Cut a 150-second video into three Shorts of 60, 60 and 30 seconds

To cut a 150-second video into three Shorts, send three video trim jobs: start 0 with duration 60, start 60 with duration 60, and start 120 with duration 30. Each job costs $0.02, so the set costs 3 x $0.02 = $0.06. Every piece is at or under 60 seconds, which keeps it clear of the longer-than-one-minute copyright-claim rule on YouTube's Shorts page.

That page (read 2026-10-09) allows Shorts up to three minutes, square or vertical. A 150-second video could be one Short. The reason to split is the other rule on the same page: a Short over one minute with an active copyright claim of any type is blocked globally and cannot be monetized, while Shorts under a minute face no new restriction from claims.

The three requests

Video trim takes one media.sume.com clip, a start in seconds, and exactly one of end or duration. Duration runs from 0.2 to 900 seconds. Precision defaults to exact, a frame-accurate re-encode, so each piece starts on the frame you named. Send a different Idempotency-Key for each job or a retry will return the first one.

Check the seams

A hard cut at 60 and 120 seconds can split a sentence. Pull stills with video frames at times such as 59, 60, 119 and 120 to see what is on screen at each seam, then move the start by a second if needed. Each seam shift is just a new trim body, and a re-run costs another $0.02 for that piece only.

If the source is longer than 150 seconds, the same pattern holds: video trim accepts sources up to 1,800 seconds and outputs up to 900 seconds. If you send an end past the end of the source, the end clamps and the result carries the warning trim_clamped_to_source, so a source that is 148.6 seconds long still yields a last piece without an error. Read the duration_seconds in each result rather than assuming the length you asked for.

• Send duration, not end, when you want a fixed length
• Keep audio at the default keep so the voice follows the picture
• Each result is a new artf_ URL; the source never changes

What it costs to iterate

Trim is worker ffmpeg only, with no model inference, so the price does not depend on the content. Redoing all three pieces after moving two seams is another $0.06. Compare that with generating new footage: the point of cutting is that a Short is a decision about which 60 seconds to keep, and that decision is cheap to revise. Keep the three artifact URLs; they are durable media.sume.com files you can drop into a later Timeline render with source_in 0.

When one 150-second Short is fine

If the music is yours or cleared, nothing on the page stops a single 150-second Short. Split only when the claim risk or the pacing argues for it. Splitting also gives you three hooks to test instead of one.