Contact sheet anatomy
A video contact sheet places multiple extracted frames into one chronological grid. The tiles stay ordered by source time and timestamps make it easier to scan changes, compare moments, and jump back to the individual JPEGs.
When to use it
Use a contact sheet when you want a fast visual overview before opening individual frames. It is especially useful for spotting scene, layout, UI, or other visible changes across the timeline.
- Scan a clip quickly before opening individual frames.
- Locate scene, layout, or UI changes in chronological order.
- Carry a compact visual overview into a broader evidence or AI workflow.
- Use the Full Evidence archive when you need the complete one-frame-per-second source trail.
Local processing
The contact sheet is built from the same browser-local extraction workflow as the rest of FrameDigest. The selected video is decoded on your device, and the generated visual files stay local unless you choose to move them elsewhere.
- Choose a local video up to the current 180-second / 32 MiB production envelope.
- FrameDigest uses the browser's native decoder and canvas locally.
- Full Evidence preserves one frame per second, while the compact handoff separately scans visible changes at higher frequency.
- Timestamp labels keep contact-sheet tiles tied to the source timeline.
What it does not include
A contact sheet summarizes visual moments; it does not reproduce continuous motion, spoken audio, or every source frame. Production transcription remains deferred, so the overview should be treated as visual evidence rather than a full video reconstruction.
- A contact sheet is a visual overview, not a substitute for the original video.
- It does not represent spoken content while transcription is deferred.
- Selected media is processed locally for visual extraction and ZIP generation rather than uploaded to FrameDigest application servers.
Contact sheet FAQ
Answers about how the grid relates to Full Evidence, how timestamps work, and whether creating a contact sheet uploads your selected video.
What is a video contact sheet?
It is a chronological grid of video frames that lets you scan multiple moments at once instead of opening each JPEG separately.
Where does FrameDigest include contact sheets?
Chronological contact sheets are part of Full Evidence, while compact visual sheets are used for automatic coverage in the AI Handoff.
Do contact sheets include timestamps?
Yes. FrameDigest keeps visual evidence tied to source time so the overview remains chronologically useful.
Does creating the contact sheet upload my video?
No. The selected source is decoded and processed locally in the browser.