InqScribe News

Power User Tip: Snippet Autocomplete

If you have text that you are repeatedly typing in your transcript (e.g. analysis codes, or long words), you can create snippets to insert them quickly.  Here are some tips:

• You don’t have to assign a trigger/keyboard shortcut to snippet
• You can activate the trigger window with <cmd-1> (Mac) or <ctrl-1> (Windows)
• When the trigger window is activated, you can select snippets by typing the first few letters, or using the arrow keys to select the snippet
• Hit <return> or <enter> to insert the snippet

Perian gives InqScribe for Mac access to Flash & more

Perian 1.2 is out, and highly recommended for users of InqScribe on MacOS.  A free, open-source QuickTime component, Perian gives QuickTime– and thus InqScribe– access to many popular media formats, including Flash video (.flv), DivX, 3ivx, and many others.  Alas, there is no comparable tool for Windows.

Workaround for Final Cut Pro 7 Importing Bug

If you’re using Final Cut Pro 7 and importing InqScribe-generated FCP XML files, you’re probably pulling your hair out. As of FCP7, any imported subtitles beyond the two minute mark show up with a duration of only one frame.

The problem is twofold. First, InqScribe is setting incorrect values for the in and out points for each generated subtitle. In prior versions of FCP, these values were essentially ignored on import, because in and out points for a static subtitle don’t really mean that much. (The start and end points for the subtitle, which determine where the subtitle goes in the sequence, were and are correct.)

Unfortunately, FCP7 is interpreting those values differently, and any subtitle with an in point greater than the subtitle’s stated duration ends up with a frame length of 1. Since InqScribe was setting every subtitle’s duration to 3600 frames (because this value shouldn’t really matter: effective duration of the subtitle is based on the start and end values), most users will find that subtitles that start at the two minute mark or later are affected.

We’re working on a fix for the next beta release. In the meantime, there is a workaround.

Here’s an excerpt from an InqScribe-generated FCP XML file:

<generatoritem id="Text">
    <name>Text</name>
    <duration>3600</duration>
    <rate>
        <ntsc>TRUE</ntsc>
        <timebase>30</timebase>
    </rate>
    <in>7540</in>
    <out>7610</out>
    <start>7540</start>
    <end>7610</end>

Note that InqScribe sets the duration to 3600 (regardless of the actual duration, which is based on the start and end values). InqScribe also sets the in and out points to the start and end values. The problem is that in and out values should technically never be greater than the duration.

So the fix is to change every instance of in and out to this:

<in>100</in>
<out>3600</out>

With this change, in and out stay within duration’s range, and FCP7 won’t clip the resulting subtitle.

To make this change easily, use a tool that supports regular expressions to find all instances of the in and out tags. Here’s a solution that uses sed, which comes installed on OS X.

1. Export the FCP XML file from InqScribe as usual (let’s say it’s called export.xml).
2. In the Terminal, navigate to the directory containing export.xml, and issue this command (which is one long line, make sure to copy the whole thing):

sed -e 's_\(<in>\)[0-9]*\(</in>\)_\1100\2_g' -e 's_\(<out>\)[0-9]*\(</out>\)_\13600\2_g' < export.xml > export_fixed.xml

3. Import the resulting export_fixed.xml into FCP7.

If you want to dig into sed so you understand what that command is doing, here’s a solid sed tutorial. It’s a very powerful tool.

We’re Tweeting

InqScribe is now on Twitter. We think this will be a great way to share quick tips and information about using InqScribe and related media tools. You can track our tweets on the sidebar of this blog, or follow InqScribe on Twitter.

Dive into Video

If you’re at all interested in where video and audio for the web is going, this chapter by Mark Pilgrim is required reading. Mark does a great job providing background on the core cross-platform codecs that are in use today (with the cross-platform bit ruling out WMV) and talks about how HTML5 will offer native support for video playback.

His focus is primarily on h.264 and Ogg video, since offering video in those two formats will cover all modern browsers. He also describes methods and tools you can use to encode your videos in those formats (including Firefogg, which was new to me, and FFMPEG2Theora for Ogg, and Handbrake for h.264).

