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Video Objects

Telar can display videos from YouTube, Vimeo, and Google Drive as objects in your exhibition. Videos work just like images — you can build stories around them, focus on specific moments with clip control, and include them alongside your other objects.

Videos are not stored in your repository — Telar embeds them directly from the platform where they are already hosted.

Adding a video object

To add a video, put the video’s URL in the source_url column of your objects spreadsheet. Telar detects the media type automatically from the URL — no additional configuration is needed.

For example, a row in your objects spreadsheet might look like this:

object_id,title,source_url
interview-01,Oral history interview,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Supported platforms

Telar recognizes video URLs from three platforms:

Telar does not support self-hosted video files. Videos must be hosted on one of the supported platforms. For self-hosted media, see Audio Objects.

How videos appear

In stories

When a story step references a video object, the video player fills the viewer area. The player includes standard playback controls (play, pause, seek) and responds to any clip settings you define for that step.

If you set clip_start and clip_end values in your story spreadsheet, the video plays only the specified segment. This is useful for drawing attention to a particular moment without requiring your audience to watch the full recording.

On object pages

Each video object has its own page (/objects/{object-id}/) with an embedded player. Below the player, a clip time picker lets you play to a position and capture timestamps — useful when building story steps.

Video objects appear in the objects gallery with a play icon on a grey background. The gallery’s Type filter lets visitors browse by media type (Image, Video, or Audio).

Clip control

Story steps can specify a start time, end time, and loop setting for video objects. Add these columns to your story spreadsheet:

Column (English) Column (Spanish) Description
clip_start inicio_clip Start time in seconds (e.g. 12.5)
clip_end fin_clip End time in seconds
loop bucle Loop the clip (true, yes, or sí)

All three columns are optional. If omitted, the video plays from the beginning without looping.

step,object,clip_start,clip_end,loop,question,answer
1,interview-01,45,78,false,What does she describe?,The weaving technique used in her community.
2,interview-01,120,145,true,A recurring motif,Notice how the pattern repeats — this clip loops to highlight the repetition.

Finding clip times

The object page for each video includes a clip time picker:

  1. Navigate to the object page for your video (/objects/{object-id}/)
  2. Play the video to the position you want
  3. Click the timestamp capture buttons to record start and end times
  4. Copy the values into your story spreadsheet

You can also use the Compositor’s clip capture interface to set clip times visually. See Video and Audio in the Compositor for details.

See also