Timestamped comments: feedback that points at the exact second

A comment that says "around the middle" costs everyone a rewatch. Tie feedback to a moment and a spot on the screen, keep each conversation in one thread, and close it when it is handled.

By the VeoRec team · Oct 3, 2026 · 11 min read

Timestamped comments solve the oldest problem in video feedback: the reviewer saw something, wrote about it, and the author cannot find it. "The header jumps at some point." "Around the middle, the price looks off." Each of those costs a full rewatch, and sometimes a call to ask which jump and which price.

The mechanics below are VeoRec's: comments, replies, notes pinned to the frame, and threads you can resolve. The habits around them are not tool-specific. Whether the recording is a design walkthrough, a bug reproduction, a pull request explanation or a client deliverable, feedback should arrive pointing at something and leave closed.

Make every comment point at a moment

A timestamp turns feedback from a description into a pointer. The author clicks it and lands on the frame the reviewer was looking at. That removes the guessing, and it also changes how people write: when the moment is already attached, the comment can be about the problem instead of about finding it.

Notice that the second version is also split into three comments. One issue per comment is the other half of precise feedback: each one can be answered, fixed and closed on its own, instead of a single comment that stays half done for a week.

Timestamps also make disagreement cheaper. When two reviewers comment at 2:58, one saying the price is wrong and the other saying it was changed on purpose, the conflict is visible in one place on the timeline. Without the moment, those two opinions live in two emails and the author finds out when they have already changed it twice.

Leave a timestamped comment on the watch page

There are two places to write a comment on a recording's watch page, and both attach the time.

1. Pause where the issue is Play the video and pause on the frame you mean. Arrow keys skip five seconds, and J and L skip ten, so you can land close without dragging.
2. Use the Comment button under the player Below the video there is a row of emoji reactions and a Comment button. It opens a small box whose send button reads "Comment at 2:41" (or whatever the moment is), so you can see which second you are attaching before you post. Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on a Mac) posts it.
3. Or write in the Activity tab The Activity tab on the right lists every comment. Its box ("Add a comment…") has a Tag current time checkbox, ticked by default. Untick it only for a general remark about the whole video.
4. Add your name if you are not signed in Viewers do not need an account to comment. If you are not signed in, a "Your name (optional)" field appears. Fill it in; "Anonymous" feedback is hard to follow up.

Each comment shows the author, a time button such as "@ 2:41" and the date. Click the time and the video jumps there and plays. Comments also appear as small markers on the progress bar, so the owner can see at a glance where the feedback clusters. A cluster around one moment usually means one confusing step, not five separate problems.

Reactions work the same way. Pressing an emoji reacts at the current moment, and it lands on the timeline too. A reaction is a cheap signal ("this part is great", "this part is funny"), and owners can switch them off in the video's settings if they are noise for a particular audience.

Keep the conversation in one thread

Every top-level comment has a Reply button. Use it. A reply sits under the comment it answers, so anyone reading later sees the question and the answer together, at the same moment of the video. A new top-level comment that says "re: the price thing above" splits the conversation and breaks resolving.

Signed-in users get two more options. The Video button next to Comment records a short video reply to the whole recording, and Reply with video on a comment records an answer to that comment. A video reply is the right tool when the answer is "let me show you": explaining why the button changed is faster on screen than in a paragraph.

Pin a note to the spot on the review board

A timestamp says when. For visual work you also need where: which of the three buttons, which cell in the table. That is what the review board is for. Open it from the Review tab on the watch page; the tab shows how many notes are still open.

The board puts the video on a canvas you can pan and zoom, with a toolbar along the bottom. The tools you will use most:

• Note (C): click a spot on the video and write. The note is pinned to that point of the frame and to that moment. Type @ to mention a teammate; the Post note button sends it.
• Voice note and Video note: the same, but you record your comment instead of typing it. Useful for tone-sensitive feedback, where text reads harsher than you meant.
• Sticky note (S) and Text (T): for remarks about the board as a whole, placed beside the video rather than on it.
• Rectangle, Ellipse, Arrow, Line and Pen: markup. Anything you draw over the video belongs to the moment you drew it at, so a circle around a typo appears when the typo does.

The button at the top toggles between At this moment, which shows only the notes and markup for the current time, and Showing all. Numbered pins mark each note on the frame, and the board's own timeline shows a marker for each note; resolved ones look different from open ones.

Let notes follow the element, not the pixel

Pinning to a spot has a weakness on web pages: pages scroll and layouts change. A note placed on the Pro pricing card at one scroll position points at empty space a second later. When the recording is of a Chrome tab made with the VeoRec extension, the board knows which page element was under your click, so the note sticks to that element and moves with it as the page scrolls. While the element is off screen, the note hides. Switch layouts in the demo below to see the difference.

For a recording of a window or the whole screen, the board cannot see inside the page, and a small "Notes pin to a spot" label at the top tells you that notes stay where you put them. That is still precise for a moment and a position; it just does not follow scrolling. If element-level feedback matters, which it usually does for website feedback, record the site as a Chrome tab.

Add notes yourself while you record

The author can seed the review. While recording, press N or the Pin a note here button on the toolbar. The recording pauses at once, so the note box never appears in the video. Click the spot the note is about, type, press Enter, and recording resumes.

