In this guide you will learn how to do time-related annotations on a video. Before starting, you will need to have created a batch for video annotations. If you haven’t done so, please consult our previous guide on this subject. Once you have created the batch of video annotations and assigned a user to an annotation job, they can open the interface by clicking on the job in question. This will open the video annotation interface.
Layout of the video annotation interface
In the video annotation interface you will find the following functionality:
Video player where you have general functionality to control video playback, brightness and contrast.
Annotations timeline where you can see where you are in the video and where annotations have already been made. You can make the timeline smaller by using the controller on the top right of the timeline; making the timeline shorter makes the video larger.
General information where you can see if the video has any QA errors or warnings, general information about this video, a description of all the keyboard shortcuts available, the ability to zoom in and out on the timeline as well as resetting zoom to view all the labels and an indicator of the current status and who is currently assigned to this sequence.
A dropdown to change between the different annotation jobs (sequences) in the current batch.
A dropdown to see annotations as they were in previous versions of this annotation job (e.g. if the annotations are adjusted in different stages of the annotation workflow)
A dropdown to add or remove sequence level tags to this video. These must be configured in the annotation profile before the batch is created.
The panel to manage the annotation labels. More on this below.
A button to finish the current annotation job. Pressing this button will complete the current status and move the video to the next step of the annotation job. For example, if a sequence is in the “Annotation” step clicking on “Finish” will move it to the “QA” step.
Video player functionalities
In the video player you have the following options:
You can scroll to any point in the video by clicking anywhere in the blue bar. If you hold click and drag your mouse left and right you can scrub through the video.
Play/Pause the video using the control on the left side or using the space bar.
You can skip forward or backward a set number of frames using the arrows next to the video time indicators; with the three dots at the right side you can configure how many frames to skip.
The double arrows next to the skip frames features allow you to play the video faster (2x, 3x, 5x, 10x and 15x) or more slowly (0.75x, 0.5x or 0.25x) than the original playback speed.
Finally, you can control the image brightness and contrast with the two sliders available on the video player.
Annotation timeline
The annotation timeline will show all the annotations that have been made on the video. The annotations will display in the colour that has been set for them in the annotation profile. Annotations which have a start time only will appear to have a thickness in the timeline but this is only so you can see them, they will only have a start time set. When you click on an annotation on the timeline it will be highlighted in the annotations panel on the right of your screen.
You will note that the time in the annotations timeline will not match with those in the video player bar. This is because the annotations timeline will typically be zoomed in so you can see where annotations are being made. You can always zoom out using the controls in (3) and you can use the vertical yellow line to see where in the annotations timeline is the frame that is currently displaying in the video. You can also click and drag the vertical yellow line to move the video player to the spot that you wish in the annotations timeline.
Add, edit and remove annotations
Only the person who is assigned to the current job’s status is allowed to use the functionality in the annotation labels panel (7). This panel will also change depending on what is available to the annotator (as defined in the profile). Every time annotation in SAVANT must have a start time and every sequence can have comments. However, and depending on how you have configured the annotation batch, you may also see in this section the ability to add a stop time to the label or to add group tags.
To add an annotation to the video you should:
Navigate to the moment in the video where you want the label to start. We recommend to pause the video.
Click on “Add label” in (7) and select the label that you want to add. The label will be added with a start time where the video was paused.
If you have allowed the ability to add a stop time, then repeat step 1 and click on the “Set Stop” button.
Your label should now appear on the timeline with the start and stop times you have selected.
To move an annotation you should:
Click on the annotation that you want to change – this can be in the timeline or in the labels panel.
Navigate to the point in the video where you want to move the start of that annotation and pause the video there.
Click on “Reset start”.
Navigate to the point of the video where you want to move the end of the annotation, pause and click on “Set Stop”.
If you want to change the label of a given annotation, you should click on that annotation in the annotations bar and change the label on the label selector which was previously used to add the original label. If you have configured group tags for a given label in the annotation profile, the options to add these will appear above the comments dropdown when you select the label. See our advanced guide on group tags for more information. If you want to deselect a label (e.g. to add a new annotation), you can press the “Esc” key or click anywhere in the timeline.
If you want to jump the video to the beginning of the annotation click on its start time in the annotations panel. You can do the same for the end of the annotation.
Finally, you can delete an annotation by clicking on the red trash icon on the top right of each label in the annotations panel.
Using keyboard shortcuts
Even though you can do all your annotations using the mouse, we strongly recommend that you learn the interface’s keyboard shortcuts. These will allow you to be more efficient, especially in longer annotation jobs. To view the shortcuts available, click on the keyboard sign in the bottom right of the screen.
What next
If your objective was to have timestamp annotations for your video, then you can skip to our guide on how to download your data once you are done annotating. If you were doing timestamp annotations to select parts of the video to do frame annotations, then you can go to our guide on creating batches for frame annotations.