Twitter Releases Video-Clipping Tool LiveCut. What Does It Mean for Sports-Video Pros? The social-media platform will also be shutting down SnappyTV at the end of the year By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Monday, July 22, 2019 - 1:09 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
Twitter grabbed the attention of many in the content-creation game last week with the announcement of its new live-video-editing and -distribution tool, LiveCut. The cloud-based web application allows quick editing and sharing of video highlights of a live stream occurring from one's own Twitter account.
It's a move that the social-media giant has been chatting about since acquiring a similar technology in SnappyTV back in 2014. It was in 2017, however, that Twitter actively spoke about shutting down Snappy and introducing its own replacement.
Last week, Twitter introduced LiveCut, a web-based application for editing of highlight clips from a live stream on the social platform.
Now that time has come. So, what does the move mean for sports-video content creators?
At first glance, users will find a video clipper very similar to that of SnappyTV but one baked seamlessly into a more comprehensive video ecosystem offered by Twitter, known as Media Studio. For that reason, Twitter Product Manager Kevin Cohen, who is overseeing LiveCut, recommends it not be considered simply a like-for-like replacement of SnappyTV.
I think LiveCut brings a lot more to the table in comparison to SnappyTV, he says. All of your broadcasts [in Media Studio] are going to be available to be clipped in LiveCut, which is very different from SnappyTV, where you needed to send a stream to Twitter and another stream to SnappyTV in order to clip from it. That was too much of a burden, especially for groups like [sports teams], who in their postgame press conferences needed to do two streams at once. We're bringing that functionality, and I think that's going to be really beneficial for partners.
The usability of LiveCut sticks to the roots of what made SnappyTV popular with digital and social-video content distributors: its no-frills UX was easy to learn (or teach), and it's free. Those factors became very obvious to the design team as they worked through user research with partners who were heavy users of SnappyTV. Sure, Twitter could have loaded LiveCut up with a world of new features, but much of the user feedback received indicated that clients wanted them to keep it simple.
Using LiveCut, as with SnappyTV, is fairly straightforward. You can set an in and an out on your live timeline, add in some metadata (such as a title and short description), compose your tweet, and quickly publish a video to your account. We wanted to honor some of those design principals such that there was some familiarity with clipping in this new product, says Cohen.
It's the integration within Twitter's Media Studio where content distributors will find some new value to play around with. With LiveCut, users can live-clip any piece of video content that either is currently live or has been either posted to one's Twitter account or captured using a Twitter-based means, like Twitter's new camera or Periscope. LiveCut will also house all consumption metrics, like video views, time spent watching, completion rate for videos on an account.
The integration of the whole thing, I think, is the game-changer, says Cohen. Media Studio really becomes that one-stop shop for all of your publishing needs across Twitter. Media Studio for a long time has been a great source for managing all of your content across Twitter for monetizing it and analyzing it. Over the last year or so and now with the introduction of LiveCut, we have really bolstered the efficacy of our live product within Media Studio, and we've started to feel the impact of that not just from sports partners but also those on the advertiser side who are becoming more and more content creators in and of themselves.
Are there plans to expand on LiveCut and offer more tools and options for super-users, who might want to get more bang for their buck in their live clipping for Twitter? Sure. According to Cohen, this version of LiveCut is definitely a version 1.0, and Twitter believes deeply in the value the product brings to content creators of its platform. Investment in LiveCut will continue. Next iterations will depend on user feedback after a few months of use in the field.
There were critical principles to the product that we heard from our partners on and learned from our usability sessions; we wanted LiveCut to be fast, simple, and free, says Cohen. We chose to invest in that as early as possible. Keeping in mind, we have super-users like big sports leagues and collegiate athletic departments that want the robust features and functionality, but we knew we needed to nail those principles off the bat, and that's where we focused our attention at first with the understanding that we will continue to iterate on the product.
Twitter also found it very important to release the product over the summer, most notably to allow its many collegiate-sports partners to get their hands on it prior to the start of the new athletics season in August. Also, although SnappyTV will be shutting down, it won't go dark until the end of the calendar year.
We wanted to ensure that our partners had a really long lead time in getting familiar with LiveCut and slowly transitioning over to using LiveCut from SnappyTV, says Cohen. I felt it was really important that we offer our partners around six months or so to have that opportunity to transition.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
Latino Film Institute Fellows Screen Their Short Films at the Egyptian Theatre
The Inclusion Fellowship and Spark Animation Grant uplifts 15 ...
29/05/2026
GLOOKAST LAUNCHES CINNAFILM TACHYON PLUGIN FOR MEDIA PRODUCER AND MEDIA SERVICES
This release first appeared here.
Visit our Tachyon product page or contact...
29/05/2026
May 29 2026, 09:00 (PDT) Dolby and rednote Bring More Immersive Storytelling to...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Youtube exclusive special drops today
Watch now
UKTV today announces another e...
Twitter Releases Video-Clipping Tool LiveCut. What Does It Mean for Sports-Video Pros? The social-media platform will also be shutting down SnappyTV at the end of the year By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
