Using the Theator Video Editor

The Theator video editor is a full-page editor that opens over a recorded case. It lets you cut a case down to the part that matters, mark up the picture, narrate over it, and download the result as a video file. Everything you do is saved back to the case as a clip, so an edit is never something that only lives on your machine.

This article is the reference for the editor itself. If you only want to cut a short excerpt out of a case, How to Create a Video Clip is the shorter path.

Who can use it

The editor needs video download permission, which your organization's admin controls. It is a desktop tool, and it works on cases that have finished recording. If Create clip opens a small dialog on the case page instead of a full editor, download is not enabled for your role. Contact your Theator administrator, and see Theator Permissions Overview.

How to open it

• Create clip in the video player's control bar
• Create Clip, or the round scissors button, in the Snapshots & Clips panel
• Edit on any existing clip card, which reopens that clip
• Download at the top right of the case page → Download specific sections → Open in video editor

Opening the editor without picking a clip starts a new edit spanning the whole recording. Opening it from a clip card continues that clip's edit.

The layout

The editor has three bands.

Top bar. The back arrow to the case, the clip title (click to rename), the save chip beside it, and on the right a BETA tag, Leave feedback, Save, and Download.

Stage. The video itself, with a transport bar along the bottom: play/pause, a scrubber, previous/next step, the current time in your edit, the matching timecode in the original recording, and fullscreen.

Timeline. Your edit, laid out in lanes:

Above the lanes is the timeline toolbar: Split clip, Remove, undo/redo, step navigation, Record voiceover, zoom out/in, Fit, and a help button. Remove is hidden until the timeline has something removable, so on an untouched clip you will not see it.

Down the left edge of the stage is the tool rail, which is where annotation tools live.

Editing the video

Trim

Drag either edge of a segment in the Video lane. Trimming the start of a segment does not pull the rest of the timeline along with it, so you can tighten one clip's opening without shifting everything after it.

Split and remove

Put the playhead where you want a cut and click Split clip (S). To drop an unwanted stretch, split at both ends, select the middle segment, and click Remove (Delete or Backspace).

Reorder

Drag a segment along the Video lane. The order on the timeline is the order it plays and exports in, so you can show the critical moment first and the approach afterwards.

Change the speed

Select a segment and use the Speed slider in the inspector. The presets run 0.25x, 0.5x, 1x, 1.5x, 2x, 4x, 8x. Speeding a long dissection up to 4x and leaving the critical view at 1x is the usual reason to reach for this.

Set exact times

With a segment selected, the inspector shows its Start and End as timecodes you can type into. It reads 90, 90.5, 1:30, and 1:02:03.5 all as the same kind of thing, so you do not have to match a format.

Navigate by step

The Steps lane and the transport's previous/next step buttons jump between the procedure's detected surgical steps. [ and ] do the same from the keyboard.

Cases recorded in more than one part

If a camera restarted mid-procedure, the case has several recordings. The editor lays them end to end on one continuous timeline and you cut across them as though they were one video. Clips spanning more than one recording are rendered in your browser rather than on the server, so keep the tab open while such a download runs.

Annotating

Pick a tool from the rail on the left, then draw on the video.

Rectangle, ellipse, and freehand shape share one Shapes button on the rail; click it to pick between them.

Selecting an annotation opens an inspector beside it. What it offers depends on the annotation:

• Colour. A swatch row. Closed shapes split this into Outline and Fill, with a no-fill option and a Opacity slider for the fill.
• Thickness. The stroke weight, for arrows, shapes, and freehand.
• Line style and Arrowheads. For arrows: solid, dashed, or dotted, and an arrowhead at the far end, the near end, both, or neither.
• Text, Size, and Align. For text annotations.
• Mode and Radius. For blur: blur or pixelate, and how strong.
• Delete overlay.

Press Esc to deselect and return to the Select tool.

When an annotation appears is set on the timeline, not in the inspector. Each annotation is a bar in the Overlays lane: drag it to move when it shows, and drag its edges to change how long it stays on screen.

Blur for de-identification

The Blur tool obscures a region of the picture for the length of time you give it. Use it for anything identifying that the camera caught, and choose between a blur and a pixelate in the inspector along with the strength of the effect.

Blur is applied to the video when the file is produced, so a downloaded clip carries the redaction with it.

Recording a voiceover

Click Record voiceover in the timeline toolbar. Your browser asks for microphone access the first time. Recording starts playback, and what you say is anchored to the point in the edit you were at when you started, so you narrate against the video as it plays.

A level meter shows the editor is hearing you, which makes a muted or wrong microphone obvious before you have talked over a whole clip. Click Stop to finish, and the recording is uploaded and placed in the Audio lane. Drag it to move when it plays, select it to set its volume, or delete it.

While a voiceover plays, the video's own audio is lowered so your narration stays audible. If playback pauses or you seek away mid-recording, the editor stops recording rather than saving something that no longer lines up with the video.

Saving

The editor saves by itself. There is nothing you have to remember to press.

• On your first edit, the clip is created and named New Clip with today's date. Click the title in the top bar to rename it.
• The chip beside the title reports where the work goes and whether it has landed. It reads Auto-saves to Clips before your first change, Saving to Clips… while a write is in flight, and Saved to Clips once it is safe.
• The Save button is there for reassurance rather than necessity. Pressing it pushes through anything still pending and shows a receipt naming the clip, the case, and when it last saved. ⌘S / Ctrl+S does the same.
• If a save fails, the chip stops claiming the work is safe and the editor keeps retrying. Trying to leave with changes it could not save asks you to confirm first.

Undo (⌘Z / Ctrl+Z) and redo (⌘⇧Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z) cover everything you do in a session.

Downloading your edit

Click Download in the top bar. A panel reports the phase and an estimate of the time remaining.

• A plain cut (trims only, normal speed, no annotations or voiceover) is copied out of the existing recording without re-encoding, so it is fast.
• An edit with annotations, a voiceover, or a changed speed has to be rendered. Most browsers render it locally: this keeps the job off the queue, but the tab has to stay open until it finishes. Where local rendering is not available, the render runs on Theator's servers and can take a few minutes.

If Download is temporarily unavailable, the tooltip explains why, usually that it is waiting for your latest changes to finish saving.

Keyboard shortcuts

Press ? in the editor, or the help button in the timeline toolbar, for this list at any time.

Playback

Editing

Tools

View

Limits

One edit can hold up to 50 video segments, 100 annotations, and 20 voiceover recordings. Playback speed runs from 0.25x to 8x. A case with more than 20 separate recordings cannot be opened as a single new edit, though its existing clips still open normally.

What's Next?

• How to Create a Video Clip — The short version: cut an excerpt and save it to the case
• How to Download a Case Video, Recording, or Clip — Full recordings, custom cuts, and download permissions
• Theator Permissions Overview — How downloads are configured for your department
• How does the video de-identification work? — Automatic out-of-body de-identification