In most DAWs, there is a very useful feature that works like this:
Set the starting point (playhead) to some point in the timeline
Press space to start the playback
WIth the “Return to starting point” option, pressing space again would reset the playhead back to the point it was in Step 1
Currently Shortcut stops the playhead at the position you press Space in. So if you start with the playhead at 00:00:10:00 and press space at 00:00:25:00, then the playhead will stay in 00:00:25:00. Pressing Space again would continue from 00:00:25:00.
With the DAW approach, you could start at 00:00:10:00, press space to play until 00:00:25:00, and then pressing space again would reset the playhead back to 00:00:10:00. Press space one more time would play again from 00:00:10:00.
Would be nice to have this option in Shortcut, especially for editing music videos
Hi, I am brand new to Shotcut and have been looking to do the same thing - the option to have the playhead return to its starting point when play stops. It looks like it’s been almost four years since this was posted, but I haven’t been able to find a solution (if there is one). I don’t know anything about coding, but I’d hope this wouldn’t be too difficult to implement, since it may be a dealbreaker for me, personally… If not possible, is there a workaround? Thanks.
The space bar is the keyboard shortcut for Play and Pause. I think this is the norm in most if not all video editors and media players.
Workarounds?
If you play from the Timeline:
Place a marker at the desired start position.
Press the space bar to start/stop playing
Use the < key or the Previous Marker button in the toolbar at any moment to rewind back to the marker position.
If you play from the Source panel:
Set a In point at the desired start position.
Play from there.
Click the Skip to previous point button, or use Alt + Left arrow to go back to the In point.
You can also use the i key to set a In point.
Reset the In point to it’s original position after you’re done, if necessary.
These are not exactly as describe in the original post, but I think that’s as close as you can get for the moment.
Hi, I would like to request an optional playback behavior that would make video editing much more convenient.
Proposed behavior:
Click anywhere on the timeline to set the playback starting position.
Press Space to start playback.
Press Space again to stop playback and automatically return the playhead to the exact position where playback started.
This is a very convenient and fast way to find the exact frame where I want to cut a video.
Currently, playback stops wherever the playhead happens to be. To check another section, I have to manually move the mouse back and forth on the timeline, which requires unnecessary movements and makes the editing workflow less efficient.
Other professional video editing applications already offer this kind of playback behavior, and it makes finding precise cut points significantly faster.
Please consider implementing this as an optional playback mode or a configurable setting. It would be a valuable improvement to the editing experience.
A decent workaround is to use Ctrl+left arrow to go back quickly to an edge of a clip. This way you can quickly travel large amounts (unless you have many very short clips in a row).
Also double clicking on a clip goes directly to its start point.
Yes and to work even quicker the shortcut can be changed in: Help > Actions and Shortcuts
By default, keys 1 to 9 are set to select items 1 to 9 in the Playlist.
I never used them for that, so I re-assingned those keys to navigate in the Timeline:
If you do not need an exact starting point but just need to more conveniently replay a section, there are 2 more options not yet mentioned. So, you can see there are already many similar things if not exactly this. We do not want to make the program like the cockpit of a jet airplane, and it is already approaching that for many users.
Turn off Settings > Player > Pause After Seek. Then, you can simply click before the region to replay, or use one of the Player (menu) actions like the configurable Backward Jump.
