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.