Changelog

Follow up on the latest improvements and updates.

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A few weeks ago, we launched the beta program for our new collaborative recording platform — Rooms. We started by enabling it for everyone who expressed interest through our waitlist, and 25% of all Descript users.
The beta has been a big success - helping us identify issues, introduce optimizations, and get direct feedback from the community. Today, we increased the number of users who have access to the Rooms beta from 25% to 50%. This opens it up to a full half of all Descript users to try
right now.
You can confirm whether you have access by clicking the New Project button from Drive view. You’ll see the option to
Record with others (Beta)
.
You can also access it from within a project by clicking the Record button and selecting
Record with others
.
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There’s still time to join the waitlist if you don’t yet have access, but would like to. If you're in the beta, you can leave feedback and ask questions in the #rooms-beta channel on our community Discord.
For those of you who have had a chance to try it, here’s a quick update on the fixes and improvements we’ve made since launch. And this is just the beginning — there’s so much more as we implement our roadmap, fix bugs, and iterate on your feedback.
  • Added a more visible countdown when initiating a recording
  • Noise cancellation is now ON by default, and your setting preference will be stored in your browser cookies
  • Added a functional button the the Retry prompt that appears when the Chat fails to load
  • Rooms recordings are now added to the end of a composition rather than to the beginning
  • Added the ability to change between 1:1 and 16:9 aspect ratio while screen sharing
  • Improved UI responsiveness when in a Room with only 1 participant
  • Introduced many visual improvements to the UI in dark mode
  • Updated wording on Mic mute tooltip to provide clearer instructions
  • Guest transcriptions now adhere to the host’s transcription settings
Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug resulting in “ffmpeg exited with code 1: Conversion failed!” error after import into a project
  • Fixed an issue causing the righthand sidebar to get cut-off when resizing video
  • Fixed a bug showing the option to logout even when not logged in

new

improved

fixed

Release Version 100

Translation - improved and out of beta
Translation with dubbing is moving out of beta, and we’re adding a host of improvements to the functionality and workflow to celebrate.
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Translated copies of your main Composition will are now viewable within the Editor window rather than in a pop-out panel. We’ve moved the selection dropdown for your translated compositions into the main composition window for easier access and improved clarity.
You are still limited to re-translating sections, or correcting the translation in this view. If you need to edit the main composition, you’ll still need to do that in the original copy, and then re-translate if you made changes since the last time your ran it.
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Translation moving out of beta also means that it’s now limited by subscription tier, available at the Creator level and up. Translation with correction is available for Business and Enterprise plans only.
Data sharing is disabled for Enterprise Drives
Enterprise drives will soon be automatically opted out of data sharing. This has been a frequently requested feature from Enterprise teams. As of this release, if data sharing is disabled individual team members or admins will
not
have the option to re-enable it.
Subscription management and checkout improvements
We’re launching some improvements to the self-checkout flow, which will be available initially to 50% of users as we make sure it offers a better overall experience. Users will be taken to a web browser with an improved interface making it clearer what will change and the associated costs.
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Users in this group will also now see that the Subscription panel has been split into two segments:
  • Preferences: for adjusting Drive settings such as Drive icon and Drive name.
  • Subscription: for managing subscription plan, and adding or removing card details.
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We’ll slowly ramp this up to all users over the coming weeks.
Default AI Speaker setting
There’s a new option in settings that allows you to define a default AI speaker in your projects. When you enter Write mode in a blank project, it will use this AI Speaker by default. This is a great time saver if you're starting your projects in Write mode and typically use the same AI voice.
Default AI Stock Speaker (1)
Editor Updates
  • Automatic multicam has received major speed improvements, generating much faster. We have also removed the blocking modal and moved the progress indicator back to the sidebar.
  • Preview playback for stock media will now stop after you add it to a composition.
  • File conversion processes (Repair audio drift, split to mono, convert to mono, and normalize audio) are now available on the Web and Desktop preview versions of Descript.
  • We’ve added some highlights and shading to sidebar options to help ease of use and clarity.image
Help center overhaul
Our support team has completely re-designed the help center for easier navigation, search, and organization. It looks amazing, and you should go check it out
right now
.
Sound Good (3)
The re-design includes:
  • Featured articles to help you get started or call out new features.
  • Easier and quicker navigation between sections.
  • Easier to read table of contents.
  • Easier to find related articles in the same section.
  • Quick linking to specific headings of a help center page.
Also be sure to try out our help bot.
New Sidebar styling (2)
Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug preventing the blade tool from splitting a layer in some cases
  • Fixed a bug causing CMD + Shift + D shortcut to change editor layout rather than opening/closing the sidebar
  • Fixed several display issues when shadows, boarders, and rounded corners are used simultaneously on media layers