InqScribe 2.0.5 is compatible with Snow Leopard

While we do have a new version of InqScribe expected soon, the current version, 2.0.5, works fine with the new Snow Leopard Mac OS (10.6).

In general, if you do have problems with InqScribe, please report it to us using the InqScribe Help menu’s “Report a Bug…” feature.  This provides us with a little more information to help us more quickly troubleshoot the problem.

TIP: How can I convert my “[00:01:23.29]” timecodes to “00:01:23.29″ (remove brackets)?

I have an existing InqScribe transcript that uses bracketed timecodes: [00:01:23.29]

I want to use unbracketed timecodes: 00:01:23.29

—

Here’s how you can do the conversion:

1. Open the existing transcript in InqScribe.

2. Select “Transcript->Transcript Settings…” from the menu bar.

3. Under the “Inserted Time Code Format:” select “00:01:23.29″ from the popup menu.

4. Check the “Recognize Unbracketed Time Codes” checkbox.

5. Click “OK” to close the window.

6. Select “Transcript->Adjust Time Codes…” from the menu bar.

7. Leave the “Adjustment:” field blank, and click “Adjust.”  This will reformat all of your time codes to the unbracketed format.

—

To change ALL of your future transcripts to use the unbracketed time codes…

…On a Mac:

1. Select “InqScribe->Preferences…” from the menu bar.

2. Click on the “New Document” tab at the top of the “InqScribe Preferences” window.

3. Under the “Inserted Time Code Format:” select “00:01:23.29″ from the popup menu.

4. Check the “Recognize Unbracketed Time Codes” checkbox.

…On Windows:

1. Select “Edit->Options…” from the menu bar.

2. Click on the “New Document” tab at the top of the “InqScribe Preferences” window.

3. Under the “Inserted Time Code Format:” select “00:01:23.29″ from the popup menu.

4. Check the “Recognize Unbracketed Time Codes” checkbox.

By the way, there are a number of other formats that you can use as well.

TIP: How to bold timecodes in Microsoft Word

InqScribe currently does not support bold text.  However, you can use Microsoft Word’s “Find and Replace” feature to bold text.  Here’s how you can do that:

1. Export your transcript to Microsoft Word.  (You can just cut and paste.)

2. Select “Edit->Replace…”.

3. Click on the triangle next to the “Replace All” button to reveal the advanced options.

4. Check the “Use wildcards” option.

5. Under “Find what:” enter this:

[^#^#:^#^#:^#^#.^#^#]

NOTE this assumes that you’re using the default timecode format.  If you’re using another timecode format, just format the colons and periods accordingly.  Each “^#” matches a digit.  For example, if your timecode looks like “<00:00:00.00>” use “<^#^#:^#^#:^#^#.^#^#>”.

6. Click in the “Replace with:” field.

7. From the popup menu at the bottom of the window called “Format” select “Font…” and then click on “Bold”, then click “OK”.  The “Replace with:” field should say “Format: Font:Bold” underneath it.

8. Click on “Find Next” to make sure it works — does Word find the first timecode?  If so, then try clicking “Replace” to see if it bolds it.  If it does, then you can use “Replace All” to bold all of the timecodes.

Welcome to InqScribe News

Welcome to the new InqScribe News! We’ve tidied up a bit and moved over to a shiny new blogging engine.

The older InqScribe News site is still available, but we’ll be posting new information here, including notes on development, bug reports and workarounds, and tips for getting the most out of InqScribe. We hope you’ll follow along.

Exporting NTSC DF to Final Cut Pro

There’s a bug in InqScribe 2.0.5 that affects FCP XML exporting. Currently the bug only affects exports that use XML templates that are based on NTSC DF.

The bug is that InqScribe is counting the dropped frames when it converts from the timecode to a single frame count number. As a result, the converted time codes will drift farther and farther from where they should be, the later in the movie you go.

There is a workaround that you can use until we fix the problem.

Update: turns out the workaround didn’t work. Drat. But the good news is that we’ve fixed the underlying problem in InqScribe 2.1. A public beta can be found here.

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