User guide › Apps › Video studio
Where it lives
Video Studio is its own installable app. The project list is at
/videos and each project opens at /videos/<id>.
It is not part of any bundle — install it on its own from the marketplace.
If it isn't installed the screen says
Video Studio isn't installed with an
Open marketplace button.
Narration and generated music are produced by a speech/music provider your operator configures once for the workspace. Nothing here asks you for keys — provider setup is covered in Integrations.
Starting a project
The projects screen (Compose branded ads from parameterised templates.) gives you three ways in. All three land you in the same studio editor.
| Button | What it does | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| New project | Opens Choose a template and creates a project from the one you pick, pre-filled with that template's default copy. | You want to write the words yourself. |
| From template | Generate from prompt — you pick a template format and write a brief; the copy for every scene is written for you. The scene structure stays exactly as the template defines it. | A known-good layout, faster words. |
| Bespoke from prompt | Bespoke from prompt — you pick a format and write a brief, and the whole composition is designed: scene count, layouts, copy, palette. | Something the built-in templates don't cover. |
Both prompt-driven options need at least 10 characters of brief — shorter and you get Brief is too short — give the AI more to work with (10+ characters). The bespoke format choice is Vertical · Reels / TikTok (9:16) or Landscape · YouTube / web (16:9). More on how AI features behave across the product is in AI in BackOffice.
Every template card shows its format, its duration in seconds and its scene count, and the picker is clear that All templates are fully editable — a template is a starting point, not a cage.
On the list, each project shows its template, when it was last touched and a rendered marker once it has produced an MP4. The copy icon is Duplicate — it clones the project and drops you into the copy, which is the safe way to try a variant without disturbing an approved video.
The studio
Open a project and you get the scene editor. Edits save themselves about a second and a half after you stop typing — the header shows Saving…, then Saved, then Idle. There is no separate save button to forget.
Scenes and copy
The body of the studio is one panel per scene, each holding that scene's text inputs — headline, body lines, the narration script, whatever that layout declares. Type into them; that's the video's content.
On a bespoke project you also control the structure: Add scene (pick a layout, it lands at the end), move a scene up or down, change its Layout, set its Duration in seconds, or delete it.
A project started from a built-in template says Structure locked. — its scenes and inputs are hand-crafted and can't be added or removed. You can still rewrite every word. To gain structural control, use Regenerate structure in the header, which promotes the project to a bespoke composition and reuses your current copy wherever the slots match.
Regenerate structure also works as an iteration tool on a bespoke project: describe the changes you want — more scenes, a different layout, tighter copy — and existing values are preserved where they still fit.
Voice
Narration is spoken by a voice you choose from a curated catalogue, each listed with a gender and a tone description. The project has one voice, and any scene can override it — the per-scene picker's default option is Inherit project voice. Change the voice and the next render picks it up; you don't re-record anything by hand.
Music
Three sources, and they resolve in a fixed order:
| Priority | Source | How |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Your own upload | Upload track — an MP3 or WAV, up to 50 MB. Uploads go straight to storage, not through the app server. |
| 2 | The shared library | From library — curated tracks, each with a described vibe and a length, so you can match one to the video's runtime. |
| 3 | The template's own bed | Template default — what the composition ships with. |
Picking a library track clears a custom upload and vice versa, so the choice is never ambiguous. There is also AI music, which composes a track shaped around your scene structure and applies it to the project — that one is available on bespoke projects only; on a template project it tells you to promote with Regenerate structure first.
Logo and overlays
- Brand logo (CTA mark) — upload a PNG, JPG or WEBP; a square image works best. It replaces the default mark in the closing scene.
- Custom overlays — free-form text dropped onto any scene: promo chips, callouts, urgency badges. Each overlay takes a scene, a start time, a length, a style (Chip, Headline, Subtitle) and a position (Top, Middle, Bottom). They sit on top without disturbing the composition's own animations.
Live preview
Show preview opens a looping preview of the composition beside the editor. It is visual only — no audio: it exists so you can see your copy, logo and layout in place. It refreshes after each autosave. Voiceover and sound are baked at render time, so hearing the video means rendering it.
Rendering
- Press Render The Render button sits in the studio header. The arrow beside it opens the quality choice.
- Pick a quality High quality — 30 fps, full encode. Draft — 24 fps, softer encode, and faster. Draft is for checking timing and wording; High is what you publish.
- Let it run The render is queued and processed in the background — you can leave the page. The button shows Queuing… then Rendering…, and a pill in the app's top bar tracks renders across every project, so you get told when one finishes wherever you are in the workspace.
- Collect the file The finished MP4 appears under Renders on the project, newest first.
Each render freezes the project's content at the moment you pressed the button, so editing afterwards never rewrites a video you've already produced. A render is one of four states: Queued, Rendering…, Ready or Failed. A failed render carries the reason it failed.
Where the video ends up
Rendered MP4s are stored in your workspace's file storage, not on the machine you were working from. You reach them from the project:
- Latest render plays inline at the top of the render section. Before your first one it reads No renders yet. Hit Render in the header to produce your first MP4 — it'll appear here.
- Renders lists every render with its file size, how long it took to produce, and a draft chip on draft-quality ones.
- Open plays it; the download control saves the MP4 to your machine. Both work off a time-limited link generated when you click, so don't paste that link into an email expecting it to work next week — download the file and attach it, or re-open it from the project.
The confirmation is explicit: Existing renders remain in storage but the project will be removed from the list. Download anything you still want before you delete the project — the list is how you find it again.
Who can do what
Opening the app needs access to Video Studio. One further permission is granted per role under Settings → Module Access; admins pass it.
| Permission | Unlocks |
|---|---|
| Generate videos | Rendering, and the AI generation actions — From template, Bespoke from prompt, Regenerate structure and AI music. Without it a member can open, edit and duplicate projects but not produce anything. |
The two prompt buttons on the project list are hidden entirely for members without it, and the server refuses the action as well as the UI hiding it. Background on how permissions layer is in Permissions & access.
Rendering and AI generation consume real compute. That's exactly why the permission is separate from access — let the whole content team draft and edit, and grant Generate videos to the people responsible for what ships.
When something goes wrong
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Video Studio isn't installed | The app isn't installed for this workspace. Open marketplace and install it. |
| Brief is too short | The generate buttons need at least 10 characters. Describe the product, the audience and the tone. |
| Structure locked. | A built-in template project. Rewrite copy freely; use Regenerate structure to gain scene control. |
| Music generation requires a bespoke project | Same cause. Promote with Regenerate structure first. |
| Only PNG, JPG, or WEBP images are accepted for logos. | The logo file is the wrong type — re-export it. |
| File too large | A music upload over the 50 MB limit. Compress the track. |
| Upload failed | The browser's direct upload to storage was rejected. This is a storage configuration problem — hand it to whoever administers the workspace. |
| A render shows Failed | The render row carries the reason. A missing or unconfigured speech provider is a common one when the video asks for new narration — see Integrations. Fix it and press Render again; nothing else is lost. |
The in-studio preview is deliberately muted and audio assets are stubbed while you edit. If you want to hear the voiceover or the music, render — a Draft render is the cheap way to check the sound before committing to a high-quality one.
What to do with the finished video
The MP4 is an ordinary file — it goes wherever you'd put any other ad. Two natural homes inside BackOffice:
- Embed it on a page with the Video block — Landing pages.
- Run it as creative in a campaign and measure what it drives — Omni Marketing, with the full sequence in Campaign lifecycle.