Selects vs other
AI video editors
We ran the same footage and the same prompt through Selects and today's leading AI video editors. The results are below.
Adobe PremiereAI Assistant
The 35-year-old industry standard from a $23.8B-a-year company.
CapCutEditPilot
ByteDance's (TikTok's parent company) free editor with 800M+ monthly users, making $815M a year on its own.
DescriptUnderlord
A 190-person startup that raised $100M+ (including from OpenAI) and makes about $55M a year.
ClaudeFable 5
Anthropic's frontier AI model. Anthropic has raised $125B+ and is valued at $965B, with about $47B in annual run-rate revenue.
Selectsours
A 4-month-old product that has raised $2.5M.
Camera switching
podcast, 30-second source
This demo shows how each AI picks the most natural camera angle, the way a human editor would. Every tool except Selects failed on footage longer than an hour, so all five ran on the same 30-second clip.
Prompt
Switch cameras based on speaker and reaction
Selectsours
- Switches camera naturally
- Shows close-ups with the best reaction shots
- Covers jump cuts with camera switches
Adobe PremiereAI Assistant
- Cuts to an unimportant camera
- Awkward jump cut
DescriptUnderlord
- Awkward jump cut
- Misses reaction shots
CapCutEditPilot
- Reuses the same clips
- Awkward cuts
- Misses reaction shots
- Deleted and rearranged clips even when we didn't ask it to
ClaudeFable 5
- Cuts to an unimportant camera
- Awkward cut: switches cameras too fast
- Overall camera switches are too fast
Non-speech footage
parkour, 17-minute source
How each editor performs on footage with no speech to work from. The original footage is 17 minutes long.
Prompt
Create a parkour highlight using every parkour attempt, omitting none. Show only the action itself: start right when each move begins and cut just before the result.
Selectsours
- Finds 6 valid parkour attempts
Adobe PremiereAI Assistant
- Finds 1 valid parkour attempt
- False positive: a failed attempt and the climb down
- False positive: a hand covering the camera
DescriptUnderlord
- Finds 1 valid parkour attempt
- Catches only the end of a second attempt
- False positive: a failed attempt and the climb down
CapCutEditPilot
- Catches only the end of 2 attempts
- Keeps mostly the conversation after an attempt
ClaudeFable 5
- Cost $12 in tokens and took 25 minutes to edit
- Finds 2 valid parkour attempts
- Keeps the conversation after an attempt instead of the attempt itself
Tech review
product footage, 1-minute source
This demo shows how each AI picks the most natural camera angle, the way a human editor would for a tech review video.
Prompt
Edit this video by changing cameras naturally
Selectsours
- Cuts to the MacBook when the speaker looks at it
- Switches between the speaker and the MacBook at the right moments
Adobe PremiereAI Assistant
- Stays on the speaker while the MacBook is being shown
- Stays on the MacBook during the speaker's hand gestures
- Skips the front camera that shows the MacBook
- Stays on the speaker while the MacBook is being shown
DescriptUnderlord
- Stays on the speaker while the MacBook is being shown
- Stays on the MacBook for over 10 seconds while the speaker talks
CapCutEditPilot
- Deletes the part where the MacBook is shown
- Skips the MacBook
- Repeats the intro
- Jumps from “Number one is” straight to “Number two is”
- Skips the front camera that shows the MacBook
- Stays on the MacBook for over 10 seconds while the speaker talks
ClaudeFable 5
- Cost $9.42 in tokens and took 40 minutes to edit this 1-minute video
- Cuts to the MacBook when the speaker looks at it
Scripted edit
talking head, 7-minute source
The original footage is 7 minutes 13 seconds long and full of retakes. A human editor's final cut runs 1 minute 58 seconds.
Prompt
Edit this video with the below script.
- fast pacing (short-form video)
- follow the script
- remove retakes and keep the best one only
Script
Forget what's trending. YC's new batch is the new crystal ball for tech. If you didn't know this already, tonight's the deadline for YC for their winter batch, and right now, the fall batch is fully on, so let's see what the future looks like with the fall batches. The current YC batch has hundred and forty-six startups: ninety-six B2B, seventeen consumer, ten healthcare, ten industrial, eight fintech, four real estate, and even one government. And as expected, AI dominates. But you see, here are the three startups that really caught my eye. Number one, Chat AI. This is the world's first brainrot IDE, integrated development environment. It basically allows developers to have integrated environment between the things that you brainrot with, like your TikTok scrolls, your Instagram, anime, whatever it is, into your developer code. How does this work? Instead of having developers fight their urge to brainrot, Chat actually embraces it. So for example, as you're building, AI model is thinking, and you sort of have to wait, and it actually prompts them to go and brainrot. It will show you to your Instagram, your favorite TikToks, so you're actually resting, and then by the time your AI model has loaded, then you're actually back to developing. Number two, Pixley AI. This one's my personal favorite. They're reinventing early education for children. You know when we go into a restaurant, and we see all these iPad kids, and we're like, “Oh my God, they're brain rotting”? Well, this AI tool is about to change it all. This is literally my dream come true. Imagine you draw an image, and then it becomes animation, and then a parent can even put morals or stories that they wanna tell. This makes screen time both educational and also super safe. This is one of the best use cases of video generation that I've seen. Thirdly, Exonic. This is the very first open source drug discovery. I know. When I first read it too, I was like, “What does that even mean?” This company is using AI to design synthetic DNA to help fight cancer. There's a no-code AI solution, and then you submit DNA designs, open source, open to anybody, and the best one gets tested in real cancer cells.
Selectsours
- 2:00 length (human edited version was 1:58)
- No retakes kept
- Chooses the best takes
Adobe PremiereAI Assistant
- 2:14 length (human edited version was 1:58)
- No retakes kept
- Runs 2:14 with the same words the human editor cut to 1:58
- Keeps the part where the speaker is memorizing the script
- Cuts off the sentence at “I've seen”
DescriptUnderlord
- 2:12 length (human edited version was 1:58)
- Awkward cuts: too many short, fast cuts
- Leftover pauses, could be tighter
- Replaces the Pixley AI section with off-script takes; skips “Number two, Pixley AI. This one's my personal favorite” through “imagine you draw an image, and then it becomes animation”
- Cuts off the sentence at “then the best design gets”
CapCutEditPilot
- 3:30 length (human edited version was 1:58)
- Retakes and off-script takes kept
- Skips “If you didn't know this already, tonight's the deadline” through “the fall batch is fully on”
- Retake kept: “as expected, AI dominates” said three times
- Retake kept: “But you see, here are the three startups” said twice
- Retake kept: “Number one” said twice
- 43 seconds of off-script takes for the Pixley AI section (“early users say…”, “kids these days are on their iPad…”)
- Retakes kept: “so get this” and “any drawing that your child” each said twice
- Stumble kept: “immedi- immediately”
- Stumble kept: “and then, and then”
- Retake kept: “the best design gets” said three times
ClaudeFable 5
- 2:16 length (human edited version was 1:58)
- Cost $5 in tokens and took over 15 minutes to edit
- Awkward cuts: too many short, fast cuts
- Cuts in the middle of the word “batch”
- Awkward cuts: too many short, fast cuts
- Stumble kept: “This makes-”
- Stumble kept: “so this com- this company”; skips “I know. When I first read it too, I was like, what does that even mean?”
- Stumble kept: “And then-”
Speaker detection and profiling
Selects automatically detects every person on camera, tracks where each of them appears in the frame, and identifies who is speaking at any moment. No other editor's AI does this.
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