Callout Hotspot Does Not "Pause" in Camtasia

I can't get the "pause" feature to work for a callout hotspot. v 8.01. Been through directions in help several times, no luck. The video plays the callout OK but the pause does not happen as was requested in the hotspot check box in the callout creation dialog box. Just plays through it without stopping.

Dick Hoskins

7 Posts
2 Reply Likes
confused

Posted 7 years ago

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7 years ago

Dave O'Rourke, Senior Software Engineer

1443 Posts
412 Reply Likes

Are you producing with playback controls?

The hotspots are actually a feature of the playback controls. The mp4 is just a video. The playback controls implement the pausing, and respond to the click to resume playback.

Note that to play the video, you need to double click the html file that is produced and sits alongside the video. The html will load the play controls, which in turn will load and play the video with any hotspots.

Hope this helps.

2 people like this

7 years ago

Kevin Mojek, Employee

582 Posts
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Just a couple of quick ideas... first, are you producing with one of the 'MP4 with video player' production presets? Hotspots are implemented by the player, so they won't work with the 'MP4 only' presets or other production formats. Next, what is the duration of the callouts? With some production settings, it's possible for very short hotspot callouts to get skipped over during playback.

7 years ago

Dick Hoskins

7 Posts
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Double click what HTML file? I am new to Camtasia, I do not know (yet) what any of the terms you are using are. I see the Camtasia desktop with a little screen on the right where the video-in-process I am making will play. When I play it, it passes right through the hotspotted callouts. I cannot find anything you have described in the documentation. Hopefully it is there somewhere, but I cannot find it.

7 years ago

Kevin Mojek, Employee

582 Posts
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Oops, sorry. You'll see the effects of hotspots only once you've produced your project (you'll get an HTML file, an MP4 file and some other miscellaneous files), but not in the preview window.

7 years ago

Dick Hoskins

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OK, so this means that I produce the file, test it, maybe find it does not work or is in the wrong place, etc and then I have to go back, fix it in the editor, and produce it all over again?

Also when I choose to produce the video it gives mostly various mp4 choices and and "custom" which appears to be everything else. It would appear that you are preferring mp4 in various flavors but when I try mp4 (what else would I use? I really do not one from the other) it tells me that several features won't work (like most). So I choose the video to show me how to produce my video but it is producing an mp4 which is not what I need to do as I would not have added the features in the editor that are advertised if they were not going to work ... but that format is what is shown in the video.

Finally I choose the custom and follow the directions in the help (rather buried) and arrive at a screen "flash/ html5 player options" ????? Is there a help hot key that will tell me what all those options mean? The HTML version is produced and the pause I put in is there. I look in the directory where the whole works is stored but the main file seems to be an mp4 file.

Clearly I have a dim understanding of the tech details, but I am trying to develop portions of a statistical modeling course and I am getting worried about the overhead to get Camtasia going especially since there appears to be scant documentation.

Is there a comprehensive help manual, a PDF?

7 years ago

Mike Curtis, Employee

2204 Posts
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Hello,
I do not believe there is a PDF, but in the past when we posted PDF versions, the content would be nearly identical to what you saw in the in-product help file.

I'm curious if you would consider hosting your videos on Screencast.com as an option? You can make the videos private and a few possible ways you could make the course available would be by embedding the video in your LMS/blog/webpage, or maybe just posting the links to the appropriate video. (I can deliver examples and a lot of documentation if this is something you'd consider.) Screencast.com also offers something called a "Playlist" where you could put the whole course in one sequential list.

The nice thing about Screencast.com is that it would really simplify things. You would just click the little drop down next to Produce and Share, and select Screencast.com. You can make a free account and see what you think. The free account does have some bandwidth and storage limits, so depending on the size of your videos and how many views they get, it could become something to look out for.

If that's not an option, let's clarify your end goal. I think I'm piecing it together:
1. Create educational content for higher education.
2. Having hotspots in the video is really important.
3. Put the content on (blog? Personal site? LMS?) re close and once we get that first video done the way you are hoping for, the rest will go pretty smoothly.

Thanks for your feedback about the documentation too; the User Assistance team will consider your comments.

