Keyboard Shortcuts for Film Editors

One of our customers, a professor at a film school, suggested this tip:

For those of you used to using industry standard editting software like Final Cut and Avid, you can map “j”, “k”, and “l” with modifier keys to back/pause/forward.  Since you need the j/k/l keys for actually inputting text during transcription, you’ll need to use modifier keys (Ctrl, Command, etc.).

On the Mac you would use the “Command” and “Option” keys to set up something like this:

• Command-j => Play Backwards at Custom Rate 1.x
• Command-Option-j => Play Backwards at Custom Rate 2.0x
• Command-k => Pause
• Command-l => Play at Custom Rate 1.x
• Command-Option-l => Play at Custom Rate 2.0x

In Windows you would use the “Ctrl” and “Shift” keys to set up something like this:

• Ctrl-j => Play Backwards at Custom Rate 1.x
• Ctrl-Shift-j => Play Backwards at Custom Rate 2.0x
• Ctrl-k => Pause
• Ctrl-l => Play at Custom Rate 1.x
• Ctrl-Shift-l => Play at Custom Rate 2.0x

You can obviously tweak these to suit your workflow.

Note that by setting Command-l/Ctrl-l to “Play at Custom Rate 1.x” you can toggle back and forth between the fast speed and the slow speed.  If you set it to “Play” instead, hitting Command-l/Ctrl-l would only continue playing at the current play rate.  So if you’re already at 2.x, the play rate won’t change.

An alternative approach would be to set Command-Option-l/Ctrl-Shift-l to “Change Play Rate” by 1.x.  Then every time you hit Command-Option-l/Ctrl-Shift-l the play rate would increase to 2.x, 3.x, etc..  And you can hit Command-l/Ctrl-l to get back to the 1.x rate.  This would more emulate the behavior of FCP.

For instructions on how to set up shortcuts: http://www.inqscribe.com/docs/keyboardshortcuts.html

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Tip: USB shortcut/footpedal crashing workarounds

If you’re using a corded Microsoft Digital Media keyboard or some multimedia keyboards from other manufacturers (we know of one case from Acer), you might be experiencing odd crashes when you try to run the “Set Up Foot Pedal” wizard or define shortcuts triggers.

(This tip is also helpful for others who might be experiencing crashes while setting up a foot pedal or defining shortcuts.)

We’re working on a fix for this, but in the meantime here’s what you can do:

1. Plug in only the minimal USB devices you need to set up the footpedal: e.g. a mouse and the foot pedal.
2. Unplug your digital media keyboard, and all unnecessary USB devices.
3. Start InqScribe.
4. Run the Set Up Foot Pedal wizard (or define your shortcut triggers).
5. Quit InqScribe.
6. Plug in your digital media keyboard (and other devices).
7. Start InqScribe again.

As always, we welcome your feedback and bug reports. We will do our best to work with you to resolve them.

Tip: Inserting a time code with “Enter” key

Problem: You want to insert time stamps in your transcript at regular intervals without having to explicitly insert a time code.

Solution 1: The easiest way to do this is to define a shortcut for your Enter key. Here’s how:

1. Open your transcript in InqScribe
2. Select the “Edit” menu->”Edit Snippets…”
3. Click the “Add” button to add a new snippet.
4. Click on “Define Trigger” button.
5. Hit “Enter” to define your “Enter” key as the trigger. And then click OK.
6. Edit the Snippet text:
6a. First, insert a carriage return by clicking to the left of the default snippet text “{$TIME} Speaker Name” and hitting “Enter”
6b. Delete “Speaker Name” from the text.

Now whenever you hit “Enter” InqScribe will insert a carriage return followed by a time code.

Solution 2: If you just need to insert time codes into your transcript at regular intervals, you can also use the Insert Time Series method. Please see this for more instructions: http://blogs.inquirium.net/inqscribe/2011/02/2-1-tip-lay-down-a-time-code-every-30-seconds/

Background pedal support: Not quite there yet

One of the features that we really wanted to get into version 2.1 is support for using foot pedals (and other USB input devices) to control media playback while InqScribe is in the background. This would let users stay in their favorite application like Word or FileMaker, but still be able to control media playback during transcription.

