Glossary

Stream clipping glossary

The words you meet when you turn a stream into short clips, in plain English.

Sources

VOD: Video on demand: the saved recording of a live stream that people can watch afterwards. Kick and Twitch call them past broadcasts. Both delete them after a while, so clip them soon after the stream.
Highlight: On Twitch, a section of a past broadcast that the streamer saves separately so it is kept longer than the VOD.
Clip: A short cut from a stream or VOD. On Kick and Twitch, anyone watching can make one; a clipping tool makes them from the whole VOD for you.
Clipper: Either a tool that cuts long videos into clips, or a person who cuts a streamer's broadcasts into clips and posts them, ideally with the streamer's permission.

Vertical video (9:16): A tall video, 9 units wide for every 16 high, the shape that fills a phone screen on TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. The usual size is 1080 × 1920 pixels.
Aspect ratio: The width of a video compared with its height: 16:9 for a stream, 9:16 for a short, 1:1 for square.
Reframing: Cropping a wide 16:9 picture into a tall 9:16 one so the important part stays in view. Auto-reframe does it for you, usually by keeping a face centred.
Facecam: The small camera view of the streamer's face that sits over the game or screen in a stream.
Split layout: A vertical layout that stacks two parts of a stream, such as the facecam on top and the gameplay below, so both stay visible.

Word-by-word captions: Captions that appear and highlight one word at a time, in step with the speech, instead of whole sentences at once.
Burned-in captions: Captions drawn into the video picture itself, so they show everywhere the video plays. Closed captions are a separate text track that viewers can turn on or off.
Ducking: Turning music down automatically while someone talks, then back up in the gaps.
Voiceover: A voice recorded over the video afterwards, to explain or react to what is on screen.

Hook: The first second or two of a clip, which decides whether people keep watching. Start on the moment itself.
Jump cut: A cut that removes a pause or a stretch in the middle of a shot, so the clip moves faster.
B-roll: Extra footage or images placed over the main video to show what is being talked about.
Keyframe: A point on the timeline where you set a value, such as zoom or position; the editor moves smoothly between keyframes.
Speed ramp: Speeding a clip up or slowing it down gradually, for example slowing down into the big moment.
Transition: The way one shot changes into the next: a cut, a fade, a slide or a blend.
Colour grading and LUTs: Grading is adjusting a video's colours and light. A LUT (look-up table) is a saved colour look you can apply in one step.
Chroma key: Removing a solid-colour background, usually green, so something else can show behind the subject.
Frame rate (fps): How many pictures per second a video shows; 30 and 60 fps are common for clips.
Watermark: A logo or mark placed on a video, often added by free plans of editing tools.

Short-form video: Short vertical videos made for TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.
Scheduling: Setting a clip to post at a chosen time, so one stream can fill a week of posts.
Cross-posting: Posting the same clip to several networks.
Chat spike: A sudden jump in chat messages during a stream, often a sign that something worth clipping happened.
Virality score: A number some clipping tools give each clip as a guess at how well it might do. Treat it as an estimate, not a promise.
Horizon Unit (HU): RipClip's measure of how much video it reads: 1 HU a minute for the first 15 minutes, then less per minute the longer the video. A 2-hour stream is 66 HU, and the free plan's 110 HU cover a 4-hour stream.