A – Terms Starting with A

• Animation: A change to a visual layer’s properties between the start and end points.
• App Bar: The menu bar near the top of Descript where you can export your composition, invite collaborators, and change settings or preferences.
• Attributes: Settings such as volume adjustments, zoom positions, or color corrections.
• Auto-leveling: An audio feature that automatically adjusts the volume for individual audio clips in your timeline.
• Automatic microfades: Non-visible fades Descript applies between clips to prevent popping noises during playback.

B – Terms Starting with B

• Background: The base layer or color of a scene.
• Backup Recording: A secondary recording automatically created during Descript Room sessions, ensuring a fallback in case of any issues with the primary recording.
• Basic member: A type of drive member with limited access to transcription, editing, and exporting, with the ability to comment on projects.
• Blade tool: A timeline tool that splits your clip at the point where you click.
• Background Music: Audio added to enhance mood or context in a video or podcast.

C – Terms Starting with C

• Canvas: An editor area where you can arrange and adjust visuals in your scenes; not visible in audio-only compositions. Now known as the Scene editor. 
• Scene Editor Toolbar: A toolbar located in the scene editor, providing tools for adjusting and editing visual elements, such as resizing, positioning, cropping, and applying effects to layers within a scene in your composition.
• Captions: Text connected to your composition’s script, often used for subtitles or accessibility.
• Chroma Key: A feature that allows users to remove a specific color (usually green or blue) from a video background, enabling the addition of a new background or visual layer in its place.
• Clip: A section of audio, video, or media in your project that can be edited, moved, or adjusted within the timeline or scene editor. Clips represent the individual pieces of content that make up a composition, such as recorded audio, imported video, or images.
• Cloud Recording: A feature in SquadCast and Rooms where audio and video are recorded directly to the cloud, ensuring high-quality files are saved.
• Comments (share page): Feedback added to a share page’s transcript.
• Comments (project): Feedback added within a project’s script or media.
• Composition: The main area in Descript where media elements—audio, video, text, and effects—are organized and edited to create your final project. It serves as the central hub for assembling, adjusting, and refining your content.
• Consenting speaker: A person who is willingly submitting their voice to create a custom AI Speaker.
• Copy highlights: A feature that copies all the highlighted sections of your script to your clipboard.
• Copyright: Legal protection granted to the original creators of content (such as audio, video, or text) used in a project. Descript users must ensure they have the rights or proper permissions to use copyrighted materials in their compositions to avoid infringement.
• Correction: A script editor tool for correcting transcription errors without affecting the original media.
• Correction wizard: A tool that detects transcription errors for quick review and correction.

D – Terms Starting with D

• Descript Rooms: A feature that allows users to host and record group audio or video sessions directly in Descript.
• Detach audio: A feature that detaches audio from a video, creating a multitrack sequence with separate video and audio tracks.
• Drive: Central storage for projects, layout packs, recordings, and AI Speakers in Descript.
• Drive Admin: A user with administrative control over a Descript drive, managing members, permissions, and settings (Enterprise only).
• Drive member: A user with access to a shared Descript drive.
• Drive owner: A user with administrative privileges to manage a Descript drive.
• Drive view: The hub for organizing and managing projects within a Descript drive.
• Duplicate transcript: An issue when a speaker's voice appears across multiple tracks, causing inaccurate speaker labels.

E – Terms Starting with E

• Edit in Descript: A feature that allows users to directly import media files from integrated platforms, such as Zoom or SquadCast, into Descript for seamless editing, transcription, and collaboration.
• Editor member: A drive membership type with full editing, transcription, and project creation privileges.
• Editor Recorder: A tool in the main editor for capturing multitrack audio, video, or screen recordings.
• Effect (Audio): A tool to alter or enhance audio properties such as reverb or equalization.
• Effect (Video): A tool to modify or enhance video properties like color correction or transitions.
• Eye Contact: A feature that uses AI to adjust the gaze of a person in a video, making it appear as though they are maintaining eye contact with the camera.
• Export: The process of saving or publishing your composition in various file formats (such as MP4, WAV, GIF, etc.) or in various locations.