Background support was present in the 2.1 betas, and we had updated the documentation to reflect this. But we made a decision very late in the 2.1 release cycle, after QA showed that some brands of foot pedals were not functioning properly in the background, to pull the feature until we could get it right.

Unfortunately, while we pulled the feature, we did not pull the related documentation, so if you read the documentation for 2.1 you may wonder where the magical “Control Media in Background” option is.

We’re working hard to restore that option as soon as we resolve the issues with some foot pedals. In the meantime, the feature does exist in the latest 2.1 beta, which you are welcome download and try (although you may run into the same QA issues that we did). [Update 2011-05-11: Sorry, we've since removed the beta due to QA issues.]

If you are interested in background foot pedal support, please contact us and let us know what kind of foot pedal you’re using, and we’ll let you know as soon as we have a resolution for this issue.

Tip: How do I remove frames from timecodes?

I don’t want the frame number to appear in my time code. I want [hh:mm:ss], not [hh:mm:ss:ff]. Can I turn it off?

For example, I don’t want my time code to look like this: [00:01:23.29]
Instead, I want to remove the last two numbers so it looks like this: [00:01:23]

—

To remove the frames from your currently open transcript:

1. Open the existing transcript in InqScribe.

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

3. Under the “Inserted Time Code Format:” section, check the “Omit Frames” checkbox.

4. Click “OK” to close the window.

This will tell InqScribe not to use frames in the future for this particular transcript (Frames will still be used by default for any new transcripts that you create.  See the next section to turn off frames for all future transcripts). Next we need to remove the frames from your existing time codes.

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

6. Leave the “Adjustment:” field at “00:00:00″, and click “Adjust.”  This will reformat all of your time codes to remove the frame number.

—

To change ALL of your future transcripts to omit frames by default…

(You can always enable frames on a per transcript basis. This will just disable them by default for any new transcript you create.)

…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:” section, check the “Omit Frames” 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:” section, check the “Omit Frames” checkbox.

New InqScribe video tutorials

InqScribe is so easy to use, who needs tutorials, right? Well, a little background can’t hurt, so we created four new introductory video tutorials that provide (1) a basic overview of InqScribe, (2) an introduction to shortcuts and snippets, (3) tips on using time codes, and (4) an introduction to subtitling. They’re all a part of our revamped home page.

InqScribe and stenographers

We were recently contacted by a stenographer who wanted to use InqScribe with a stenotype machine for video and audio transcription. In theory this should be easy, right? A stenotype is just another input device, like a foot pedal. But in practice, there are a few challenges. Here’s our current understanding of how InqScribe and stenotype machines can play well together. If you’re a stenographer and have thoughts on this, please let us know.

Can I type from my stenotype machine into InqScribe?

Yes. In most cases, you’re going to be using CAT software that converts stenotype chording into individual key events. (Basically, the CAT software pretends its a keyboard sending keystrokes to the computer.) This approach works well with a lot of applications, including Word, TextPad, and others. InqScribe should have no problem receiving text input in this way. (A point of comparison: we know that InqScribe works well with AutoHotKey and other utilities that send artificial key events.)

Can I trigger shortcuts and snippets in InqScribe via my stenotype machine?

Currently, we doubt this will work. That’s because the stenotype machine is not normally listed as an available input device. The way that InqScribe tracks shortcut triggers is by checking all known input devices (keyboards, foot pedals, gamepads, etc.) for known shortcut combinations.

With a stenotype machine that is interfaced via CAT, the machine doesn’t show up as an available device. The key events just magically appear. And since key events by themselves don’t serve as triggers for InqScribe, we recommend instead a workaround like using a foot pedal with the stenotype machine, where the foot pedal provides the triggers.

We’re looking into ways that we might support snippet insertion (or shortcut triggering) via normally text entry. There are a couple of ways to do this. MS Word has one model for its auto-complete tool, where common abbreviations and misspellings are corrected or expanded after you type them. Another approach relies on an explicit triggering keystroke which follows the snippet abbreviation, so you’d type something like “tc`” and the ` character is the trigger to look up the “tc” snippet and insert it into the transcript. Since our goal is to let you transcribe more efficiently, we want to play around with these approaches to see what feels most comfortable. But if you’re got an opinion, let us know.

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