my beef with transcriptions within fcp – warranted?

[Andy Mees]

try Movie Logger from Digital Heaven .. great program
https://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/movielogger/

[Schureman Lear]

I’m downloading the demo now. It looks promising!

[Shane Ross]

[Schureman Lear] “Is it weird to anyone else that something as basic + essential to documentary filmmaking — transcriptions — should be completely unsupported within Final Cut?”

No…because I don’t use them WITHIN FCP. I, and mainly the producers, use them to find soundbytes they want to put into the script. I use them to find statements I want. I have never used transcriptions from within an editing application.

[Schureman Lear] “You can’t even let a clip play in FCP and switch OVER to a text based program to do your transcription.”

Play back the files in Quicktime. That allows you to do both.

[Schureman Lear] “Am I missing something here? Do we really have to burn bleeping quicktime movies with burned in tc for people?”

You are missing something. Quicktime 7.3 will display the source timecode of a clip. In that TIME window on the lower left…click on that and you will see a drop down list.

But I have always either burned a DVD with window code as I captured, or added TC to the clips and exported to QT and compressed to h.264 for the producers.

Shane

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[Schureman Lear]

Thanks for your feedback, Shane, but I guess I still don’t get it. I don’t use every log note that I create within FCP in my final cut but being able to create a comprehensive overview of the material seems pretty crucial to the editing process. I guess the answer may be to cough up 300 bucks per AE (yikes on a tight budget) for an auxiliary program that can do what seems like a no-brainer for FCP to provide or have the AEs jockeying between multiple applications, such as quicktime and word to manually type in timecode. It offends my sense of efficiency! As does tying up computers sending out low res renders of l’il QT files. I dunno. I’m newish to the doc workflow process so maybe I’m just newbie-ing out here but I’m surprised at this particular stumbling block regarding a piece of the puzzle that seems so basic + easy. One button TC stamping…. looping playback… printable results. Bam! Awesome. There’s your transcript, linked to your clip + ready to rock, printable for a paper edit, viewable in the project file. 🙂

[Jason Porthouse]

It’s a nice idea, but I know of no NLE that does this. Avid can link a script to shots but this is only really useful for drama cutting.

There’s an idea for a plug-in!

Jason

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[Mark Raudonis]

Schureman,

It seems like you want FCP to do EVERYTHING for you. It can’t. It won’t. It shouldn’t.

There are plenty of “transcription tools” out there. FCP is not one of them. I’d suggest you rethink your workflow to take advantage of some of the fine dedicated logging programs that are available to you. By the way, AVID does have a “script sync” capability that you may be interested in.

Mark

[Shane Ross]

I guess I don’t get what exactly you are trying to do. Here’s what we do for transcriptions.

1) Make a window dub of the tape to DVD as we capture. Or make QTs with window code.
2) Send the window dub to a transcription company to have them make transcripts.
3) If we don’t have the budget for that, give the dubs to someone in the office to make the transcripts.

Now what type of program are you looking for exactly? What is it supposed to do? What workflow for transcripts are you expecting?

I too am a seasoned documentary editor and I don’t understand what you are asking an editing system to do.

Shane

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[Walter Biscardi]

[Shane Ross] “2) Send the window dub to a transcription company to have them make transcripts.”

We’re lucky to have a transcriptionist that works with QT files now. She can still use a foot pedal just like traditional transcription tools to pull the TC right off the QT 7 files. We’re able to get transcriptions turned around same-day if needed at an awesome price.

I guess I’ll add my name to list of people who are confused as to exactly what Schureman is looking for. We used transcriptions almost daily for our work

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Dave Mac]

I would agree with others that FCP isn’t the best spot to do this kind of thing. However, FCP could be improved somewhat in terms of its ability to handle styled text better in its non-Boris text generators, which would greatly ease the import of transcript and subtitle text annotations (time-code based _styled_ text, directly importable into a text generator in FCP, or perhaps using Motion templates).

But, I digress…

The guy who makes Annotation Edit also makes Annotation Transcribe, which should do what you need. I do feel that the apps lack some UI polish (usability and intuitiveness), are poorly documented, and aren’t as easy to use as they should be. The import/export functionality of AE is terrific, but its use is somewhat counter-intuitive (needs a GUI re-design). There is no real help or decent tuorials for these apps.

Sublime seems to be a much easier tool to use, but it isn’t specifically designed for transcription work. Except for its limited output format choices, it is more pleasurable and efficient to use than AE. Sublime used in conjunction with Spherico’s TitleExchange tools is a very good combo.

However, I find that I like InqScribe the best, when considering price and functionality for time-code based transcripts. It’s a cross-platform app, if that’s a consideration. InqScribe also supports foot pedals, though I have been happy with keyboard shortcuts.

I also found that MovCaptioner was just too limited for this type of work. In fairness to the developer (a nice guy), this application is designed for creating quick and dirty subtitles, not for pro level transcription work. The looping feature of MovCaptioner is one of its best features.

Hope this info helps… Anything that can help with the verbatim transcription process for docs is a boon (oh, the joys of verbatim transcription of dialog… it has to be the most tedious part of filmmaking). 😉

-Dave

[Chris Borjis]

[Shane Ross] “ut I have always either burned a DVD with window code as I captured, or added TC to the clips and exported to QT and compressed to h.264 for the producers.”

Schureman,
This is still a staple of standard editing practice.

There is nothing archaic about it.