Changelog

Follow up on the latest improvements and updates.

RSS

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Release Version 84

New AI Action: Find all highlights
This week we’re introducing a new AI Action called
Find all highlights.
It will seek out the parts of your project that best represent the throughline of your content.
This action is perfect for creating supercuts of your long-form content, or it can be used as a more thorough alternative to
Find good clips.
Whether you’re trying to my a podcast highlight reel for YouTube or just trying to boil down that 3-hour sync meeting into something more digestible,
Find all highlights
is your new production buddy.
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AI Edit Actions: Now with Deletion
Our AI Edit actions
Edit for clarity…
and
Remove retakes
are getting a quality of life update. After looking over suggested edits and applying them from
Edit for clarity
or
Remove retakes
, we now offer an easy follow-up action labeled
Accept all deletions
to quickly clean up your script by removing all ignored media.
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Housekeeping updates
  • Pasting video into an audio-only composition will ask if you'd like to convert the composition to video. If you intend to keep working in an audio-only state, you can just click the X to dismiss the prompt.
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  • A while back, we added a Default setting for Publishing privacy to Drive Owner settings. This was defaulted to Public for new Drives. This has been changed so that new Drives will default to “Anyone with Link” also known as
    Unlisted
    .
Signing in with the Wrong Email
We have resolved a problem that some users have encountered: if you sign in with the wrong email address, the app will treat it like a new user signup and you have to click through the onboarding steps including a plan level. This was confusing users who had already purchased a plan. While you could always select Free, then logout and log back in with the correct email address - we’ve added a Switch Account option to the drop-down in the upper right corner as an escape hatch if you end up signing in with a new email address by mistake.
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White Glove Sunset Update
As mentioned a few weeks ago, White Glove transcription has officially been disabled.
Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a long-standing issue with Alphanumeric sorting in the Media Library. Files starting with a number should now be sorted more intuitively.
  • Fixed several bugs related to pop-over menus and icons when using smaller-size project windows.
  • Fixed some issues with using Ignore on Wordless Media blocks.
  • Fixed a bug in which Duplicating to a New or Existing Composition resulted in unexpected layer placement.
  • Fixed a bug causing an error when removing filler works near Wordless Media Blocks.
  • Fixed a bug preventing the media library from being opened when viewing a project's Version History.
  • Fixed a bug causing extra or hidden layers to published pages.
  • Fixed an issue with the sensitivity of clicking and dragging clips in Sequence files, causing them to move when it wasn’t expected.
  • Fixed two bugs causing Templates to apply audio or video incorrectly in some projects.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented right-click from working on Drive view on Windows devices.
  • Fixed a bug causing an error when trying to use 4K video as a thumbnail during publishing.
  • Fixed an issue with transcription failing to resume after pausing a screen recording.
  • Fixed a bug causing a “Timestretcher” error when exporting.
  • Fixed an issue where imported or replaced transcripts would create blank spaces in the script.
  • Fixes an issue that allowed users on outdated versions of Descript to edit projects with a higher version number. This was causing some edits to not be saved.
  • Fixes a bug where speaker labels could not be added to the script and errant Detecting Speaker headers were appearing in the Script
  • Reverts changes to the selection toolbar
Introducing Descript Labs
Starting in v82, Descript users will be able to opt-in to preview versions of new and upcoming features. The first Descript labs will feature our upcoming redesign of the Timeline experience.
Just navigate to
Settings → General
and check off any features you’d like to try out. You can leave us feedback about the feature by clicking the Leave Feedback button under the Labs heading in your Settings menu.
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The new Timeline experience comes with:
  • Increased visual feedback and clarity on layers
  • More power and flexibility
For full details on both Labs and associated test features, please visit our Help Center.
Bug Fixes
  • This patch also fixes an issue that prevented some users from loading the web app.

