twitch clips guide

28 July 2021

Views: 35,670

Twitch Clips Guide???

It seems like a lot of people are unsure about Twitch Clips in some degree or just don't know much about them in the first place.
I'll try to note down some things about them in this writeup.
This is assuming you have no idea what this feature is at all, a complete beginner.

-What are Twitch clips?
Twitch clips are a feature on Twitch.TV to "clip" up to 60 seconds of the past 90 seconds of the stream (90 seconds from the moment you clicked the clip button or pressed alt-x)
Basically, it's an easy way to preserve a moment that just happened without going through any hassles like downloading the VOD.

-Importance of Twitch clips
It is crucial to have quick and digestible content for people to look at, streams are nice but it's a lot to ask new people to go to the streamer's channel, and then click around on VODs.
Twitch clips allows someone to potentially quickly get a grasp of what someone's content by watching a few clips of them.
Clips can also be content in itself to be posted on Twitter/YT/other socials, can be used for editing, and it has a niche use as a "marker" that something eventful happened during that portion of the stream.

-Quick Twitch Clips How-To
1. Go to the thing you want to clip, it can be a stream, a past broadcast VOD, or a highlight that the streamer uploaded, essentially anything that isn't a clip can be clipped
2. Clipping can then be done by pressing the clapperboard button on the player or by pressing alt-x while focused on the player

!!!!! NOTE THAT CLIPS ARE "PUBLISHED" AS SOON AS YOU PRESS THIS BUTTON OR DO THE SHORTCUT, TWITCH FUCKING SUCKS AND DOESN'T LET YOU KNOW THIS (Twitch clips that are like this will have the stream title as the name and will be 30 seconds), You'll have to delete it later if you accidentally clicked the button

3. When you press the button a new tab will open allowing you to choose how long you want the clip to be (from a minimum of 5 seconds to a maximum of 60 seconds) and also naming the clip
4. After you set the time range and name the clip you can hit the publish button to save your settings

//Things of note

-Downloading clips
You can download clips using UnTwitch https://untwitch.com/
If you want VODs you can use TwitchLeecher https://github.com/Franiac/TwitchLeecher/releases

-What to do with a clip
When you make a clip, you should try to show it to the chuuba if you can, or at least make the chuuba be aware that you made clips of their stream
Posting the clip you made in the chat also helps them know that they're being clipped

-Clips dashboard on Twitch
You can check all the clips you've made by going to your Clips tab in your Dashboard (fastest way to get there is clicking on your profile picture -> video producer -> clips)
On this page you can search by category and channels, as well as sort by date created. Also on this page you can delete clips or rename them.
If you're a chuuba this is also where you can vet your clips, you have the power to delete clips other people made.

-Views on clips
Viewership on clips isn't super important but because the clips tab on a channel sorts by High-to-Low view count, it's important that you get your clips to have some views on it so it gets pushed towards the top and becomes easier to find.
Easiest way to do this is to link it in chat when you make the clip, some people will click it and it gets pushed upwards thanks to those few clicks.

-Clip length
15-30 seconds is a good length for most clips, it can be lower if you wish but the most part you shouldn't need to go higher.
The only times you should have a long clip is if it's a story or there's consistent action throughout the clip.
Assume the person who will watch clips don't have a long attention span to wait 20-30 seconds for something to happen, have the action start in the first 5 seconds into the clip.

-Clip names
When it comes to naming, try to keep it simple and don't go for funny stuff unless you know it'll land well.
Usually I just state what occurs if I can (jumpscared by x) or quote them ("No way I'll die here") or make a statement (Got too cocky at y), I'm not a funny person so I don't often go for jokes.
Note that names help the chuuba out too, when they look at their dashboard they won't know what the clip is until they click on it, having an obvious name helps them out especially if they get a ton of clips.

-Clip "etiquette"
Being familiar with the streamer helps a lot when it comes to knowing good moments to clip.
Generally try to avoid things that you THINK would do well (like coomer content) and instead try to keep it relevant to their content/personality.
You want clips that they can potentially put out there and attract actual fans instead of false ones.
But also don't think about it too hard, clip stuff you think is funny or good.

-Clip editing
I believe Twitch clips are a great gateway to editting, you can take a clip, slap on some subtitles and maybe effects and it's easy content for social media.
Another good usage would be for when a chuuba plays a game for a few streams, you can compile clips of that game and then put it all together and have an easy compilation/highlight reel for the chuuba to post on their YouTube.
Another way as mentioned before is using clips (from you or another person) as a point of reference, let's say a clip shows something happening but you want more context, you can download the VOD using TwitchLeecher and crop only the section the clip is in and edit together a video including the context leading up to the clip.
Take inpsiration from all those clippers out there like Vtubers R Us, they honestly don't put in that much effort, most of the time they're just uploading raw clips themselves with subtitles over it.

//

Conclusion
Twitch clipping is a relatively intuitive system and is one of the more important parts about Twitch IMO, the ability to preserve moments and put them out there is highly underrated and can do wonders for the exposure of someone.
It has limitations like the fact that it makes a clip the moment you click on the button, the 60 second limit, and how the clip ends at the point of when you clicked the button, but it's a very handy system nonetheless.
Some of this information is common/obvious but hopefully this helps somebody

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