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Play Help

This is the video player help.

What does the video player do?


The video play component is used to play videos much like any VCR. Controls available as buttons include:

  • Play forward
  • Play backward
  • Pause
  • Stop
  • Frame forward
  • Frame backward
  • Play fast forward
  • Play fast backward

Other features of the video player include:

  • Zoom control
  • Panning
  • Reduced/Increased play speed
  • Looping play
  • Video property access
  • Play disk file
  • Play only a part of the file

How do you start the player component?


The video player ICON is located in the "Tools" section of the Control Bar. To start an empty player component single click on the player ICON.

Another way to start a video player is to double click on any video file in the Video Gallery. When you double click the default behavior of the video is to open a Video Player with the file loaded.

How do you load a specific video?


Standard windows drag and drop. When the mouse is over a video file in the Video Gallery press down on the left mouse button and do not release on the video to play.

This will start the dragging procedure; you should notice a change in the mouse shape. Then without releasing the mouse button move the pointer over the video area of the video player. Only when over the video play area, release the mouse button.

What do the other controls do?


The two areas below the control buttons are used to display the current position of the video. The smaller of the two is called the time code box; the large one is the timeline display.  The time code box just displays how much video has been played.

How to move and stop on a single frame?


The timeline control is used to set the current position of the video. If you play the video, you will see a little pointer slide across the timeline control. The pointer indicates were the current frame is in the video. If you stop or pause the video you can move to any part of the clip by clicking on this pointer in the timeline display. After you have clicked on the pointer, it become the current active component. While active the left and right arrow keys can be used to move the video position.

To stop on a frame while the video is playing, press the Stop or pause button.

How do you play only a small piece of the video?


The control just below the little pointer (described directly above) has two dots on either end of a rectangle. The Green dot represents the start at position, the Red dot the end.

To change where the video starts playing, click and hold the mouse button down while over the green dot. While holding the mouse button down,  move the mouse to the position you want the video to start, and release the mouse button. You will see the play line will shorten to where the mouse was released. If you play the video, it will start from that position.  The red dot works in the same manner.

If you want to keep the same shortened play length just slightly moved, click on the middle of this bar and drag it into new location.

How do you zoom into the video?


There are two ways to zoom into a video. The first way is to click on the toolbar item "Zoom"; you will be presented with a number of zoom level options. To select double size click on the 200% item.  The second way to zoom, is to press and hold down the key board "Ctlr" key and click with the mouse button while the pointer is in the video window. To zoom back, hold the keyboard "Ctlr" key and click on the other (right hand) mouse button.

I have zoomed but now I do not see a part of the video, how do I pan to that location?


Again, there are two ways to do this. The first is to use the scroll bars located at the bottom and right side of the video. These are standard windows scroll bars. The other way to pan the video is to click and hold the mouse button down while on the player. If you move the mouse pointer with the mouse button held down the video will track to the mouse location.

How do I play a file from the disk?


On the player component there is a button called "Open Disk  File". Click on this button to open a standard "Open File" dialog box. When you have selected and clicked on the OK button of that dialog, the file will be opened. 

How do I loop play the video?


Loop play means that when the playing video reaches the end it automatically returns to the beginning of the video and plays again. To activate this feature, click on the "Looping Play" button on the player window. This button will go down and stay down, until you click on it again. With the button down, looping play is activated. With the button up (default mode) the video will play to the end and stop.

How do I see the video Properties?


The tool bar button "Properties" opens a window that contains the stored information of the video currently in the player component.

What does the "Options" button do?


This button is for advanced users who want to select specific hardware features for playing the video.