F – Terms Starting with F

• Filler word detection: A feature that identifies filler words like "um" or "like" in a composition for easy removal.
• Flatten tracks: A feature that consolidates multiple tracks into a new, unified file in the timeline.
• Frame Rate: The number of frames per second in a video, affecting the smoothness of playback.

G – Terms Starting with G

• Gap clip: A silent clip inserted into a script or media layer to fill a time gap.
• Green Screen: An AI-powered feature that removes a video’s background.
• Guest: A remote participant in a SquadCast recording session, who can join via a web link to contribute to the audio or video recording.

H – Terms Starting with H

• Hand tool: A timeline tool used to adjust the horizontal view of the timeline by clicking and dragging.
• Host: The person who initiates and controls a SquadCast or Descript Room recording session, managing guests and the recording process.

I – Terms Starting with I

• Ignore: A feature that strikes through text in your transcript, non-destructively removing the associated media.
• Import transcript: A tool that syncs existing transcripts with corresponding media without using transcription minutes.
• ISO (Isolated Recording): A feature in SquadCast and Rooms that captures each participant’s audio or video on separate tracks, ensuring high-quality, isolated recordings.

K – Terms Starting with K

• Keyframe (animations): The start and end points that define an animation’s properties and duration.

L – Terms Starting with L

• Layer: A visual or audio element used to build content within a composition.
• Layout pack: A pre-designed set of layouts (scenes) and/or settings you can apply to your composition.
• Layout: A predefined arrangement of visual and media elements within a scene in a layout pack. It provides a structured format that can be applied to scenes in your composition, allowing for consistent design and organization across multiple scenes.
• Live collaboration: Real-time collaboration allows multiple users to edit and comment on a project simultaneously.

M – Terms Starting with M

• Markers: Indicators used to segment compositions or highlight important moments.
• Multitrack Recording: A feature some recorders offer that records each participant's audio or video track separately, allowing for better editing and control in Descript when handling individual tracks.

O – Terms Starting with O

• Overdub: This feature in Descript has been renamed Regenerate. Please see Regenerate. 

P – Terms Starting with P

• Participant: Anyone who joins a Descript Room session to collaborate in real-time audio or video recording.
• Playhead: The indicator that marks where playback will begin in the timeline.
• Primary Recording: The main recording captured in a Descript Room session, saved to the cloud and available for editing and transcription after the session.
• Progressive Upload: A system in SquadCast and Rooms that continuously uploads recordings during the session, reducing the risk of lost files by saving data in real time.
• Project: A container that stores media, compositions, and settings for a Descript production.
• Project access: A user’s permission level to view or edit a project.
• Project file: Any audio or visual file that is part of your project.
• Project link: A shareable link for accessing a Descript project.
• Project owner: The user who created or has been assigned ownership of a project.
• Project search: A tool that allows you to search text, word gaps, or filler words within a project.

Q – Terms Starting with Q

• Quick Recorder: A tool that allows you to quickly capture screen recordings, video, or audio without opening the main Descript app, accessible from your computer’s menu bar.

R – Terms Starting with R

• Range tool: A timeline tool used to select specific portions of audio or video layers.
• Record to scene: Recording audio or video directly to a scene in a composition.
• Record to script: Recording content directly to the script track in a composition.
• Recording panel: A panel that displays the recording settings in the main editor, where you can start and stop recordings.
• Recording Quality: The audio or video resolution settings chosen for while recording, often ranging from standard to high definition, which directly affects the quality of files in Descript.
• Regenerate: A feature that automatically reprocesses the transcription or media to improve accuracy or reflect changes made to the original content, such as updating the text-to-speech or AI-generated content based on the latest script edits. This feature was previously known as Overdub. 
• Render (SquadCast): The process of processing and finalizing recorded audio and video files after a SquadCast session, making them available for download or export to platforms like Descript for further editing.
• Replace file: A feature that replaces an existing file in the project with a new one.
• Replace Script Track: A feature that allows you to replace sections of the script track with new media.
• Room Link: A shareable link that allows participants to join a Descript Room session for recording and collaboration.

