Capture scenes

A capture scene shows a real screenshot or recording of your product. The stage can frame it, zoom into it, and draw callouts above it, but it never redraws it. Scenes without a capture keep working as before, so you can mix both in one video.

Add a capture

1. Import your files in Library → Assets. PNG, JPEG, WebP, and H.264 MP4 are checked from their bytes and hashed.
2. In Storyboard, choose Add capture on a scene.
3. Choose a source. If the script has no sidecar yet, choose where to keep the capture: a sidecar file, or the storyboard.

You can also bring files in with your own tools. A ./path in the sidecar points at a file inside the project.

Project files are read-only

Media inside the project folder appears in Assets under In the project folder · Read-only, with a lock on each card. You can preview it and see which scenes use it, but you can't replace, rename, or delete it from the app.

That's deliberate: scenes point at these files by path, and approvals are tied to their exact contents. To change one, edit it on disk and use Refresh. A changed file asks for a new privacy review and approval.

Importing the same file into the library makes a separate copy. The scene keeps using its ./path until you change the source.

Mark regions

A region is a named rectangle in source pixels. Camera moves and overlays refer to it by name.

• Choose Draw and drag on the capture, or Add by values and type the numbers.
• Drag to move, and use the corners to resize. Dragging the capture itself does nothing, because its pixels are locked.
• Rename updates every reference at once. Delete is refused while anything uses the region, and lists what does.

Direct the camera

Each camera keyframe names a region and a zoom, and is anchored to a line of dialogue. If the narration changes, the camera follows. Add keyframes in the Camera tab, or drag them on the timeline. Play camera previews the movement.

Overlays sit above the capture: focus outlines, dimming, callouts, connectors, captions, and cursor emphasis. Hiding one hides it in renders too.

Recordings and screenshots

Recordings play muted at their own speed from the trim point, and their captured audio never reaches the video. If the narration outlasts the trim, the scene stops the render unless you choose to hold the last real frame. Screenshots have no trim and can't show captured actions.

Vertical video

In 9:16, a capture is contained without cropping or distortion, and asks for review. With 9:16 selected in the editor, camera and frame edits apply only to the vertical version.

Autosave and conflicts

The editor saves shortly after you stop. If a file changed elsewhere, autosave stops and nothing is overwritten: Compare shows both versions, Reload saved version discards your draft, and Keep my draft leaves it open with autosave off so you can copy it.

Edit the text instead

Everything in the editor is the same data as the files, so you can use either. The Storyboard's Sidecar YAML tab uses the same validation, and text that doesn't validate stays as you typed it.

intro.capture.yaml

schema: qontent-tube/capture@1
assets:
  studio:
    src: ./captures/studio.png
scenes:
  scene-2:
    asset: studio
    regions:
      editor: { rect: [350, 35, 790, 535] }
    camera:
      maxZoom: 1.35
      keyframes:
        - {
            id: start,
            at: { segment: segment-2-0, f: 0 },
            region: full,
            zoom: 1,
          }
        - {
            id: focus,
            at: { segment: segment-2-0, f: 0.5 },
            region: editor,
            zoom: 1.25,
          }

Next: check and approve your captures.