Help with use of "Timecode" as a stopwatch on video

Hello, I just loaded Shotcut on my computer and for someone not very good with video editing, I am enjoying my experience so far. My question is regarding creating an analysis video of someone running any track event, and to be able to embed one or two ‘running stopwatches’.

Example 1: I have a video of someone running a mile (actually 1600 meters, or 4 laps) on a running track, with a little bit of footage pre- and post-race.

  • What I would like to do is to embed in the video, only during the race part of the video, a timecode/stopwatch that that starts at zero seconds (0:00.00 formatted minutes:seconds:milliseconds) when the race starts, and stops at, for example, 3:59.99, when the race ends. Is this possible using #timecode" in a format that is consistent with the race in question (e.g, a sprint race may just need seconds and milliseconds, as in 10.00).
  • If so, is there a way to embed a second stopwatch in the video with a start/stop for each lap, assuming the video clearly shows where the runner finishes each lap, such that at any point in the final created video, one would know the total elapsed time and also the time for each lap without having to do any math based on running time.

The only related how-to post I could find is listed below, but the answer was over-my-head and I could not figure out how/if it could be applied to my question/example.

Thanks in advance for any help.

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See a description of the Stopwatch feature of my WebVfx framework here:

I appreciate you taking the time to respond with the details you provided. I am gonna give it a try and see how it goes.

Thanks

There was talk of them adding a filter for it Shotcut, but it’s not appeared yet. I found building my own counter via code not that success as I’m not a code and it just takes up too much time with mixed results.

VSDC Free Video Editor has this as an available feature and it’s really easy to use with no coding required, while I don’t like that editor much. If you find the coding tricky might want to try building the section of the video with the feature in that editor then exporting it to Shotcut.

Hopefully at some point in the future, this will be included as standard in Shotcut like VSDC does.

Thank you Riven.

I also, am having some difficulty building my own stopwatch to look as I’d like it to look, as I am not very good with coding.

The text filter in Shotcut #timecode# and how you can place it on any portion of the Shotcut video is perfect, I am just trying to figure out how to format it into ss.xx (seconds and centi-econd) for a short period of time or mm:ss.xx (minutes, seconds and centiseconds) for a longer period of time less than one hour.

Yes, I’m still trying to work with the info Elusien was kind enough to provide, but that is a bit over-my-head (for now, at least). If one could just easily format #timecode# into a desired format, that would be ideal.

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Thanks

Recently I faced the same issue

Maybe my answer is wayyyyyy too late, but for future reference for other user…try this:

  • Cut the video (say video A) to start at the point where you want 00:00 begin, export it (to video B)
  • Import video B. Now if you insert timecode, that point begins with 00:00. Done.
  • (Optional) If you want, you can insert back the timecoded video B right next to the point where you cut it at video A.