Scrubbing
Dragging the playhead back and forth to skim frames quickly instead of watching the video from start to finish.
See it
What it is
Scrubbing means dragging the playhead, or dragging directly over a clip thumbnail, to inspect frames without playing at normal speed. Editors use it to hunt for a gesture, spoken beat, flash frame, or exact cut point. Some software also scrubs audio, producing the familiar sped-up or chopped sound as the playhead moves. The name predates software: editors rocked reels back and forth across a playhead by hand to find a cut point.
Scrub for quick visual searching, then switch to frame stepping or J, K, and L shuttle controls when the decision needs precision. Final Cut Pro calls the hover-without-clicking version the skimmer. Thumbnail hover previews on sites such as YouTube use the same basic idea: position maps to time, and the image updates immediately.
Gotcha: choppy scrubbing does not necessarily mean the final video is choppy. Long-GOP codecs may require the editor to decode several frames just to display the one under the pointer. Proxies or intraframe media can make navigation responsive without changing the exported result.
Ask AI for it
Add timeline scrubbing to this HTML video editor using the HTMLMediaElement currentTime property. On pointer movement over the timeline, map the pointer's clamped horizontal position to `video.duration`, update `video.currentTime` inside `requestAnimationFrame`, and show the target timestamp beside the playhead. Use Pointer Events with pointer capture so dragging continues outside the track, pause playback when scrubbing starts, restore the prior play state on pointerup, and support Left and Right Arrow frame stepping for keyboard users.