1.2 – Using Opus Clip Lesson

Lesson Overview

This lesson gives you a practical introduction to using Opus Clip’s interface, empowering you to transform source videos into shareable, short-form content. You’ll become familiar with the dashboard, which is where you start all your editing projects. The dashboard isn’t just a landing page—it displays your remaining credit time, plan status, and access to account settings, all central for planning how much content you can process.

Opus Clip makes uploading straightforward with support for various video file types and file sizes. Its interface is designed for swift project kick-off, with clear upload areas for local files or online links. Understanding how credits are used is key: they’re based on the duration of your input video, not just the length of clips created.

You’ll also explore time-saving tools—like the “Credit Saver” slider to process only desired video sections, preference selectors for clip lengths, and topic filters enabling you to target content about specific subjects. For creators and teams, these features streamline workflows and make Opus Clip especially effective for efficiently repurposing lengthy footage.

Whether you’re preparing podcasts, interviews, webinars, or educational lectures for social sharing, this lesson sets you up for optimal use of your Opus Clip credits and project timeline.

Who This Is For

If you’re new to Opus Clip or want to use AI tools for easier video editing, this lesson serves as your starting point. You’ll benefit if you are:

• Content creators converting long videos into short, social-ready clips
• Social media managers repurposing webinars, podcasts, or interviews
• Marketers producing frequent bite-sized video content
• Educators adapting lectures or recorded lessons for online platforms
• Teams managing video projects with specific brand requirements
• Anyone looking to automate repetitive parts of video editing

Where This Fits in a Workflow

Setting up your dashboard and first project is the foundation of a productive Opus Clip workflow. Before you begin detailed editing or reviewing AI-generated clips, you need to prepare and upload your source material accurately. You’ll use these initial steps anytime you want to process a new long-form video into shorts—whether that’s a weekly podcast, monthly webinar, or ongoing training content.

For example, if you create a YouTube series and want highlight reels for social media, this lesson helps you quickly upload full episodes, select key sections, and move directly to clip review. Similarly, marketing teams can use the credit saver and topic filters to focus only on campaign-relevant video sections, improving content targeting in fewer steps.

Technical & Workflow Benefits

Previously, manually clipping long videos for short-form content involved downloading files, using traditional editing software, and sifting through hours of footage to find suitable moments. With Opus Clip’s interface, you upload or link a video and immediately set boundaries for clip length, focus topics, and even preferred time segments—all from one dashboard.

For instance, using the credit saver slider prevents unnecessary processing of irrelevant video parts, while topic filters ensure only targeted highlights are generated. This not only conserves your credits but also accelerates the workflow, letting you generate multiple high-quality clips in one pass. For teams sharing an account, transparency of credit usage history is particularly helpful for staying on budget and tracking resource allocation.

Overall, this translates to less manual work, faster turnaround, and more control over your content—whether you’re a solo creator or working in a group environment.

Practice Exercise

Choose a recent video you’ve recorded (for example, a 20-minute webinar or podcast). Then:

1. Open your Opus Clip dashboard and upload your video file, or paste the public link of your video (e.g., from YouTube).
2. Use the credit saver slider to select only a five-minute segment that contains key points.
3. Set the language and try adding at least one topic keyword to filter your clips.

After processing, compare the selected segment’s results with what you might have produced using manual editing. Did the process save you time? Did the topic filter help produce more targeted clips?

Course Context Recap

This lesson establishes your foundation for using Opus Clip AI by helping you master the dashboard and upload process. It builds on the introduction to what Opus Clip is and sets up your future work—next, you’ll examine and edit the clips the AI generates, including evaluating the “AI Virality Score.” Continue through the course to learn how to review, refine, and publish polished short-form videos that maximize the value of your original content.