How to say what disqualifies a clip, not just what to look for

Last updated 2026-09-22 · 8 min read

What is the short version?

You want the clean material. In racing footage the best-looking moments and the crashes are very often the same moments, which is why a highlight reel cut by eye nearly always has one in it and why Vizard Agent needs a rule rather than a preference.

1. Tell Vizard Agent what to exclude as well as what to find.
2. Say a shorter reel is better than a padded one.
3. Ask for whole manoeuvres — entry and exit, not just the middle.

What do you need before you start?

The footage and your own definition of clean. Vizard Agent checks every candidate clip against the rule you give it, so "no contact at all" and "no crashes, though light contact is fine" produce noticeably different reels from exactly the same session.

• The footage. A session, a race, a day.
• What counts. Drifts, overtakes, saves, tricks.
• What disqualifies. Contact, crashes, run-offs.
• The maximum length. And permission to come in under it.
• The audio. Engines usually carry this material.

What do you type into Vizard Agent?

Give the exclusion and the permission in the same sentence. "Up to 90 seconds, less if there are not enough clean ones" is what stops a reel being filled out with the mediocre manoeuvres that make everything around them look worse.

Prompt

Variants worth knowing:

• "Leaving out anything that ends in contact." The disqualifier.
• "Less is fine." Permission not to pad.
• "Keep the engine sound." What carries this footage.

What does Vizard Agent actually do?

Here is the Vizard Agent sequence on a race recording cut down into a drift reel. Most of the work in the list is rejection rather than selection, and each of those rejections is specific and checkable rather than a matter of taste.

1. Looks for the cleanest drifts and overtakes, leaving out the collisions.
2. Separates controlled slides from collisions and checks the overtakes throughout.
3. Reviews the race frames to pick the moments with the best action and framing.
4. Checks each manoeuvre closely to exclude even light contact.
5. Compares the overtakes and discards the ones with contact.
6. Discards attractive manoeuvres that end in a touch, and keeps the engine sound.
7. Reviews the remaining overtakes before closing the selection.
8. Searches once more for drift overtakes without contact, so a crash does not slip in.
9. Checks the entry and exit of each drift so the whole manoeuvre survives the cut.
10. Validates two more candidates before finalising.
11. Assembles about fifty seconds rather than filling the ninety with weaker manoeuvres.
12. Reviews the exported frames, the audio continuity and the absence of contact.

Step six is the one that needs an instruction to happen. The most watchable clip in the session is usually the one where something goes wrong at the end, and no editor drops it voluntarily — a rule does.

Step nine is what makes the reel readable. A drift cut at its most dramatic frame is a shape with no beginning; keeping the entry and the exit means a viewer sees the manoeuvre rather than a moment of it.

Step eleven is the decision most reels get wrong. Fifty good seconds beat ninety average ones, and the brief allowed it — so the finished video is shorter than the maximum by choice.

What does the result look like?

Fifty seconds of clean manoeuvres from Vizard Agent, each one complete from its entry to its exit, with the original engine audio running underneath the whole thing and nothing left in the reel that ends in a bump, a spin or a wall.

When does this not work well?

Some footage simply does not contain enough clean material. If most of the session ends in contact then the honest output from Vizard Agent is a very short reel, and the alternatives are changing the rule or filming another session.

• Mostly crashes. The rule leaves almost nothing.
• Contact that is hard to see. A light touch off camera.
• Single-camera racing. The contact happens out of frame.
• Low frame rates. Fast manoeuvres blur into each other.
• Reels that need a fixed runtime. Padding becomes unavoidable.

How do you fix a result that came back wrong?

Point at the specific clip that broke the rule you set. Vizard Agent re-checks that manoeuvre's exit and removes it from the reel, and the same check can then be run again across the rest of the selection to catch anything similar.

• "That one ends in a bump." It is removed and the selection re-checked.
• "It is too short." The rule is relaxed, or more footage is needed.
• "You cut the drift in half." The entry and exit are restored around it.
• "The music drowns the engines." The original audio is brought back up.

How does Vizard Agent compare to doing it yourself?

By hand the crash clips are the ones you remember, so they are the ones you look for first. Then you keep one because it is spectacular, and the reel stops being a clean-driving reel and becomes a compilation of everything.

Common questions

Can it keep the crashes as a separate reel? Yes. Ask Vizard Agent for both and post them separately.

Does this work for other sports? Yes. Give Vizard Agent the disqualifier — fouls, falls, run-offs — and it applies it.

Can it judge "light contact"? Up to a point. Tell Vizard Agent how strict to be and check the edge cases.

What if I want music instead? Vizard Agent will mix it under the engines rather than over them.

How long should a reel like this be? As long as the clean material lasts — Vizard Agent will tell you what it found.

Can it rank the clips? Yes. Ask Vizard Agent for strongest first, or keep them chronological.

Will it include near misses? Only if you say so; by default an exclusion rule covers them.

Can it add a counter or a label? Yes, though on driving footage the picture usually carries itself.

What about several cameras? Vizard Agent can choose the angle that shows the manoeuvre best.

Can it check for contact off camera? Only what is visible or audible — it will flag anything ambiguous.

How do I get more clean clips? More footage. Vizard Agent cannot manufacture what was not driven.

Does it slow anything down? Only if you ask; a drift usually reads better at normal speed.

Can it make a vertical version? Yes, from the same selection, reframed to follow the car.

How do I check it? Watch the end of each clip. That is where a disqualifier hides.