new

improved

fixed

Release Version 99

Automatic multicam now w/ templates and layouts
You can now apply templates while using Underlord’s Automatic multicam feature. We’ll smartly select individual layouts based on the number of speakers in each scene.
Just select the Automatic style, a frequency of cutaway’s and toggle on the Use Template option.
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Underlord will cut to multi-camera layouts during crosstalk and during longer monologues for reaction shots. Use one of our free templates, or build your own custom template complete with your own color scheme, logos, caption styles, and anything else you might need to speed up your workflow.
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Once you’ve run Automatic multicam, you can quickly adjust templates using the scene rail, or quickly copy and paste layouts between scenes.
Rooms beta is underway
The beta for our brand new collaborative recorder, Rooms, is finally here. Rooms is the culmination of our long term plan to bring the best features of SquadCast into a package you can access directly from Descript. Featuring improvements to recording quality, reliability, and file backups - we’re excited for you to give it a try.
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We’ll be onboarding users in waves, but if you’d like to get access as early as possible, you can sign up for the waitlist below. If you signed up prior today, you should be receiving a confirmation email shortly. Once you’re in the Beta, you can find detailed instructions at our Help Center.
Sign up for the waitlist here: https://www.descript.com/rooms
New scene toolbar under the Canvas
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There’s a new toolbar that appears under the Canvas whenever you are within a scene but have no specific layer selected. From this toolbar you can adjust scene parameters on the fly without opening the sidebar by browsing templates and adding layouts, changing background colors, or adding transitions.
The Layout button has a pop-out gallery view for added convenience.
Additional editor updates:
  • A new edit in timeline has been button has been added to the toolbar popover that appears when you select an edit boundary in the script while the timeline is hidden. This is designed to make it clearer how you can adjust edit boundaries in fine deal, which will be especially helpful to newer users.
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  • We consolidated the two stock media panels on the sidebar into a single panel, now called Stock. This new version of the panel contains both Visual and Audio stock media for easier browsing. Just click the tab for the media type you’re looking for.
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  • Timeline exports are now available on the Web. The options are the same as the desktop version of Descript, and include Pro Tools/Logic (.aaf), Audition (.sesx), Samplitude/Reaper (.edl), Final Cut Pro X (.fcpxml), Premiere (.xml), and DaVinci Resolve (.xml).
This is rolling out slowly so if you're not seeing it yet it should be enabled for you soon.
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  • We've also enabled file conversion processes such as Normalize audio, Convert to mono, and Repair audio on the Web version of Descript.
New powers for Enterprise Drive admins
Drive admins can now decide whether Editor members can invite new Editor members to their team's Drive. You can find the toggle under the Subscription section of the settings menu. Toggling this to OFF will prevent Editor members from sending those invites until unless an Admin turns it back ON.
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Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause scale in/out animations to result in an error
  • Fixed a bug resulting in a “Something’s not working” error when trying to access Descript for Web
  • Fixed the Remove from transcript keyboard shortcut
  • Fixed a bug resulting in a black bar being visible in the canvas when using Crossfades
  • Fixed a bug resulting in “error changing text” when dragging a file into the Script
  • Using Remove ignored text in Edit for clarity will now close the Underlord sidebar
  • Fixed an issue that causing some projects to crash when opening

