my beef with transcriptions within fcp – warranted?

[David Bogie]

[walter biscardi] “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.”

Cool. you’re lucky.
I have a buddy in the legal deposition business. Every court recorder in the States is locked into an ancient transcription tool that uses MPEG1 only. He’s still looking for a realtime MPEG1 encoder for Macintosh.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Walter Biscardi]

[david bogie] “have a buddy in the legal deposition business. Every court recorder in the States is locked into an ancient transcription tool that uses MPEG1 only. He’s still looking for a realtime MPEG1 encoder for Macintosh.”

From what I understand, it was just an $80 tool. They love it.

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

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[Ryan Edwards]

Hi There,
We use CatDV,
Its an amazing program for documentaries and reality programming.
Easy to use, easy to set up and they are pretty good about negotiating an affordable price.

[Dave Mac]

Ryan,

Thanks for mentioning CatDV Pro. I have it and like it for asset management. However, it isn’t very good for doing verbatim transcripts. Annotations for clips are pretty well-supported, but for rapid-fire, timecode-based transcribing, it is not very productive/usable.

I wonder if Final Cut Server handles annotations, subtitles, etc. Anyone know about this?

-Dave

[Ryan Edwards]

I’m assuming you’ve tried the verbatim logger tool in CatDV.
It does exactly as you are describing.

Ryan

[Lars Fuchs]

ExpressScribe is free. I used it on the doc I’m working on now and it works fine. As far as creating QT’s for it, I didn’t find it unweildy. I just created sequences of every interview in a jiffy, then did a batch export to AIFFs. I’m using a MacBookPro and I don’t remember that it took longer than a trip to the restroom or to get a coffee. Then I used Switch to batch convert them to mp3’s. I thumbdrived them over to the transcriptionist who used a G4 iBook.

I was very happy with the results.

[Lars Fuchs]

[Jason Porthouse] “Avid can link a script to shots but this is only really useful for drama cutting.”

Actually ScriptSync is very useful for doc’s with transcribed interviews. You can search the text for a sound bite using text search and it will automatically load the piece of footage you’re looking for. Its pretty effing awesome, and I wish I had it on the doc I am working on now.

[John Aufderheide]

I use InqScribe. It is a great program, the people who have created it are very responsive and you can customize how you control it.

[Randall Kowalik]

Schureman, I feel your pain!

I’m not a filmmaker–I’m a news producer. My background is mostly in radio, and I’ve spent much of my career using tools like Sonic Solutions, Deck II, and CoolEdit Pro–now known today as Adobe Audition.

Call it a “crutch” if you will, but I have to see the sound! Maybe I’m missing something, but last time I checked, Quicktime doesn’t draw waveforms. I really use those waveforms, as the means to jump around between different soundbites within an interview. This becomes quite helpful when you’re working with 15 minutes of audio, and you want two or three good bites.

All the other programs I listed above will continue playing once you’ve put ’em in the background… while you transcribe in Word, Notepad, Textedit etc. FCP is the only A/V program I’ve ever run across that automatically shuts off when you background/hide it. It’s a gigantic “PITA” and Apple needs to fix it.

I came here looking for help with an Apple Utility called Transcriptions–I can’t get the keyboard shortcuts to work properly. So I’m going to ditch it for now, and try that ExpressScribe freebie that somebody else recommended.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect FCP to adopt a functionality that is very, very standard in many other A/V programs.

–Randall

[Tom Wolsky]

I assume you’ve put all this into Final Cut Pro feedback because complaining here is not going to do you much good, but putting in a feature request, and having your friends put in a feature request may do something.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”