Hi all...I hope I'm not out of line in posting this technique for adding a stopwatch overlay on some video. I thought I would share to see if it helps others or to spark some discussion so that I or others may learn. Anyway, I hope this sort of post is okay; if not I apologize.

I've been digging around a bit trying to find out if PD can imprint a stopwatch or clock on a video. Now I don't want to just put it on as I film. I wanted to use fonts and colors of my choosing as well as be able to sync the clock to the event. For example, think about a sports sequence...say running the 100M dash. I want to put a clock that begins at 00:00 when the gun sounds and have it stop at the finish line. I wanted total control of the clock but exact precision isn't required. That is to say that if I am off by a hundredth of a second, the sun will still rise. I use it for kids sports - not a Swiss Clock for the Olympics. My original hope is that there was and easy plug in or setting in PD, but I didn't find one. (of course, it doesn't mean it isn't there. It just means this noob hasn't found it. If there is an easier way, I'd love to learn it and the below journey was a great exercise for learning PD.)

I started with a one minute stop watch in the format of XY.Z where X is the tens, Y is the ones and Z is the tenths. Once the Gun fired I would see "00.0" then "00.1" then "00.2" and so on until I got to the end of "59.9" seconds. I can add more columns to add minutes using the same technique to get "1:03.5" for 1 minute: 03.5 seconds". My current project will top out in the 3 minute range. I chose an LED style font and made it bright red.

I set up three video tracks. The first track will be the tens, the second column the ones and the third track the decimal point and tenths.

In the Third track (decimal and tenths), I placed a blank title and set the duration for 1s. I added text of ".0" in the font and color of my choosing. I put it in the upper right corner where I wanted it. Since I am at 30fps, I increment the tenths every 3 frames. In frame zero, one, and two the text in the frame reads ".0". In frame three I change it to ".1" and in frame six I change it to ".2" and so on till I have ".9" in the last frame. You have to really spread out the timeline to make working at this minute level easier. Once I had this tenths of a second sequence, I can copy it over and over again as needed.

In track two, I added the one's column. I set the duration for one second and added a text box and typed "0". Once I the text lined up with ".0" from the third track, I just cut and paste 9 times. In each 1 second segment, I updated the number. Don't forget to paste the "tenths" in track three to match. The two tracks composted together got me "0.0" through "9.9".

Wash rinse and repeat to add the tens columns on track one. Extrapolate out for the minutes column if you want. I produced the video which I can then pull into other projects and hit with Chroma Key and I have my stopwatch. Perhaps this is a bit tedious and I am sure there is a more elegant way to pull this off and my solution is probably a bit like hitting a nail with a jack hammer, but it got the results I wanted and I can always go back to the source project and put in different fonts, colors, etc, etc. (oh my, how was that for a run on?) I may even do a countdown in this manner. One quirk with the font I chose was I had to lead all 1's with a space to prevent the clock from squeezing in and out like an accordion. I wanted a stable width like on a scoreboard.

Again, I hope this is useful to someone and I hope I am not out of line sharing.