with a new multi-layer system. Added visual guidelines and per-clip audio waveforms for easier alignment.
• Hardware-accelerated renderer: Added a custom WebGL2 + WebCodecs pipeline that shifts video processing from the CPU to the GPU, enabling smoother playback, more accurate previews, faster layer compositing, and higher-quality exports.
• Video Understanding: Faster, more accurate analysis in the browser.
• Chat: Added support for having multiple tabs and clear history.
• Properties Panel: New properties sidebar for fine-grained clip control. Adjust position, scale, rotation, opacity, blend mode, and audio levels for each item directly on the timeline.

Improvements

• Preview: Enhanced playback smoothness; HEIC file uploads are now prevented.
• Auth: Optimized redirects for users logging in via app.cardboard.sh.
• Waveforms: Audio waveforms now generate faster and display with higher fidelity.
• Portrait video: Strengthened support for the 9:16 format and dynamic aspect ratio toggling.

Major Features

• Media management: Import images, music, and videos. Manage your videos inside projects. Use semantic search to find clips quickly.
• Timeline editing: Drag-and-drop video clips on the timeline, with multi-track support, clip splitting, scrubbing, and zoom controls for detailed and efficient edits.
• Real-time preview: Instantly see your edits as you work. You can pick standard aspect ratios like 16:9, 9:16, or 1:1.
• Exports and aspect ratios: Export projects in various formats, including XML.
• Workspace customization & shortcuts: Adjust the workspace with resizable panels and use keyboard shortcuts for faster editing.
• AI chat editing: Use chat commands for quick video edits.