The new Secure Redact Editor (beta)
The new Secure Redact Editor provides a range of enhanced redaction capabilities to make it faster and easier to:
Review automated detections for redaction in a longer or more complicated video,
Track additional objects in complex scenes with lots of movement,
Group together tracks for specific individuals to unredact them,
Review and edit full resolution video, whilst staying zoomed in.
Updates include the Timeline View, Editing Toolbar, Advanced Tracking and Enhanced Zoom - all aimed to streamline the workflow for more advanced redaction tasks, and to speed up dealing with more difficult video footage (such as body-worn camera footage with lots of camera and scene movement).
The new editor has been released in beta so users can get the benefits from it right away. It can be accessed by clicking on 'Editor (beta)' in the main video view within the app. You can easily switch between the original editor (V1) and the new editor (beta) by clicking the button at the top right of the screen. All changes made in the beta editor will appear in V1. To redact and download your video after using the beta editor, go back to V1 and click Redact as normal.
If you have any feedback or suggestions, please contact us.
Timeline overview
You can now view all tracks in the timeline below the video player.
Drag the top of the timeline up and down to enlarge or minimise the timeline view.
What you need to know about the Timeline view:
The timeline is organised by the chronological order of tracks.
The white vertical line moves as the video is played, and represents the point in time which the video player is showing.
Each track is represented by an orange bar in the timeline.
The bar’s length shows how long a track is in the video, in relation to the video seconds (seen at the top of the timeline). When you click on a particular orange bar:
the orange bar will appear selected and turn blue,
the video player will jump to the point in time where you’ve clicked the orange bar (shown via the correlating white vertical line), and
the corresponding orange box will be selected with a blue outline in the video player.
Each row represents one individual/object in the video player and contains multiple tracks that correspond to that individual/object.
Where Secure Redact is unsure what track relates to which individual or object, the track is put into its own row.
On the left, there is a grey column with pins on each row.
When you click on one of these grey boxes, you can type a name for the individual or object it represents. This allows you to label a row, which makes it easier to focus on one (or more) individuals or labelled objects in the video.
You can pin the row so it freezes at the top of the timeline. When you scroll down in the timeline view, these pinned rows will stay at the top, making it easier to move and drag tracks around. This helps when reviewing the tracks for a specific individual or object.
Toolbar overview
When you click on an orange box in the video player or an orange bar in the timeline view, the following 4 buttons will be clickable in the button toolbar.
You can drag and move this button toolbar around and put it anywhere you want to on the screen.
Delete redaction box
This will delete the corresponding orange box in the video player in that particular frame, which makes the individual or object visible in that particular frame.
NOTE: This will only be clickable when you select an orange box from the video player, not when you click a track in the timeline view.
Keyboard shortcut: backspace or Delete (when orange box in the video player is selected)
Delete track
This will delete the track (and the corresponding orange box in the video player) from your video (and the timeline view). To re-add a track, simply draw a box in the video player and follow the instructions under the ‘Tracker button’ described below.
NOTE: This will only be clickable when you select a track from the timeline view, not when you select an orange box from the video player.
Keyboard shortcut: backspace or Delete (when orange bar in the Timeline view is selected)
Label
Click this and you can label the row where the corresponding track appears, in the timeline. You can also pin the row to freeze it at the top of the timeline, so you can move tracks around more easily.
Keyboard shortcut: N
Split track
When you click on an orange bar (i.e. a track) in the timeline or an orange box in the video player, and then click the ‘Split track’ button, you will split the track at the point you select in the timeline (which will coincide with the white vertical line in the timeline). You can then delete a section of the track, move tracks around the timeline etc.
Keyboard shortcut: S
Tracker
Click this and Secure Redact system will intelligently track the object forwards in the video by 25 frames, providing the user with a suggested track (shown in the timeline view as a grey bar). As you watch the suggested track Secure Redact will keep suggesting a further 25 frames forwards.
To change where the track is suggesting, simply adjust the box in the video player and the suggestion will reset in the timeline view, again suggesting 25 frames forward based on your new adjustment.
To accept the suggested track, click the green tick that appears under the Tracker button OR Enter.
To delete the suggested track, click the red cross that appears under the Tracker button OR backspace.
Keyboard shortcut: T
Video player overview
In the video player, all orange boxes (detections in the video player view) correspond to the orange bars (tracks) in the timeline view.
How to unredact / redact a specific individual or object throughout the whole video
Click the face of the individual you want to focus on (select the relevant orange box in the video view).
Label the row in the timeline that corresponds to that person. Pin that row to the top of the timeline.
Watch the video to check for any missing tracks.
Check all the orange bars (tracks) that correspond to the individual are in the labelled row. If they’re not, drag and drop the specific orange bar into the labelled row.
If there is a track in the labelled row that doesn’t correspond to the individual, drag and drop the orange bar into a different row. Don’t worry, whatever unlabelled row you drop the irrelevant track in will not affect the final result.
If there is a track missing, follow the Tracker button instructions above.
There is also a way to create a new track:
Draw an orange box in the video player.
Click and hold the box over the individual’s face and press the arrows forwards/backwards through the video. (You can also just press play if you’d like to speed this process up).
Holding the box and “dragging” it through each frame of the video will add a track to the timeline view.
To stop the track, simply let go of your mouse.
Then drag the new orange bar (track) into the correct labelled row.
Once complete, go back to the old editor. All changes made in the new editor will be saved in the old editor. To see labelled rows in the old editor, go to the Entities Panel and filter the selection by clicking “Aliased”. You can then select to unredact a specific entity (individual) as normal.
Once you are happy, you can redact and download the final video as you normally would in the old editor.
Keyboard shortcuts
To keep the keyboard shortcuts for the video player and toolbar visible, simply click the keyboard icon.
Video player:
Spacebar or K = Play/pause
Left arrow = backwards 1 frame
Right arrow = forwards 1 frame
J = Backwards 5 seconds
L = Forwards 5 seconds
O = Decrease playback rate
P = Increase playback rate
M = Mute
Toolbar:
Enter = Accept a suggested track
Backspace or Delete = Delete a redaction box or track
S = Split track
T = Tracker
Combination shortcuts:
Option (or ALT on Windows) + Right or Left arrows = takes you to the end of the track or the start of the next track.