Introduction
In this contemporary world composed of pixels and bytes, meaningful data is hidden within characters, frames and videos. Be it a surveillance system with 24/7 stream capturing and recording or a FIFA finale, organizations have long been looking for a solution that helps them to not just extract crucial information from a moving picture, but to be able to use a tool to mark, comment, tag and refer a particular piece of data identified within a video to use it for further analysis. The former gives an unstructured heap of information where as the latter provides you the ability to add ancillary information to a video much like a footnote or highlighting anything suspicious/note-worthy.
VIDIZMO resolves the hassle of downloading videos, displaying them on large high-definition screens and pausing them at infinitesimal intervals to either detect a suspicious activity in the background, focus on an evidence detail within a scene or point to a specific text within a lecture, by introducing Annotations within a Video.
Concept
Annotations are small notes, tags, or comments in a video intended to achieve a lot within a limited canvas of a video frame. It helps redirect the user/viewer's attention to a particular still of a video and to focus on an object/facet which would have otherwise gone unnoticed. Annotation is a highly effective way of interacting with the video in a way that saves your time and streamlines the critique process for other users to observe, act upon, or add to. It's like turning your media into an open canvas for people to be allowed to comment, mark, tag and leave meaningful suggestions for the artist to hone their art, or even better, for them to pick the most attractive scenes out of it.
Interestingly, VIDIZMO allows you to break down a video into its smallest possible screen division (a single frame) and navigate through the video by seeking forward/backward through those frames (an average video is around 30 frames/second), so that you can pick up just that specific part of the video where you need to highlight or point something out, making annotations all the more detail-oriented and efficient for analysis. To learn more about it, see: Frame-by-frame Analysis of a Video.
How-to Guide
Before you Start
- Moderator+ role and those users who are the part of a group having Allow users to add Annotations will be able to add Annotations on media, To learn more about it, read Understanding User Groups to manage Access Rights and Permissions. Using group permissions, you can also control if a user is allowed to add annotation on their own uploaded media or all media, update their own annotation, or even someone else's annotations for moderation. Same case for deletion.
- To use annotations in a video, you need to enable annotations in the video player template settings. To make changes in the video player settings, read How to Change Default Player Template
How to Annotate a Video
This feature of being able to add miscellaneous information to a video by highlighting specific parts in a frame enables various industries to use video as a more effective tool for an interactive learning model, quick analysis and decision-making processes.
Here is how you may annotate a video in your portal:
1. Using Homepage or Media Library page, select any video that you wish to annotate.
2. Now, play the video to navigate to the point where you need to add a note. At that particular instance, click the Add Annotation icon shown below.
3. You will see that particular frame pause and turn into a canvas for you to draw and annotate. Following are the options you can use:
i. You can leave your comments and suggestions, or any other ancillary information regarding the traced out part in the video. These comments can be noted by other viewers/users and they can collectively contribute to the analysis by adding their own notes.
ii. You can custom-set the timeline and frame number defining how long will the annotations be displayed, with the precision of a single frame in a video. For example, if you annotated from 00:28 from the first frame(in selected second), you can set any given time and frame number in the video later to 00:28 for the duration of which the video shall remain annotated. Frames on the video will change dynamically when you go up/down (using keyboard) a frame for accurate annotation
iii. You have the flexibility to draw and outline using any color and opacity of your choice using the Fill Color option. This enables you to obscure a certain part of the video that you wish to redact as well.
iv. Click Create to update changes, or Cancel at the top-left corner to discard them.
v. One can also change the annotation tray color using customize branding feature.
How to View Annotations in a Video
For a smooth and unhindered playback experience, annotations in a video are not apparent by default and can be switched on using the player. Here is how you may view annotations in a video:
1. Using Homepage or Media Library page, select the video in which you wish to view annotations. Hover over the video to have the controls appear. Click on the Settings icon in the bottom right corner.
3. Using the context menu, go to View TimedData and check Annotations for them to start appearing in the video.
4. Playback the video from start and click on the created annotation to view/edit/delete its details.
