Descript Version 80 - What's New

It's January 10th, and descript rolled out the first version update of this year. This One is version 80. And the first new feature of this update is the ability for layers to snap. We've had this for a long time with the script layer, but essentially this is when you reposition a layer next to another layer, adjacent to another layer, and it'll default to positioning itself immediately next to the previous one, which with no gap and no overlap between the two. As an example, if you use Canva or PowerPoint, you're familiar with, when you're dragging an image around the screen, it will try to auto position into the center of your workspace that is snapping. The image is snapping into the center of that workspace. And the software is assuming when it's doing this that you're trying to center something up and it'll snap it into that center. So that is what we have with the the layers. And the thing that is new about it is it applies to all layers, not just the script layer like we had previously. The second update is that the correct text tool now applies to wordless media. What this means is that parts of your script where there are no words being detected, you can now find those gaps, those places where there are no words with the correct text tool, and then you can ignore or delete those spaces using the correct text workflow that that you use when you're normally correcting text. The third update has to do with the web version of descript. They've added the ability to export videos from your browser. Videos, audio, gifs, et cetera. Because until now you could only edit the videos in your browser on the web version, and then you'd have to switch over to the app if you wanted to export it. But keep in mind, the web version is still in beta. They officially say it's in beta. And I only recommend that you use it if your computer doesn't handle descript well. So that means that the descript app is more stable if you have a modern CPU and GPU and plenty of hard drive space, just use the app, just use the app version. And if you don't, then try out the web version. Because what happens is it's streaming your video, it's streaming the project, and so it's not relying on your hard drive, and it's doing a lot of the processing in descript Cloud on descript servers. So that is the one case where I recommend that you use the browser version. The fourth update is that they mention they are doing away with the white glove transcription service. Now, this doesn't apply to most people, but if you've ever used the White Glove transcription service, this was something that Descript offered where a human would transcribe your project just to make sure that it's 100% accurate. But they are saying in this update that the AI is now so good that they don't even need to offer this service anymore. So it's going to be gone as of March 4, which is less than two months away as I record this. And then finally, as always, they close the changelog with a lot of the new bug fixes that they made in this version. And I saw a post from the CEO Andrew Mason, saying that the focus for this year on the Descript team is on fixing bugs. In 2023, their focus was on the stability of the app, so making sure that it wasn't crashing and that it, you know, ran smoothly. This year, it's on getting rid of all the pesky little bugs, little glitches and things that happen to just make your experience smoother and better for all Descript users. That's it for today. Happy 2024.