Sincerely,
Mike Curtis

7 years ago

Dick Hoskins

7 Posts
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1. is correct. 2 is a nice-to-have but the overhead of making it may not be worth it 3. Content will be put on a university site in Peru. Screencast.com might be OK provided I can keep the size below the free access limit and connectivity from S Amer is OK.
I used an earlier version of Camtasia and things went pretty quickly, and there was adequate documentation. But in this version the documentation seems disorganized and disconnected and full of jargon without explanation. Hopefully it will smooth out soon.
There is constant reference to the tutorials but really, there are not all that many. Also topics in the help do not yield to the help search capability.
I think you should re-think your documentation policy and come up with a real user manual that is a real document. As was noted by someone else, people have different learning styles. My experience teaching is that one has to accommodate as many as possible and not back into a rigid paradigm that collapses in on you. For a product like this it would seem a given that the user will not be all that familiar with video tech jargon, etc. And if you turn that type of user off your product will get an unfortunate reputation when in fact with proper presentation it would have been a hit. Maybe I am really off base. If so I will certainly apologize for being so thick.

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7 years ago

Mike Curtis, Employee

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Hi Dick,

I made a 7 minute video showing how I've taken a video with hotspots and published it to a live website. This path avoids the custom production settings route. It's hard to predict how the videos might interact with your main landing page as I can't know how your system is set up, but I showed perhaps the simplest way by means of links from the landing page to separate pages for videos.

http://www.screencast.com/t/1YWOy7tlJ

Would a PDF version, perhaps with more options and pros/cons of various workflows be more like the documentation you wish to see?

I think it might still be good to try Screencast.com, but I'm glad you mentioned that you are in South America. Our best performance is in North America, so you will definitely want to upload some bigger videos and test the performance in your area.

Thanks for your feedback and patience,
Mike Curtis

7 years ago

TomTomTom

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You never address Dick's original question about the hotspot not pausing the video. What's more, as far as I can tell the sample video Mike prepared above actually demonstrates the same problem:

at :45 he says "and they are set up to pause"
at :50 he shows the dialog and "pause at the end of callout" is clearly selected
howeever at 6:09 when he demonstrates the hotspot the video he has made clearly does not pause.

That was the original question and a problem I am having as well: the "Pause at end of callout" option in the Flash Hotspot Properties dialog does not appear to do anything.If there are specific settings needed to enable that function, please explicity show them. Please address that issue and that issue only.

7 years ago

kayakman, Champion

7017 Posts
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If you have a stop-at-end click-to-continue hotspot in tour project, do a cusom production to flash MP4, embedded in HTML, have the production go into a sub folder; upload the entire subfolder [with all files] to your web site, and use the productionname.html file as the target URL, the hotspot should work; I use them all the time.

Note that if you try and view the video off your local system, the hotspot may not work due to browser security issues.

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7 years ago

Tom Mat

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I have the same problem as listed by Dick and tried everything as suggested by the moderators and employees but could not get it working. Added a hotspot with a callOut then produced the file with MP4/Flash under `custom production settings`. And selected the `html` file created along with all other files and tried to run. Nothing stops the presentation from running continuously.. no pauses, no halts..

How to get it working ?

7 years ago

kayakman, Champion

7017 Posts
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are you trying to view off your local PC? if so, hotspots only work when viewed off a web site

7 years ago

Tom Mat

8 Posts
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Appreciat your quick reply, I needed it for a presentation and yes i am trying to view it in my local pc. But what I dont get is, what difference it makes if it`s been called from a server(web site) or locally? I am calling the html page anyway,right?

And like you suggests if it doesnot work on a local system, what is the nearest possible method to do a presentation with pause on slides with `Click here to continue` buttons ?

2012-11-27T14:23:47+00:00

Mike Curtis, Employee

2204 Posts
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Thomas, just an idea: I'm not sure what percentage of your presentation is slides vs motion video, but have you considered embedding video clips in your PPT presentation? I'm not sure if this would suit your needs, but I have seen demo videos or other types of video right in the PPT used to good effect.

Also, my understanding as to why hotspots don't work on a local machine is because it's considered a security risk and is not allowed by the operating system. I am sure there is more to it though.

Sincerely,
Mike Curtis

7 years ago

Tom Mat

8 Posts
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Martin, I am onto a `presentation` with `recorded screen` shots of our new software.I need pause(s) in between so that the presenter has time to explain things to the audience. So far, it has nothing to with power point but yes, it might be integrated in the future.

