Sidekick This tutorial video walks you through using the Countdown Loop feature in Sidekick Pro, a flexible way to combine a looping slideshow of images and videos with a countdown timer… perfect for pre-service announcements, camp photos, or team highlights.
You’ll learn how to create a new Countdown Loop document, rename it, and add media by simply dragging in a folder of images or videos, which then loop continuously. The video shows how images play for a set photo duration (five seconds by default) while videos play in full before transitioning, and how you can turn the timer off entirely if you just want a looping show.
You’ll also see how to set the timer as a fixed duration or as a countdown to a specific clock time, and how to choose what happens at zero (either fading to black or automatically advancing to the next presentation item). The video demonstrates extensive customization: positioning the timer with presets or custom placement (helpful for overscan issues), choosing any font on your computer, adjusting weight, tracking, and baseline, and adding a background rectangle with adjustable darkness, color, corner radius, and horizontal padding.
Finally, you’ll see how to add your Countdown Loop to a presentation and run it live: adding or subtracting 30 seconds on the fly, editing the duration mid-run and hitting apply, clicking any item in the center timeline to jump straight to it, and watching the timer hit zero and transition automatically into the next item (a wheel of prizes). By the end, you’ll be ready to use Countdown Loop for pre-program countdowns, rolling announcements, or a looping post-service slideshow.