I’ve been testing a pipeline to repurpose long-form videos into short-form content, and finally got something working end-to-end inside n8n.

The idea:
Upload 1 long video → get multiple ready-to-post shorts.

How the workflow works

1. Upload video

• Simple form trigger
• Accepts any long video

2. Audio extraction + transcription

• FFmpeg extracts audio
• Whisper generates full transcript with word-level timestamps

3. AI selects viral moments

• Gemini analyzes:
  • full transcript
  • word timestamps
• Picks 3–15 high-retention clips (15–60s each)
• Returns exact start/end timestamps (very important for accuracy)

4. Clip generation

• FFmpeg auto-cuts clips using timestamps
• Crops to vertical (9:16)
• Adds proper encoding for social platforms

5. Auto scheduling

• Shorts are automatically scheduled to:
  • TikTok
  • Instagram
  • YouTube Shorts
• Posted daily (one per day)

What was harder than expected

• Getting accurate timestamps (word-level matters a LOT)
• Handling async jobs (FFmpeg processing loops)
• Making sure clips don’t cut mid-sentence
• Forcing AI to return clean JSON (this took time)

What I like about this setup

• Fully automated once triggered
• No manual editing
• Reuses long content efficiently
• Scales content output easily

Workflow (for anyone curious)