Thanks in advance
Thomas

7 years ago

kayakman, Champion

7017 Posts
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a workaround is to make many short video segments that are accessed using HTML links on a simple document page [html, word, etc.]

just play a short segment [that stops when you plan a pause/explain]

then click next link to play next segment

this works on a local PC

7 years ago

Tom Mat

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Hi Kayakman..If i got your point correctly , I am afraid that is not a good solution for my problem. I cant make the video as many segments or say bits with the presenter everytime going back & searching for the correct link in the word/html. The entire presentation is intended to be a continued process but requires some breaks in between where more explanation is required for the audience. If it connected to a beamer the only thing we can expect from the presenter is a key-press event.
Thanks for your time,though.
Any other solution ,any one?

2012-11-28T15:22:14+00:00

kayakman, Champion

6955 Posts
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OK; but why not just have one produced video [MP4 in Smart Player] that the presenter manually pauses whenever he needs to say more?

2012-11-29T09:07:31+00:00

Tom Mat

8 Posts
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Kayakman , excuse if this is a silly question /option. But I was thinking about making a branded TOC for my video so that I can make hotspots with `actions` either Go2Frame or Go2Marker (still don’t know if it works in local system). Now my question is, is it possible in CS8 to have a portion of the video in-loop so that when the user selects/Clicks a Content in the TOC, it redirects to that particular time (marker) and returns to the (Home)-Video loop after that section finishes. Just like in a DVD –Home screen option?
Thanks in advance for your help

2012-11-29T11:31:05+00:00

kayakman, Champion

6955 Posts
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I've never tried to do what you are describing; but a regular TOC will work locally; re the looping, maybe do a short test and upload to Screencast.com to see? Hotspots, TOC, and captions work on Screencast.com

7 years ago

Teresa Vasquez-Terry

1 Post
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The video example that Mike created does not pause once the hotspots are displayed. I need once the hotspots come on screen for the video to stop. In the same manner that the video stops when a quiz is inserted. Is this possible?

7 years ago

kayakman, Champion

7017 Posts
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I cannot reproduce the issue; my hotspot callouts work fine in CS 8

perhaps make a short screencast showing the hotspots not working?

7 years ago

Aruanan Avelino

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Hi, All.

I think the question is understanding the limits of technical and operational Camtasia tool.
I continued testing the functionality of callouts and finally got some success (not what I want, but what the tool can do or produce).
Really callouts only works in Camtasia 8 if you have a player built into the final produced material. Moreover, for the callouts function adequately, the video MUST have produced and must be loaded by .htm/.html page containing the embedded player.

At the time of production (PRODUCE AND SHARE menu option) read carefully the options "MP4 video player (up to 480)", "MP4 video player (up to 720)" and "Production and Custom settings". Compare them with other options: "MP4 only (up to 480)" and "MP4 only (up to 720)." So are the technical limits of Camtasia 8.

One last VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION!

If HTML page is loaded directly from your PC HardDisk callouts not work in Chrome, even though the video has been produced with built-in player! I tested with Firefox, IE and Opera (in their latest versions)... all these browsers stuff worked, but it didn ́t work in CHROME!
The HTML page only works in Chrome if loaded from an Internet server. In this case callouts work perfectly.

Aruanan Avelino
CEO / CKM
SQA Labs. - Software Quality Assurance Laboratories
http://www.sqalabs.com.br
INSIGNARE - Corporate Planning & Pedagogy
http://www.insignare.com.br

7 years ago

Dave O'Rourke, Senior Software Engineer

1443 Posts
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Aruanan is correct. It's the player that responds to the clicks, and takes the action. Put another way, the hotspots (also quizzing and table of contents) are a feature of the player that gets produced when you use the "MP4 with video player" presets in Camtasia Studio 8. With these presets, you must double click on the HTML, not the MP4. This will use the Flash/HTML5 player that was created when you produced the MP4. That's what all the extra files are for.