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Release Version 82

Quick Recorder gets a major upgrade on MacOS
The Quick Recorder is an easy-to-access and instant-to-use way to record a thought, send a video message, and generate content on the fly.
Starting today on MacOS (
and coming soon to Windows
) - the Quick Recorder has leveled up.
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We have made improvements to:
  • Reliability
    : the recorder will fail less often, and we’ve made improvements to data recovery when recording is interrupted by hardware or software issues.
  • Speed
    : The Quick Recorder now begins uploading your content while you are still recording. When you press Stop, we’ll take you straight to the published share page and playback is available immediately. (There may still be a small delay for Quick Recordings with Studio Sound applied, but support for instant playback on Studio Sounded recordings is coming soon.)
There are two modes:
  • Record and Share
    : Takes you to the Share page with the full video available when you hit Stop.
  • Record and Edit
    : Takes you to a full Project containing the video when you hit Stop.
This also means that we no longer offer a Quick Editor - instead, you can click the Edit button to open a normal Descript project with your Quick Recording.
Reminder
: In a recent update, we added a Default publishing privacy option to the Settings menu. We recommend choosing a setting due to the new features.
Note
:
We have noticed a bug that can occur when you publish Privately. The video will flicker until the upload has been completed in our backend. The issue will go away after that and a fix is in the works.
AI Action Updates
  • Find Good Clips is now a lot faster, works more reliably, and you can prompt it with the number of clips, duration per clip, and topic you want it to focus on. If you tried it in the past, now's a great time to give it another shot.
Editor Updates
  • We’ve added the ability to adjust the volume of Gap Clips with Room Tone in Sequences. This will adjust the volume of all Room Tone clips within the Sequence.
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  • We’ve cleaned up the Speaker menu by removing the redundant text labeling AI speakers under the Add AI speaker to project header
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Sand → Yellow
Rose → Red
Salmon → Orange
Mint → Green
Seaglass → Blue
Violet → Purple
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  • Added a Red Dot indicator when a Filter or Sort option is in use within the Media Library.
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  • Replacing a file with Studio Sound enabled will now retain your Intensity setting.
Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug causing the playhead position to jump when adding Animations
  • Fixed a bug resulting in pasted media appearing as blue Text-To-Speech
  • Fixed an issue resulting in various errors when copying and pasting between Compositions
  • Fixed a bug in which new Scenes are added at the same timestamp as existing scenes
  • Fixed an issue with automatic scrolling on Descript Share page transcripts
  • Fixed an issue resulting in "Failed to apply template: Component does not exist on track” error message when applying a template to a scene
  • Fixed some issues causing a false “No Results” error when using Stock Media search
  • Fixed an issue causing Transcript to appear on Share page embeds even when Show Transcript is disabled
  • Fixed an issue with Speaker Labels not appearing when applied to a blank line before a speaker change
  • Fixed an issue for Enterprise Drive Admins who were unable to move certain projects
A previous version of this changelog mentioned the new Descript Labs feature prematurely. This feature should launch within the next 48 hours.

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Release Version 81

Editor Updates
Animation Curve Presets
We’ve added new animation smoothing curve presets to the Animation settings menu. Animation easing adds frames to the end or beginning of the animation to smooth out the transition between the static image and the image as it moves.
There are four presets:
Ease in and out -
Smooths the transition at the beginning and end of an animation cycle
Ease in -
Smooths the starting transition only
Ease out -
Smooths the ending transition only
Linear -
No smoothing
By default, all new Animations will have
Ease in and out
on by default, but you can add this setting to any existing animations or copy and paste your settings.
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Other Editor Changes
  • The Playhead and text cursor now move together by default so you won’t have to manage the location of both indicators.
  • Hovering your mouse over profile icons in the Version History menu now displays the full name of the user associated with the Project update.
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  • If you run an AI action, but edit the script before committing changes, you’ll receive this toast explaining that the script has been altered, so you either need to undo the changes, or re-run the action, to proceed.
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  • The Remove effect button has been moved to the inside of the
    Effects settings
    menu for a more consistent sidebar layout.
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  • We upgraded our Text-to-Image generation engine from DALL-E 2 to DALL-E 3. This upgraded version exhibits an enhanced responsiveness to subtle details in prompts, allowing you to achieve your intended results with minimal input.
New Default Project Location settings for Enterprise Admins
Admins on Enterprise plans can now select the default storage location for new projects, which allows administrators to set the default storage location for all users on the Drive to
Private workspace.
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Bug Fixes
  • Fixed an issue with the toolbar pop-up being deselected when navigating outside of the Script.
  • Fixed a bug related to creating two scenes at the beginning of the composition.
  • Fixed a copy-paste issue when copying wordless media.
  • Fixed an issue with some files not filling the canvas when added via
    “Add File.”
  • Fixed a bug that causes an
    "error changing the text"
    message to appear when using
    "Add scenes by active speaker".
  • Fixed a bug preventing Timeline Export on non-sequence files when Studio Sound is enabled.
Introducing our newest AI Action, Edit for Clarity.
Edit for Clarity intelligently identifies and removes distracting filler words, tangents, and non-essential sections, ensuring your message is concise and impactful. Whether, it’s a podcast, video message, or any unscripted recording use Edit for Clarity to refine your content to its purest form.
Save on editing costs, and save time for both yourself and your audience by letting Edit for Clarity trim out the boring stuff.
It's available now, so give Edit for Clarity, and our growing suite of AI Actions for Writing, Publishing, and Editing actions a try today.