S – Terms Starting with S

• Scene: Segments of a video, created by adding a division in the script, that allows media to be edited separately.
• Scene boundary: The start or endpoint of a scene in a composition.
• Scene Editor: An editor area where you can arrange and adjust visuals in your scenes; not visible in audio-only compositions. Previously known as the Canvas. 
• Scene Rail: A panel on the left that displays the scenes in your composition as visual thumbnails, allowing you to easily navigate and rearrange scenes without affecting the underlying media.
• Scene thumbnail: A visual representation of scenes displayed in the script editor.
• Scene type: How we group layouts in the layout picker based on the common visual layer. A few examples include:
  • Camera
  • Zoom
  • Title
  • Multicam
  • Intro
• Script: The underlying text that ties together visuals, audio, and scenes in a composition.
• Script editor: A area where you can edit the script, make transcript corrections, and interact with AI-generated speech.
• Script track: The track that contains your composition's text-based media.
• Sessions: The scheduled recording events in SquadCast where hosts and guests participate in remote audio or video capture. These sessions can later be imported into Descript for editing.
• Select tool: A timeline tool for selecting clips or layers in the timeline.
• Select toolbar: A floating toolbar that appears when you select text or media in the script editor, allowing you to make quick changes such as correcting transcription, adding speaker labels, highlighting, deleting, or applying formatting to the selected section.
• Sequence: A virtual container that keeps grouped media in sync, used for multitrack editing.
• Sequence Editor: Descript’s multitrack editing view where users can edit and sync multiple audio and video tracks together within a sequence. This allows for detailed adjustments to individual tracks while maintaining their alignment.
• Slip tool: A tool that shifts the media inside a clip without altering its in/out points.
• Speaker Detective: An AI tool for identifying and labeling speakers in a transcribed file.
• Speaker: Labels identifying who is speaking in your media or which AI speaker is used in a script.
• SquadCast: A platform for recording high-quality remote audio and video interviews, often used by podcasters and content creators. It integrates with Descript, allowing users to import their recordings for editing and transcription.
• Stalled Recording: A temporary interruption in the recording process during a Descript Room session, which can be recovered or restored using backup files or recovery features to ensure no data is lost.
• Stock Media: A collection of pre-licensed audio, video, and image assets available within Descript’s stock panel that can be used to enhance your compositions without the need for external media sourcing.
• Studio Sound: A feature that enhances audio quality by reducing background noise and improving vocal clarity.

T – Terms Starting with T

• Take: A single recorded attempt or segment during a recording session on SquadCast, which can be imported into Descript for editing or review.
• Timeline: The area in the editor where you control timing, apply effects, and make edits to your project.
• Timeline Export: A feature that allows you to export your composition's timeline in a format compatible with other major audio and video editing tools, preserving edits, layers, and effects for continued work outside of Descript.
• Tracks: Rows in the sequence editor representing individual layers of audio or video.
• Transcribe: A feature in Descript that automatically converts spoken audio or video into text, creating a written transcript that can be edited and used to navigate or modify your media.
  Transcript: The text version of spoken audio or video in your project, allowing you to edit the media by making changes directly to the text in Descript.
• Translate: A feature in Descript that converts the text or transcript from one language to another, enabling multilingual accessibility within your projects.

U – Terms Starting with U

• Underlord: An AI assistant in Descript designed to help users navigate and make the most of all the AI-driven features within the platform.

V – Terms Starting with V

• Version history: A panel where you can view and restore previous versions of your project.
• Volume keyframe: A keyframe used to automate volume changes over time.

W – Terms Starting with W

• Wordbar: A visual tool showing the alignment between words in the script and the media in the timeline.
• Word boundary: The start and endpoint of a word in the script and its corresponding audio or video.
• Word gap: The space between words in a script.
• Wordless Media Labels: Tags or labels applied to non-speech media, such as sound effects or music, in the script track to help organize and differentiate media elements that do not contain words.
• Workspace: Areas within a drive where you can organize and manage projects.