When you play your video locally, by launching the HTML page from the produced folder, there are different security restrictions from the browser or from the Flash Player. The player is not allowed to read from disk *and* access the web. If it could, then malware could be created that would read your personal info off of your disk, and transmit it to a website without your knowledge or consent. Clearly that would be bad. So when the browser loads an HTML page from the local disk, it puts all scripted players or plugins inside a security sandbox, and there are limits to what it can do. Different browsers have different restrictions, but they all have some mechanism to protect against this type of malware. Unfortunately, this means that the only reliable way to test your hotspots is to move them to your web server, and test it from there.

If you produce to Screencast, there's no fine print, It should just work, because we host the video player that supports the interactivity, and since the video is being viewed from a web server, the local security sandbox is gone, and the hotspots and other interactivity should function as expected.

Hope this helps.

7 years ago

Bobby Bateman

2 Posts
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I created a video, and added in some callouts (a play button image). I selected "make hotspot", and then selected "Pause at end of callout". When I rendered the video and played it on Flash, the video did not pause at the end of those callouts.

Am I missing something or doing something wrong? Am I supposed to enter something in "Go to time at frame" or something else? Also, will these work on HTML 5?

Thank you so much,
Bobby
rbateman11@gmail.com

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Flash hotspots not working.

2013-05-08T08:07:15+00:00

synodbio

4 Posts
1 Reply Like

Hi i would like to know still more info on this,thanks in advance

7 years ago

kayakman, Champion

7017 Posts
2277 Reply Likes

hotspots only work when viewing off a web site [not locally]

also, the videos need to be embedded in html

alternatively, if you produce to MP4 and upload to Screencast.com, any hotspots, TOC, and captions will work

6 years ago

Quillycious Brusque Noyomi

1 Post
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yaikz... now i know... so its not working on video format... but just on html.... ;P

i like itz

6 years ago

Zach

2 Posts
0 Reply Likes

Is it possible to publish on Youtube with the Hotspot features?

2014-01-24T15:23:51+00:00

Rick Stone

5520 Posts
2601 Reply Likes

Zach, I'm going to crawl out on a limb here and say no. As the many replies in this thread state, in order for the hotspots to work, you have to play the video using the HTML page that Camtasia creates. When you upload to YouTube, you cannot do that. :(

5 years ago

Michael Rehm

29 Posts
2 Reply Likes

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Option for video to pause when viewer clicks on URL hotspot.

I insert hotspots into my online lectures that lead students to supplemental material on the Internet. It would be preferable that the video automatically pauses when a viewer clicks on one of the hotspots, which are setup to open a URL in a new browser window. At present the viewer would have to manually pause the video and then try and return back to where they clicked the hotspot after they've finished viewing the linked material (typically a Youtube video).

1 person likes this

2014-04-03T23:25:43+00:00

kayakman, Champion

6739 Posts
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the workaround for this in CS8 is to use a stop-at-end, click-to-continue hotspot [which will automatically stop the video] in conjunction with a jump-to-URL hotspot [not set to stop at end, and which offers the option to view other content]

as I recall, with CS6, when producing to flash using the classic controller, clicking on a jump-to-URL hotspot [not set to pause at end] would both stop play and open the new material in a new browser window

2014-04-03T23:31:31+00:00

Michael Rehm

29 Posts
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I am familiar with this as a workaround but it is not what I am after. I do not want the video to keep stopping at each hotspot. I design them to fade in, appear for 10 seconds so the viewer can read the associated description and can then decide if they want to check out the supplemental material by clicking on the hotspotted image. After the 10 seconds the hotspot fades out. For those who just want to watch the video they simply ignore the hotspots as they appear and disappear.

2014-04-03T23:41:50+00:00

Bill Coughlin

164 Posts
13 Reply Likes

I too still need this. A big pause button. Eg a call out button to pause and play. For iphone right and left thumb control

2014-04-03T23:43:05+00:00

Bill Coughlin

164 Posts
13 Reply Likes

Bottom nav bar does not work here

2014-04-04T08:22:06+00:00

Bill Coughlin

164 Posts
13 Reply Likes

Hello Camtasia Dev .. REALLY need a Pause Hotspot
The world has gone touch and two big Pause and Play icons on the top left adn right of screen works with thumb navigation.

I will demonstrate the need if your are not understanding this request.
currently am using a overlay 3rd party software for android tablets but we really need a Camtasia solution here

Please respond :)

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