Simplify media transcription with hotkeys and AppleScript

I got inspired by this article to write my first Applescript:
"Simplify media transcription with hotkeys and AppleScript" - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

The article talks about setting up hotkeys to control Quicktime Player. A hotkey is when you assign a command to a keystroke. That way you can transcribe or log in a Microsoft Word or some other word processor and still control the movie playing back without switching applications. The article describes how to create hotkeys by using a freeware app Spark to create hotkeys that run an Applescript.

Well, at Link we tend to have stuff logged from DVD with timecode burned-in to the video. So I set up some simple, one-line Applescripts to play, pause, rewind, and fast forward DVD's.

Play
tell application "DVD Player" to play dvd

Pause
tell application "DVD Player" to pause dvd

Rewind
tell application "DVD Player" to rewind dvd

Fast Foward
tell application "DVD Player" to fast forward dvd

I checked it out with Word, and assigning the scripts to option+J, option+K, option+L, and option+space bar seemed to work fine.

If you do log/transcribe from a Quicktime movie then I blogged about a free app last year that combines logging and playback in one app, QT Movie Notetaker. The program makes time notations based on how far into the movie you are but doesn't read timecode. If you want to spend $99, InqScribe has a unified playback and logging interface and has timecode support for Quicktime movies. That's sort of the complete package for handy transcribing and logging.