Transitions

Transitions smooth over the cuts auto-editor makes. Instead of a hard jump from one kept section to the next, the two sections blend into each other with a cross-dissolve, and the timeline fades in at the start and fades out at the end.

Basic Syntax

# 1 second dissolves at eligible cuts, plus fades at the timeline ends
auto-editor video.mp4 --transition dissolve:1sec

The full form is dissolve:DURATION[:MIN-CUT]:

• DURATION — how long each transition lasts. Accepts the usual time units (0.5sec, 20 for a bare frame count, etc.).
• MIN-CUT — skip cuts whose removed source interval is shorter than this (default: 1sec). Dissolving across a tiny silence trim reads as a stutter, so short cuts stay hard by default. Use 0 to dissolve at every cut:

auto-editor video.mp4 --transition dissolve:1sec:0

Dissolves are linked: video cross-dissolves and audio cross-fades cover the same span. A dissolve needs source material on both sides of the cut (the material that was cut out serves as the handle), so a transition may be shortened or skipped when a clip is too short to support it.

Where transitions survive

The native render and every editor export carry transitions:

Export	Result
default (rendered media)	Rendered directly
v3	Stored in the transitions key
premiere, resolve-fcp7 (FCP7 XML)	Cross Dissolve / Cross Fade transition items
premiere-otio	SMPTE_Dissolve transitions
final-cut-pro, resolve (FCPXML)	Cross Dissolve spine transitions
shotcut	Same-track transitions (luma + mix), fade filters at the ends
kdenlive	Same-track mixes, fade filters at the ends

Where transitions are dropped

• v1 and v2 timeline files have no way to represent transitions; exporting to them silently drops the transitions and keeps the cuts.
• clip-sequence does not carry transitions by design: it renders each kept section as an independent media file, and a cross-dissolve has no meaning between separate files.