VIEWING CLIPS

Viewing Clips

Load a Transcript for an Episode, or select it in the Document Window to bring it to the foreground if it’s already loaded.

The Visualization WIndow

Look at the Visualization Window. You will most likely see the Waveform visualization. But you can change the visualization by changing the Options > Media Visualization Style in the Transana Menus. Select the Keyword Visualization.

You will notice that this visualization shows the coding you did as you created your Clips from this Episode. If you hold your mouse cursor over one of the bands in the Visualization window, you will see an indication of the Keyword that band represents. You can also click in or make a selection in the visualization to see the corresponding time-coded portion of the Transcript in the Document window. The Media window will also position the media file to the spot that matches the visualization starting point. (Zooming in on the visualization can increase the precision of your selection.) Please note that Clips that do not have any coding assigned will not appear in the Visualization.

The Data Window

Now look at the Data Window. You will notice that there are now four tabs in the Data window. The Database tab contains the Database tree. If you double-click a Clip in a Collection in the Database Tree, the Clip will replace the Episode on its tab in the Document Window. While multiple Documents and Quotes can be open at one time in the Document Window, only one Transcript or Clip can be loaded at one time, along with the media file in the Media Window.

The Episode Items tab shows what Clips have been created from this Episode, including their media time position within the Episode and the Keywords assigned to them. (If you don’t see an Episode Items tab, it’s because you just loaded a Clip. Clips don’t have Episode Items. Double-click on a Transcript in the Data Window’s Database Tree to reload that Episode and Transcript in the Transana interface.) If you double-click an item in the Time column, the appropriate time-coded segment of Transcript reflecting the Clip will be highlighted in the Transcript and the media file will be positioned accordingly in the Media Window. If you double-click the Item ID column, the Clip will be loaded in the Document Window, replacing the Episode Transcript,

The Selected Items tab shows the same information for Clips have been created from the spot in the media file where the Media Window is currently set. If you double-click an item in the Time column, the appropriate time-coded segment of Transcript reflecting the Clip will be highlighted in the Transcript and the media file will be positioned accordingly in the Media Window. If you double-click the Item ID column, the Clip will be loaded in the Document Window, replacing the Episode Transcript.

The Keywords tab for an Episode shows the Keywords that have been assigned to the Episode. (This is not the same as showing the Keywords that have been assigned to Clips from the Episode.)

If you load a Clip by double-clicking it in Database Tree or on the Episode Items tab, the Clip will be loaded in the Document Window, replacing any Episode Transcript or other Clip currently loaded. You will see the Clip’s Transcript in the Document Window, the coding in the Visualization Window if the Keyword Visualization is selected and on the Keywords tab in the Data Window, and the Media Window will load and position the appropriate media file.

You should note that the Clip Transcript at this point contains a copy of the text from the Episode Transcript. Editing the Clip Transcript will not alter the Episode Transcript, and editing the Episode Transcript will not alter the Clip Transcript. (Synchronized editing is accomplished through the Change Propagation mechanism described in the Transana Manual.)

Right-click the Visualization Window to tell the Clip to play. Note that just the media from between the time codes surrounding your original selection in the Episode Transcript plays. If you did your time codes correctly, the portion of the media file that plays for the Clip should match the Clip Transcript that was selected. (If the media and Transcript do not match, go back to your Episode Transcript, locate this piece of text, and right-click it. You will find that the media that corresponds to this part of the text, as bounded by the time codes before and after the position of the cursor in your Transcript, will match the contents of the Clip. If you are having problems, it may be a good idea to review Adding Time Codes.)

When you have finished playing the Clip, you can return to the Episode Transcript by double clicking the name of the Transcript in the correct Episode in the correct Library in the Database Tree.

There are times when you will want to see the context of the Clip. To move from a Clip back to the Episode from which it was created, right-click the Clip in the Data Window’s Database Tree and select Locate Clip in Episode from the menu. Try that now for a Clip in your Collection. Notice that the Episode video is automatically positioned at the start of the Clip, and that the Transcript related to the Clip is highlighted. You can now see what happened before or after the Clip by scrolling up or down in the Episode Transcript and by playing the media file.

Advanced Topic: People sometimes ask, “So, where is my Clip?” The answer is that your Clip does not really exist, at least in the sense that there is no new video file that corresponds to the Clip you created in Transana.

Transana stores the name of your original media file and the start and stop points for your Clip in its database, and uses that information to display the proper section of the proper media file when asked to play a Clip.

The primary reason for this is that video files take up a lot of disk space, and it is inefficient to make a copy of even a small part of your original media file. You’d quickly run out of disk space if Transana created files to represent every Clip created. It would also be disruptively time consuming for Transana to do actual video editing and rendering every time you create a Clip. In contrast, saving the pointer data takes a few bytes of space and can occur essentially instantaneously.