Using caseCATalyst4 Audio Files
These instructions apply to caseCATalyst4, Version 4, Version 5, and Version 6.
It’s not necessary to have the audio file within the caseCATalyst4 user; however, keeping the text and audio together can simplify the Backup and Restore process. If the reporter sends you the audio file separately, you can download it into any folder or you can download and save it to your user, C:\CAT4\USR\Name. (“Name” is the user name created for that reporter's work). The audio file does not have to be named the same as the text file.
Once you have downloaded and restored the transcript and audio files, open the transcript in Edit. There are two commands you can use to play back audio. If you wish to "spot check," you would place your cursor where you want to hear the audio and press Shift + F9. If you prefer to play audio and have the cursor move line by line through the file as the audio plays, you would click Tools, Play Audio with Scroll Text.
If the path for the transcript and audio are the same on both the scopist's and reporter's computers, the audio will begin to play. If the path is different, the Choose Audio File dialog box will open. If the audio is in your user, you will see the file name with an icon that looks like headphones. Double click that file name. If you have placed the audio in another directory on your hard drive, click Browse, select the correct folder, and then double click the audio file name.
When audio begins to play, the Audio Playback Speed dialog box is displayed. To set the position of that dialog box in a convenient location, right click the title bar, click Dialog Settings and check the box “Always remember the position of this dialog,” then move the dialog box to wherever it should appear on your screen. The position will be remembered each time you play audio, in any job.
The Audio Playback Speed dialog box contains two controls. The horizontal bar controls the playback speed without distorting the sound. Slide it to the left or right to slow down or speed up playback. The vertical bar controls the amount of “dead air” (background noise that is softer than speech) that you want to skip over. The higher you move the vertical bar the less “dead air” you will hear. If the audio sounds like it is "skipping" over speech, lower the vertical bar.
To stop the audio playback, press Crtl + F9.
You can adjust the synchronization between the audio and the cursor position by using Set Audio Delay. Click Tools, Options, Set Audio Delay, (Alt + t, o, u).
If you accidentally choose the wrong audio file, you can associate the correct audio file by renaming the transcript file, then opening it and pressing Shift + F9, and the Choose Audio File dialog box will reappear, then select the correct audio file.
If you are using Normal View in Edit, you will see musical notes on the left side of the screen. These notes indicate which lines of text have audio associated with them.
In Version 5.x and 6.x, you can break a file containing audio and retain synchronization. The entire audio file will be copied along with the broken portion. However, you cannot merge, append, or include two files containing separately recorded audio files and retain synchronization. If the reporter has two files with separate audio, you should edit the files separately, and then combine them when the audio is no longer needed.
Version 6 has a new feature called Associate Audio. This feature allows you to associate any .WAV file to the text of a timestamped transcript. If the audio was recorded in a format other than .WAV (e.g. .dss file), the file must be converted to .WAV format before you can associate it to the transcript.
To associate a .WAV file to a timestamped transcript, click Tools, Associate Audio File. You will use the EZ Sync feature in Tools (probably several times throughout the course of editing the job) to adjust the synchronization.
Tip: Set the timestamps to display Elapsed time to help you to adjust the synchronization. You can check to see what the time difference is between where your cursor is and where the audio is playing and use those numbers to set the time difference.
Cindy Naffin, scopist, caseCATalyst4 Certified Independent Training Agent
Cindi Hartman, Training Program Manager, STENOGRAPH,
LLC