Forum Discussion
Adding pause to storyline video
I am working on a small project. The project consists of videos that show how to perform something on one of our website databases. The person who recorded the video went through several of the steps very quickly. What we want to happen is as the video is playing there will be text that pops up along the side that says what the step is as the video is demonstrating it. That part is no problem for me. My issue is that I need to insert a pause into the video (2-3seconds) at a few points to give the viewer more time to read the text.
I was able to insert the cue points to pause and start the video, the problem is that the timeline is still set at 1min 30sec, which is the length of the video. When I added the pauses, the seekbar is still set at 1:30 length. The video keeps playing the last few seconds after it reaches the 1:30 mark, but the seekbar does not reflect that.
4 Replies
NathanRadabaugh If I understand your description correctly I think the problem is you’re pausing the video. When you pause the video the slide timeline keeps running, the seekbar advances while the video is frozen. Those two things fall out of sync.
You should pause the slide timeline, not just the video. Your triggers at each cue point should pause the timeline. This freezes the seekbar too, keeping everything in sync. The problem you’ll have is I dont think SL has a native "wait X seconds then resume" trigger, so it would require a user input (click). You could try using a hidden pause layer, set that layer's timeline to 2–3 seconds, then add a trigger on that layer to resume timeline on base layer when the timeline ends on that layer… this method will be more straightforward if you want all the pauses to be the same duration…
Somebody is probably gonna come up with a much easier solution but thats how I’d do it 😆
The seekbar is usually based on the original video duration, so adding pauses with cue points does not extend the timeline. One possible solution is to edit the video itself and add freeze frames or extra time at those points before importing it into Storyline. That way, the seekbar and actual playback duration will stay synchronized.
This is a good suggestion, editing the video to add freeze frames would work, but if timings need to change later you’d have to edit the video again.
The seekbar in Storyline reflects the slide timeline duration, not the video file duration. They are independent, using the pause layer method I suggested, you can extend the slide timeline manually to account for the added pause time, which keeps the seekbar in sync without touching the video
I would create some jump to time triggers that take the person to each video. You create a menu on a layer and the triggers jump to the time on the video you want the person to see. You can also use images to jump to the times you want. You could also pause the timeline but would need a way to have the person move on when ready. See attached example. Also see
https://www.articulatesupport.com/article/Storyline-360-Jump-to-Time-Trigger