new

improved

fixed

Release Version 98

Ken Burns animation
That smooth, documentary-style presentation for b-roll and still images is finally here. Put on your PBS hat and add the Ken Burns animation to any visual media for a smooth zoom and pan.
It comes with 8-directional settings and a center zoom option.
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A random zoom and pan setting will be selected when you initially apply the effect so you don’t necessarily have to choose them yourself if you just want to quickly spice up your background content.
The zoom/pan can be set to:
  • In
    - Zooms into the image
  • Out
    - Zooms out on an image
  • None
    - Image will only pan, with no zoom effect (this cannot be combined with the center-only zoom setting.)
The Ken Burns effect has 3 speed settings:
  • Slow
  • Moderate
  • Fast
Please note: this effect currently cannot be applied to a Script track, as it's designed specifically for images and b-roll.
Edit for clarity w/ AI speech
You can now use your AI voices directly in conjunction with the Edit for clarity tool. This is great for times where you’re unable to re-record anything based on the suggestions you receive using Edit for Clarity. Just toggle the option labeled
Use AI speech
, and check off the speakers you’d like to have eligible for edit-for-clarity based word or phrase replacement.
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Any parts of the script that will be replaced will be marked in blue.
Note: This currently does not work with
Sequences,
but they should be supported in an upcoming release.
Corner rounding and wrapping on text backgrounds
You can now add rounding to the corners on the background of your text elements.
Corner rounding helps make your visual layout more distinct, clear and professional. Backgrounds can also help make your text easier to read and rounding provides a cleaner look especially when overlaid against contrasting colors in your background.
You can add rounding using this icon:
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In addition, there are two new settings under the background option in the layers menu:
  • Hug lines - Background will tightly wrap around your text when it spans multiple lines.
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  • Box - The background boundary will always be as wide as the longest line.
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Editor updates
  • Deleting a scene boundary will now also delete layers that are anchored to that scene boundary. This makes removing full scenes easier in most use cases. Layers that are not anchored to a scene boundary will remain in place.
  • We’ve brought the Supertoast over from the web version of Descript into the Desktop app. This puts all the notifications and progress meters for your file processing, exports, transcription etc. into a handy pop-out so you can keep them hidden until you need to check. Note: This is rolling out slowly, so if you don’t see it just yet, you should see it by the end of the week.
  • This is one for the advanced users: In the past users importing video with non-square pixel aspect ratios would encounter unexpected results during editing. These file types are now supported, and you can import than without having to do any sort of file re-encoding.
Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug preventing recordings from appearing the Import from Zoom menu
  • Fixed a bug causing layers to paste with incorrect placements when copying to a separate composition
  • Fixed a bug causing layer clips to shift unexpectedly after applying a layout
  • Fixed an issue blocking Green Screen adjustment from the Layer menu
There are a few new features releasing today, and they don't even require you to download an app update. We just turned them on.
New text animations
We’ve added new text animations and animation settings for Title and other text elements.
There are two new presets:
  • Appear
    - Text pops in by word, line, or paragraph.
  • Reveal
    - Text slides in from an invisible frame, by word, line, or paragraph. This includes a directional setting so you can determine if the text is revealed from the left, right, top or bottom.
You can also target most animations by word, by line, or by paragraph.
Easing is applied per word, sentence or paragraph. The overall animation is always on a linear easing curve.
Borders and shadows on media layers
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You can now apply borders and shadows to all visual layer types including video.
Borders have their own section in the Layer panel, and Shadows will appear under the Effects header. We are also adding Shadows, toggled off, to all visual layers by default for easy access.
  • This update fixes an issue in our internal error reporting mechanism and contains no user facing changes.
  • Fixes a bug where typing
    m
    would add a marker while in Write Mode on the Desktop app
  • Fixes an issue causing playhead position inaccuracy while editing during playback

new

improved

fixed

Release Version 97

Zoom and pan animation preset returns
By popular request, we have brought back the zoom and pan preset. Zoom and pan animations could always be performed using a Custom animation, but we’re restored the preset version that already has some level of animation set on the ending keyframe.
AI Usage dashboard admin view
Drive admins can now view the AI suite usage data for Drive members.
The Drive admin will always be the first on the list, followed by all Editor members so you can keep track of users who are close to hitting their limit for AI suite usage.
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We’ll show warnings as your approach your limit, and show any features that require an upgrade to unlock. If you are on a plan without limits for a feature, it will permanently show Unlimited in this panel. We’ll add a counter for Unlimited users for tracking purposes in an upcoming update.
New stock speakers
6 new stock voices will be rolling out in the coming days. These voices come with some upgrades which we’ll discuss in more detail in upcoming updates. You can find them in the Stock Speakers menu under these names:
  • Cedric
  • Dolores
  • Imogen
  • Judith
  • Paula
  • Tyler
More voices are also releasing in the coming weeks.
General Editor updates
  • The keyboard shortcuts for add Speaker and add Marker were not working in Write mode. This has been fixed so that Shift + # will add a marker, and Shift + @ will add a speaker.
  • We’ve removed the option to drop files into the Canvas when viewing a blank project. This is because many users were accidentally loading their intended Script track as a layer instead. Once a script track is in place, drag and drop using the Canvas to add a layer is re-enabled. You can also add layers from the Project panel on the sidebar, or by dragging them into the layers section of the timeline.
  • Create speaker will now show in the speaker label menu before any letters are typed. Previously, we would not show this option until text was present in the field.
Bug Fixes
  • Improved aliasing issues when downscaling images and video
  • Fixed an issue with right-click menu appearing in the Import from URL field in the Desktop app
  • Fixed a bug causing an “error changing text” when trying to add a video sequence to a composition
  • Fixed a bug causing an “invariant Violation: expected start <== end” error when attempting to export or publish a translated composition
  • Fixed a bug resulting in a “CollectionID” error when using translation w/ dubbing
  • Fixed a bug causing adding a name to fail to apply when identifying speakers
  • Fixed a bug preventing YouTube videos with longer names to import successfully with a “something went wrong” error
  • Fixed a bug preventing click and drag to change EQ parameters
  • Fixes a bug in which the Home button was unresponsive for some users
  • Fixes an "error changing text" issue when adding a sequence to an empty composition
  • Fixes an issue where playback may freeze, especially during periods of high CPU usage
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