These notes are saved on the recording as pinned notes by you, at the moment you made them. Use them for the questions you already know you have: "Not sure about this empty state, thoughts?" or "Copy here is placeholder, ignore." Reviewers then answer in a thread that already exists instead of rediscovering the same doubt. In a whole-screen recording the note keeps its moment but not a spot, and the box tells you so.

Keep author notes few and pointed. Three notes that each ask a real question get answered. Fifteen notes that narrate what is already on screen turn the review board into a wall of your own commentary, and reviewers stop reading pins. If you find yourself writing a note to explain something, say it out loud in the recording instead.

Resolve threads so the open list is the to-do list

Feedback that is never closed piles up until nobody trusts the list. Resolving fixes that. On the watch page, each top-level comment has Mark resolved; on the review board, each note has Resolve. Both can be undone with Reopen if the fix did not hold.

Who can resolve: the video's owner and their team, the signed-in author of the comment, and a client using a folder review link that allows comments. Resolved comments keep a "Resolved" label that everyone sees, which matters more than it sounds. A reviewer who comes back sees their point was handled without having to ask.

On the board, the notes panel turns resolving into a working list. It has four filters (Open, Resolved, All and Mentions me), a search box, and a button that copies every open note as a checklist, each item linked to its moment in the video. Paste that into a ticket or a pull request description and the feedback becomes tasks without retyping a word.

There is also Hide from viewers on each note, for notes that should stay within the team. Hidden notes remain visible to your team, so an internal "check this with legal" does not leak to the client watching the same link.

Run the review from the author's side

Most of the work in a review is on the author, and a simple routine keeps it from sprawling across chat, email and the video. This is the loop that works for a design round, a bug fix or a pull request walkthrough recorded with VeoRec.

1. Seed the questions. While recording, press N on the two or three things you are unsure about. Reviewers see your doubts at the right moments instead of guessing what you want from them.
2. Share once, with a deadline. Send the link with one line about the stage, the kind of feedback you want and the date you need it by. Ask for one issue per comment.
3. Triage, do not fix, on the first pass. Read every comment and note once. Reply where something is unclear. Fixing during the first read means you fix the first comment and miss that the fifth one contradicts it.
4. Fix in batches and resolve as you go. Work through the Open list. Each time something is done, reply with what changed and mark it resolved.
5. Re-record only what changed. A short follow-up recording of the fixed parts is easier to check than a full new walkthrough. Link it in your reply.
6. Close the round. When the Open filter is empty, tell the reviewers. Anything new goes into the next round, not into this thread.

The routine is boring on purpose. Feedback rounds go long when nobody can tell what is still open; with timestamped threads and an honest resolved state, that question always has a one-click answer.

Watch one round from first comment to empty list

A designer records a four minute walkthrough of a new pricing page as a Chrome tab. While recording she presses N twice: once on the yearly toggle ("Is the saving clear enough?") and once on an empty FAQ block ("Copy coming Monday, skip"). She sends the link to a product manager, a developer and the marketing lead with a Thursday deadline.

By Wednesday the board has nine notes. The product manager left three comments in the Activity tab, one at 0:48 about the plan names. The developer pinned two notes on the Team card: one on the badge that overlaps the price at narrow widths, one asking whether the card heights are fixed. The marketing lead replied under the designer's own toggle note ("No, say Save 2 months") and added a voice note on the hero headline, because "it feels flat" is harsh in text and fine in a friendly voice.

The designer reads everything once without touching the file. Two comments conflict: the product manager wants the Team card highlighted, marketing wants the Pro card highlighted. Both are on the same moment, so she replies to both in one thread: "Picking Pro for this round, Team gets the badge. Shout if that is wrong." Then she works through the Open filter, replying with the change and resolving each note. The FAQ note she resolves straight away; it was never a question.

On Friday she records a 70 second follow-up showing only the changed parts and links it in a reply to the first comment. The developer reopens one thread, because the badge still overlaps at 360 pixels wide. That one note becomes the whole of round three. Nobody had a meeting, and nobody had to ask which version of anything was current.

Decide who may comment before you share

Open the video's Settings tab and the Audience section. The switches there are Comments (allow viewers to add comments) and Emoji reactions, next to Who can view, which sets who can open the link at all. Turn comments off for a finished tutorial you are publishing widely, and leave them on for anything that is still a draft.

For clients, a whole folder can be shared with one link that is either view only or allows comments. The folder review links guide explains that setup, and the client feedback process post covers how to run review rounds around it.

Ask for feedback in a way that gets precise answers

The best tooling still depends on the request. "Thoughts?" invites a vague reply. Say what stage the work is at, what kind of feedback you want, and when you need it. Copy one of these and adjust it.

Asking for "one issue per comment" is the single most useful line. It makes each piece of feedback resolvable on its own. For the softer side of feedback (wording that is clear without being harsh), how to give design feedback is a good companion.

When the round is over, open the notes panel, filter to Open, and copy the checklist. If it is empty, you are done. If it is not, you know exactly what is left, at exactly which second. More on review workflows for teams is on the page about a screen recorder for designers.