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improved

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Release Version 80

Snapping Layers
Layers now have snap points at the beginning and end making it much easier to organize your timeline. When you click to drag a layer, you’ll now see a dotted line appear as you approach the boundary of another layer.
If you’re looking to combine two layers, you can keep moving toward the layer boundary until you see a red line.
Correct Text on Wordless Media
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You can now use the Correct text tool on Wordless Media - which is useful for instances where a muffled word is not transcribed.
You can also use the Ignore feature on Wordless Media as long as it is adjacent to transcribed media. Previously these sections could only be deleted. Ignore (strikethrough) skips over the media in playback, export, and publish, but still appears in the Editor-based script.
Descript for Web (Beta) adds Video, Audio, and GIF exports
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We’ve enabled the ability to Export Video, Audio, and GIFs to our Web editor Beta. If you haven’t tried the Web version of Descript yet, now’s the perfect time to try it out.
Descript for Web allows you to use Descript’s most powerful features without downloading or installing the app. Because media is streamed, you don’t even need to store or download large files for playback, and users with hardware-based performance issues will likely have a much smoother experience.
We do not always mention updates to currently-in-beta features in the Changelog, but the lack of media file exports has been a blocker for some users.
As with all Beta features, you may encounter bugs or unexpected slowness. Please see our Help Center for full details and limitations.
Drive Admins for Enterprise Plans
Enterprise drive owners can now make any of their drive members an admin. Admins will be able to manage drive memberships and projects, but will not be able to change the subscription details. You can access this from the Settings menu → Membership section.
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Drive administrators CAN:
  • Add or Remove members
  • Upgrade members from Basic to Editor
  • View transcription history
  • Add or Remove other Admins
  • View subscription details
  • Manage Drive invites
  • Change project ownership
Drive administrators CANNOT:
  • Make changes to the subscription plan or details
  • View invoices
A reminder: this feature is enabled for Enterprise level plans
only.
White Glove Transcription Sunset
As of March 4th, 2024, we will be sunsetting the human-powered White Glove transcription feature. We’ve seen automated transcription become increasingly powerful over the years, and we’d like to keep investing our team's resources into making it even better.
Starting in v80, new users will no longer see the feature, but existing users will still have access until the sunset date. If this is a feature you rely on, we highly recommend working directly with Rev, who has been our White Glove transcription provider. You can import human-powered transcripts into Descript with just a few clicks.
Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug causing an “error changing text” message to appear when pasting a Layout.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Publishing when certain fonts were present.
  • Fixed an issue that allowed a recording device to be selected when no drivers are installed.
  • Fixed an issue where the Media drawer mirrored the in-composition Add Layer menu selection.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Add Layer selection from being added to the composition.
  • Fixed an issue causing incorrect layer ordering after using Regenerate.
  • Removed a confusing tooltip in the media library showing In-point selection when In-points are not valid for that insertion.
  • Fixed a bug preventing the In-point tooltip from appearing on some video layers in the media library.
Since we overhauled our AI Speaker model earlier this year we thought it was time that we also rebuilt our Stock Speakers library and retrained the old Stock Speakers on the new and improved model. You can find these voices under the
Speaker menu → Browse AI Speakers
.
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Starting today the Stock Speakers menu has been populated with 12 brand new speakers and 8 of the original Stock Speakers that have been retrained.
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This is just the beginning, so we’ve added a search bar to help you find the right speaker for your project, including an overall style, accent, vocal range (masculine/feminine), and age.
If you’re an existing user looking for the old voices you can find them by toggling the filter setting to
Show.
These versions have not been retrained.
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This is a major improvement in our AI Stock Speaker options, and there's more to come, so we’re excited for you to give them a try.

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Release Version 79.1.0

New Canvas Options
There’s a new drop-down menu on the Sidebar that allows rounding all four corners separately with a different adjustable radius for each corner. When you have multiple corners adjusted but the dropdown is closed, it will show a Mixed status.
The canvas toolbar also has some new options to adjust the position of media in the frame, including a Top or Bottom, Left or Right, and a Fill Canvas option. This last option is great for layers that may have a slightly different aspect ratio than your main Script.
AI Action Improvements: Add Timestamps and Remove Retakes
The AI Action to Add Chapters or Markers has been improved with a new “Add Timestamps” option. This will show the relevant timestamps of the Chapter markers so you can copy them to your clipboard for an easy way to export your chapter positions.
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We’ve also made improvements to Remove Retakes, which should now be much more effective at finding retakes in your Script. If you had any issues with this action last week, we invite you to give it another try.
Duplicate to Folder
We added an option to Search
Copy and…
which will Duplicate your selections to an existing Composition folder.
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Speaker Label and Speaker Menu changes
  • Speaker labels have darker text and an input outline for added clarity.
  • The speaker label menu is now separated into speakers already
    In this project
    and
    Add AI speaker to project
    which populates with your trained AI Speakers or frequently used Stock AI Speakers.
  • Any speaker with a trained AI voice will be labeled
    AI.
    This includes AI Speakers you’ve trained, as well as our Stock AI Speakers.
  • Speakers trained with the Legacy Overdub model will be labeled
    Legacy AI.
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Bug Fixes
  • Fixed an issue causing the end of videos imported from Squadcast to become resized.
  • Fixed an issue with Room Tone clips not appearing in Timeline Exports.
  • Fixed an issue with color adjustments not applying to the Script track.
  • Fixed an issue where filler words followed by a comma would not be removed.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Copy + Paste Layout from updating the Multicam selection within a Scene.
  • Fixed an issue with Always Ask Before Transcribing still proceeding to transcribe the file even when the X is clicked.
  • Fixed an issue where resizing the timeline prevents the full timeline from being drawn.
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