Tip #2Kinesense LE

How to pause an annotation with gaps

Hide a blur or spotlight for part of a clip. Add a gap on the annotation bar while the subject is out of shot; the effect returns when they come back.

Patricia McCabeSoftware Engineer

This week we are looking at a useful feature of video annotation: gaps.

Say you want to blur a person’s face in a video report, or highlight an incident. In the Annotations tab you can have a spotlight follow the person of interest and apply the blur. But sometimes you will want to turn the blur off for a few frames, because the subject has walked behind an object or left the scene for a while.

Insert a gap when they leave and end it when they come back. The annotation disappears for as long as they are gone, then comes back in the same spot.

Inserting a gap

Right-click the annotation bar where you want the gap to start and select Insert New Gap.

The annotation timeline in Kinesense with its right-click menu open and Insert New Gap highlighted.

Then find the point where you want the annotation to come back, right-click again and select End Gap Here.

The same right-click menu on the annotation timeline, now with End Gap Here highlighted. A dashed marker shows where the gap starts.

And there you have it. The new gap appears on the timeline, and for its duration the annotation won’t appear in your clip.

The annotation bar on the timeline, with a pale section between 19:34 and 19:35 where the gap interrupts the red annotation.

Editing or deleting a gap

If you got the length of the gap wrong, or realise you don’t need it, right-click the gap and choose one of the editing options. To remove it, right-click it and select Delete This Gap.

The right-click menu on a gap, offering Edit Gap, Delete This Gap, Start Gap Here and End Gap Here, with Delete This Gap highlighted.

Everything is saved automatically.

Format support

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