How to easily transcribe audio or video recordings into text

How to easily transcribe audio or video recordings into text: "

I recently had to transcribe a number of video interviews into text. This turned out to be much more of a labor intensive project than I thought, and it quickly dawned on me that the process can be vastly improved via a few technological tweaks. This posting aims to present a step by step tutorial on how to do this most effectively.

At the heart of the problem is a simple issue: the need to change focus back and forth between whatever program you are using to type the text, such as a text editor or a word processor, and the media player that you are using to play the audio or video. Transcribing, as I found out, involves a lot of stopping, backing up, typing, and then repeating over and over and over again.

This post promises the following: an easy way to stop, back-up, and type, all via keyboard shortcuts, without ever losing focus from the application you are using to type, and without having to ever take your fingers off the keyboard. All using free tools, of course. These are very simple interventions, but having used this process myself, I guarantee that your transcribing experience will pleasantly transformed, and made much much more efficient.

What you will need:

• A text editor: or whatever tool your want to use to type the text in, such as a text editor or Word processor (I was using MS Excel). If you want a good free word processor I recommend LibreOffice.
• PotPlayer: also known as The KMPlayer Reloaded, this free program is one of the best media players, free or otherwise, that you can install on your Windows PC. It will play just about any media file you throw at it, but the reason we will be using it is simply that it can be controlled via system-wide hotkeys which give users control over their media playback without having to switch focus from whatever other application they may be using to type.

Note that you can use any media player that allows you to set up global keyboard hotkeys.

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Step by step instructions:

Step1: download and install PotPlayer here. There are 32 bit and 64 bit versions, so make sure you grab the right one for you PC. The default install and audio output settings should be fine. It may suggest that you update your DirectX to a more recent version; this is optional but recommended if you’re not in too much of a hurry.

Step2: Set up PotPlayer keyboard shortcuts:

- Launch the program, right click preferences on the main interface (or simply press F5), then, in the left sidebar, navigate to General and click on ‘Shortcuts’. The screen should look like the screenshot below. Next click the “add” button to add a shortcut.

-Next, in this screen, do three things (1) check “Focus of any window (global) may control”, (2) click into the focus “Shortcuts” field then press (Ctrl+Down), and (3) scroll down to “Playback” and highlight “Play/pause”. Then click “OK”.

- Next create another shortcut, similar to the one above, but use “Ctrl+Left” for your shortcut and scroll down to “Jump (to)” then “5 Sec Backward”. Then click “OK” see screenshot below.

- Create one last shortcut. Use “Ctrl+Right”, scroll down to “Jump (to)” then “5 Sec Forward”. Then click “OK” see screenshot below.

- Your newly created shortcuts should look like the screenshot below. If so, click “OK” to exit out of the preferences page; if you see any problems in any one of them click on the shortcut then click the “Modify” button to edit it.

- Notes:

• My choice of keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+down/left/right) is a matter of preference. If you prefer other keyboard hotkeys then by all means use the ones you like.
• In the off chance there are keyboard shortcut conflicts with other programs or the word processor program itself that you are using, try other hotkeys (e.g. Ctrl+Shift+down/left/right).

Step3: display settings

This step only applies if you you are also transcribing the timestamp location of the text as you type, in which case you would want to always have the timestamp be visible on screen.

• Start playing your audio or video file; you can simply drag and drop the file onto the PotPlayer interface to do so.
• Press “CTRL+T” to toggle “On top/On top while playing/Never on top”, as per your preference .
• Press “Scroll Lock” to toggle displaying time information more prominently on top of the display (which can be a huge help). If you cannot easily find “scroll lock” on the keyboard you can toggle this setting by right clicking the interface, then “Options”, then checking the “OSD: Show Time” entry.

Step4: start transcribing

• Launch your word processor, text editor, or whatever you will use to type
• Press “Ctrl+down” to start and stop the media file playback at any time
• Start transcribing
• Press “Ctrl+left” to back up 5 seconds
• Press “Ctrl+right” to go ahead 5 seconds

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The beauty of this system is:

1. You only have to set it up once. Every transcribing job after that can start at step 3.
2. It works. You will now be able to keep your fingers on the keyboard AND start, stop, and move backwards or forwards without ever leaving or switching from your text editor or word processor.

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