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Willielk
Participant
October 3, 2016
Answered

Automate Seek-to-Time Function Using Javascript/ Custom Button?

  • October 3, 2016
  • 1 reply
  • 1266 views

Dear Adobe Community,

Thank you in advance for any help or ideas you might have on this question.

My client and his team shoot a lot of video and make a lot of PDF reports based on those videos.

My client seeks to have a fillable form created in which he can easily add an MP4 (h.264) file to the PDF document and then reference that file several times throughout, incorporating the "Seek-to-Time" function, (or some other JavaScript solution involving the StartAt/ EndAt functions, etc.) to bring up the highlights. 

This would allow his field crew inspectors to document their findings, place the video they are recording alongside their notes, and the end-users of such documents would be able to jump right to the points of interest in the video (as each instance would seek to different starting points along the timeline of the same embedded video file). 

In an ideal world, the inspector documenting the findings via PDF would be able to use a button or other simple function to add the video file, which would then  prompt to enter the offset/ StartAt time, so that they don't spend too much time fishing around in the background dialog boxes for such functions.  Is there a relatively straightforward way to do this in either the Acrobat DC, XI, or X environment?

Again, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer JoelGeraci_Datalogics

For the use case you describe, you don't need JavaScript at all. With the movie embedded in the PDF, just open the Comments panel and scrub to the point of interest in the video with the video paused, add a comment on the frame and save the file. You can even use  the circle annotation, the pen, or the callout to show the specific area of the frame that needs attention.

Then when the comment is selected from the comment panel, the video will jump to the time that the comment was added.

J- 

1 reply

JoelGeraci_Datalogics
JoelGeraci_DatalogicsCorrect answer
Participating Frequently
October 3, 2016

For the use case you describe, you don't need JavaScript at all. With the movie embedded in the PDF, just open the Comments panel and scrub to the point of interest in the video with the video paused, add a comment on the frame and save the file. You can even use  the circle annotation, the pen, or the callout to show the specific area of the frame that needs attention.

Then when the comment is selected from the comment panel, the video will jump to the time that the comment was added.

J- 

W
WillielkAuthor
Participant
October 6, 2016

Joel,

Thank you, sir!  I really appreciate your quick response.  My apologies for my delayed follow-up.  I see what you mean!  Looks like I can embed and then scrub to the time in the video I want to note and simply make an annotation.  Seems pretty doable for the guys I will be training on this.  Final question, any chance there is a way to make the annotation only play for 20 seconds or so?  The whole idea is for it to be a highlight, not necessarily show the entire video.  I supposed I could have them screen capture the 20 seconds in question and simply link to that file, but was just wondering if there was a way acrobat might be able to do it instead.  Thank you so much again for your help!  Really appreciate it!

JoelGeraci_Datalogics
JoelGeraci_Datalogics
Participating Frequently
October 6, 2016

With the default player, no. However, a customized player would be able to, you'd just need to add the appropriate callbacks to pause the video 20 seconds after it started playing from a point that corresponded to the selected annotation. Only the document creators would need to replace the default video player with the custom one since the player gets embedded in the PDF when you add the video.

J-

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