How to Transcribe Audio and Video Dictations on your PC or Mac
This article is intended for typists and wishing to transcribe audio or video dictations, including medical or legal dictations, or recordings from meetings or interviews. These instructions apply to both Windows and Mac users.
- To configure the pedal to jump back a little after stopping playback, go into the Express Scribe Options (Preferences on Mac), click the 'Playback' tab, and change the "Auto backstep on stop' option to your preferred value in milliseconds (1000 milliseconds = 1 second). We suggest starting at 500 and experiment from there.
- You can re-map the buttons on the pedal at any time by going into the 'Controller' tab, and click on 'Command map / test...'. This will open a window that will let you re-map the pedal buttons.
- To transcribe video off a DVD, you must load the individual VOB (.vob) files containing the video to transcribe. You will not be able to load the VOB index file. The index file can easily be identified, as it has a very small file size compared to the other video VOB files.
- The Mac OS X version of Express Scribe does not support all the formats of the Windows version. Please refer to the product page for more information.
- Plug your transcription headset in to the computer.
- Download and install the Express Scribe Transcription Software.
- The software will start itself after it has installed. Once you see the main software screen appearing, plug your USB Foot Pedal in to an available USB Port on your computer.
- You will see a message appearing on your computer indicating that a new controller device has been detected. Click on that message to start the software Controller Setup Wizard.
- If you do not see the message, you can open the Controller Setup Wizard by going into the Express Scribe Options (Preferences on Mac), click on the 'Controller Tab', and click the 'Controller Setup Wizard' button.
- If you follow through the setup wizard, it will automatically detect and display the foot pedal in its list of detected controllers (you can simply confirm the detection). Once you reach the end of the wizard, you will have the option to re-configure the foot pedal as you choose.
- Once the wizard is completed, you will be able to commence using your foot pedal.
- The next step is to import the dictations that you will be transcribing. There are many ways of doing this, and this depends on what method the person creating the dictations prefers.
For example, if you are sent your dictations by email, then you should save the dictations from the email to a folder on your computer, then in Express Scribe click on the 'Load' button to open the Load Dictations window. This window will by default show you the dictations contained within the folder on your computer seen in the address bar at the top. To change this folder, click on the small browse button to the right of the address bar, locate the *folder* that your dictations are stored, and once you select the folder, the Load Dictation window will show you the dictations in that folder. Select the dictations you want to load, and Express Scribe will commence loading them in the background (some dictations take longer to load, so please give this process 5-10 seconds to complete).
If you access your dictations from a special website, you will need to download the dictation to your computer, then you can follow the instructions above to load the dictations in to the software.
For advanced configurations, please see the 'Incoming' tab in the Express Scribe Options (Preferences on Mac). This will allow you to setup Express Scribe to monitor for dictations from an FTP location, a folder on your local computer or the local network, or even from a portable dictation recorder (the recorder must be seen as a drive or mount in Windows Explorer (Finder in Mac) and the files must be visible through this means).
- Now that you have loaded your dictations in to Express Scribe, open your word processing application (such as Microsoft Word or Apple Pages), and start typing into the application while Express Scribe is open in the background. You will be able to control the dictation using the foot pedal and type at the same time, as long as Express Scribe remains open in the background.
|
