Medal.tv review: clip capture and AI editing

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Verdict in short

Shortlist Medal if you play on a Windows PC, want clips captured while you play, and want a free plan to start. Do not shortlist it as a VOD clipper: Medal’s pages describe capturing your own screen and selected in-game events, and do not state Twitch, YouTube or Kick VOD import or AI highlight-finding over a recorded stream. Premium is $9.99 a month, per Medal’s June 2026 blog post, but the free plan already covers the main job for players who share links to friends.

How Medal’s capture works

Medal’s documentation describes three ways of capturing, and the choice affects what you end up with.

• Replay buffer. Medal’s clipping software guide says it keeps the last 15 seconds to 10 minutes, saved with F8 or by saying “clip that”. You set the length once in settings.
• Auto clipping. The features page says Medal can capture moments you choose (win, goal, headshot and so on), and its FAQ names event detection in Fortnite, Valorant, League of Legends, Apex Legends, Counter-Strike “and more”. Outside supported games, you rely on the replay buffer.
• Full session recording. Medal can record an entire match or session, and you can press a hotkey to drop bookmarks for reference later.

From there, the features page lists trimming and effects (slow motion, zoom, GIFs, trending songs, memes, captions), separate game, mic and Discord audio tracks, and a searchable library. Clips upload to your Medal profile and get a shareable link, which the clipping guide says plays inline in Discord. The mobile app on iOS and Android lets you sync and share clips. Console footage can be imported as system captures, but Medal says it supports recording on PC and mobile only.

Technical claims from Medal’s FAQ, all vendor statements: Windows 10 or later, up to 4K at 144 FPS with 60 FPS as the default, GPU encoding on NVIDIA, AMD and Intel, H.264, H.265 and AV1 codecs, and a “minimal impact of 100–400MB of RAM”.

Reasoning, not a measured result: a RAM figure says little about frame rate, and if you stream and record on one PC, Medal adds a second capture job on top of your stream encoder. Treat “won’t lag” as something to check on your own machine.

Free versus Premium, as of 8 November 2026

Medal’s Premium page and clipping guide list these differences:

Medal’s blog post of 17 June 2026 states Premium at $9.99 per month, or $7.99 per month if you subscribe annually, and says the price did not change. Arithmetic: $7.99 x 12 is $95.88 a year if billed as one payment, which the post does not specify. The 14-day trial needs a valid payment method, according to the terms, and a small validation charge may appear and be refunded.

The ad-free promise has a footnote in the blog post: it covers “Programmatic IAB ads and excludes platform featuring and recommendations.”

Upload length without Premium

The Premium page says clips otherwise max out at 20 minutes. The June 2026 blog post, which is about Premium, says clip upload limits are moving from 30 minutes to unlimited, which appears to describe the Premium limit. These may be different tiers, and the blog does not say whether free users change at all. If upload length matters, check the upload screen in the app.

What “AI” means at Medal today

Medal’s AI story is more future than present, based on what it has published. The Premium page’s auto-generated subtitles are the clearest current AI feature. A March 2026 blog post describes smart trimming, more accurate captions, auto clipping for every game and auto-montage as “New Features Coming Soon”. None of the pages we read say these have shipped. So the “AI editing” in this page’s title is, for now, mostly a roadmap. The pages we read do not describe AI clipping across a finished stream.

AI training and the rights you grant

Uploading to Medal grants a much broader licence than most clip tools ask for, and this is the part most players skip. Medal’s terms say you retain your rights, but section 4.4 grants Medal a licence that is unrestricted, irrevocable, transferable and sublicensable, to the maximum duration the law allows. Its stated purposes include marketing and developing, training and improving AI models, and sharing content with third parties. Section 4.5 adds that Medal can commercialise your content and that you are not entitled to payment.

The training happens through General Intuition, described by Medal as its research lab. The privacy policy says Medal and General Intuition act as joint controllers for training data, and that clips and associated data may be transferred to the United States. It says data may be shared onward with research partners, and notes that input data such as keyboard, mouse or controller activity may be captured with recordings. Medal’s blog says the models use semantic actions, such as “Player moved forward”, not raw key presses.

The March 2026 blog post says “You can opt in or out at any time in Settings > Medal AI”, and that opting out removes your past data. The privacy policy is more qualified: data already in a research dataset may continue to be used for up to about 12 months after a clip is deleted, where needed for a research cycle.

What to do: open Settings > Medal AI before you upload anything and choose deliberately. If your clips include teammates’ voices through Discord or a private match, think about whose content is going where. The terms also make you warrant that you lawfully hold a licence to any game shown in your clips.

Terms that matter if you pay

Medal’s terms say subscriptions renew automatically and can be cancelled at any time, with Premium lasting to the end of the paid period before reverting to a free account. “Refunds are only issued if required by law.” Price changes come with at least 30 days’ notice by email. So the 14-day trial is the only low-risk window; cancel before it ends if you are unsure.

Where Medal fits a streamer’s workflow

Medal helps when a clip should exist at the moment it happens, because capture runs on your PC rather than pulling footage from a platform later. A streamer could use the replay buffer for planned highlights during a session and a separate VOD tool afterwards.

Reasoning, not a measured result: a rule-based capture only catches moments it is set to detect, so a funny chat reaction or a facecam moment will need the hotkey or voice command. If you stream with OBS, your replay buffer may already cover much of this; see Medal versus OBS replay buffer. For tool-versus-clipper framing, see Medal versus OpusClip. For a wider comparison, see gaming clip recording software.

Medal’s own guide is vendor-written and ranks Medal first, so read it for Medal’s specifications, not for its ranking.

Who should shortlist Medal

• Windows PC players who want a free recorder with a clip library and instant share links.
• Competitive players in games Medal lists for event detection.
• Discord-centred groups who send clips to friends and do not care about a downloaded file.
• Creators who would rather capture on the day than process a VOD afterward.

Who should not buy it

• Streamers with finished VODs who want AI to find moments. Look at the Twitch streamer roundup or the long-VOD roundup.
• Anyone who needs watermark-free downloads without paying; see free AI clippers without a watermark.
• Mac or Linux users, since Medal lists Windows, iPhone and Android.
• Console-only players, since recording is PC and mobile.
• Anyone unwilling to accept the upload licence or manage the AI setting.

Downsides from the published evidence

• Free downloads carry a watermark, and free uploads are length-capped and limited to 1080p.
• Free quick-share links expire after 14 days, which matters if you link clips from a profile or website.
• The upload licence is broad and irrevocable to the extent the law allows.
• Refunds apply only where the law requires them.
• Performance claims are the vendor’s; we have no measurements.

What to check on your own PC during a trial

1. Open Settings > Medal AI first, and set it the way you want before uploading.
2. Read the plan screen for watermark and upload limits before you capture anything.
3. Set the replay buffer length and test F8 and “clip that” in a real match.
4. Record a normal session in your main game and list the moments you wanted. How many did auto clipping catch?
5. Watch your frame rate with and without Medal running, using your own overlay, ideally while streaming if that is how you play.
6. Upload a clip longer than 20 minutes on the free plan to see which cap applies to your account.
7. Export with subtitles and check them against the killfeed and HUD.
8. If you use the editor’s trending songs, read our music copyright guide before you post outside Medal.

If Medal does not fit, Medal alternatives lists where to go. Our methodology explains how future capture-session tests would be rated. More verdicts are in reviews.

Last checked 8 November 2026. Prices and limits change; we re-check monthly.