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.

Adobe--Photoshop and Future Technologies

PHOTOSHOP FOR VIDEO
With Photoshop CS3 Extended, you can now bring in video to Photoshop. Why would you want to do that you ask? What about After Effects? What about Color? Well I just came across a cool site/podcast that gives you a number of interesting ideas about how to harness Photoshop to make your video better.

Here's a video from the Photoshop for Video site that shows you how to use the Shadows-Highlights command on video. I recently used the shadows and highlights command in iPhoto to save some snapshots, and I was thinking "if I can do this on software that's practically free, why can't I do this in Final Cut Pro?". Well I still don't know how to do it with FCP, but I could correct my video this way with the latest & greatest version of Photoshop.


Back to the issue about Color. I haven't used it yet and frankly I'm not thrilled about learning a new interface. Now I have the option of harnessing my knowledge of Photoshop to do some cool tweaking. Also, for you folks who don't know Photoshop, I think this website/podcast is good way to pick up knowledge about the best image editing application out there.

Here are some other cool videos from Photoshop for Video at Adobe TV that I recommend:
Spot Color Grading
Making Alpha Channels for Logos (I do this lots)

So this appears to be regularly updated via a podcast--good way to use podcast subscription to do some regular learning if you're interested in Photoshop. Oh, video in Photoshop only just got added to the Extended verison of the latest Photoshop. But not everything on this site is about this feature, good stuff that can be done in older versions of Photoshop is available too (e.g., the alpha channels for logos movie.)

ADOBE'S FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES
While on the topic of Adobe, there's another interesting video from NAB where Adobe talks about some future technologies. The most interesting one for me is what they call "End to End Metadata". In particular, they were demoing speech recognition that generates transcripts for movies. Then that transcript can be leveraged in editing (Premiere Pro) and in delivery to the web (Flash video.)

Avid has already deployed some of these tools with their Script Sync, which I wrote about on this post. Basically you can hop around in the text of a script or transcript, and the software know where people are saying that bit of dialogue. But I like how Adobe takes it another step further by allowing delivery of the text too--think subtitles, think closed captioning, think searchable text on the web.

I don't know about the voice recognition engine creating automatic transcriptions. I can't believe voice recognition is that good--on the other hand, I'm sure our government is spending billions on voice recognition software so that they can monitor everyone's phone calls. Eventually that technology will filter down to us mere mortals--just another great benefit brought to us by the Bush Administration.

Here's the outline of the Adobe technology presentation if you are interested in any of the other stuff:
1. Cinema DNG
2. End to End Metadata
3. Mobile Delivery
4. Interactivity without scripting

So I found out about these video over at Pro Video Coalition, which is turning into my main source for video news.