Edit by transcription (paper edit)

There are some tools popping up that allow you to do very good machine transcriptions of your clips. Not only that, some of these applications let you highlight and re-arrange clips and then export an .edl or .xml project file with your script. You can do the entire first assembly pass of a documentary without ever touching a timeline and yet there the timeline is, ready to go.

Maybe this is old news to everyone, but to me this has been revolutionary and improved my workflow immensely.

If Resolve had this capability build in, where you could build a timeline by arranging selections of the transcript ... wow... boom ... minds would be blown. Gods would put in their two weeks notice. The middle east would come together in peace as fellow humans. We'd harness the power of fusion and explore the universe and download our brains into computers. I think it might be the straw that broke the singularity's back.

Can you say which software has these tools? I have not heard of these features before.

Can you say which software has these tools? I have not heard of these features before.

Avid Script Sync (I haven't heard of others either)

Didn't want to plug anything in particular, but here are a few:

http://www.autoedit.io/
http://www.trint.com/
http://www.temi.com
https://www.descript.com/
http://www.speedscriber.com
https://www.happyscribe.co/
https://transcriptive.com/

AVID does this as well, but it looks real weird compared to the others. Different take on the same concept it looks like.

I have been using Trint in conjunction with autoedit2 and the transcriptions from Trint are mind blowing good. I will never hire another human transcription again! It's also the only one with flat monthly pricing.

Speedscriber has a good video showing how this works:

Wish they'd work with descript and make this a reality. Would be a game changer for doc interviews, and lessons

I tried a few of the services listed and had very little success with codec support. Early days I suppose, but if the main pro camera formats or container formats are not supported I can't see any compelling reason to get excited.

I tried a few of the services listed and had very little success with codec support. Early days I suppose, but if the main pro camera formats or container formats are not supported I can't see any compelling reason to get excited.

Faster to generate proxies than try to upload hundreds of gigabytes or more of raw footage. But if it was built into Resolve than problem solved either way.

That’s an interesting idea. Can the software currently export a subtitle file?

That’s an interesting idea. Can the software currently export a subtitle file?

I can't speak for the others, but trint exports srt, xml, edl, stl, vtt, as well as several text/html formats.

That’s an interesting idea. Can the software currently export a subtitle file?

I can't speak for the others, but trint exports srt, xml, edl, stl, vtt, as well as several text/html formats.

thanks for the answer

Also looking into this with hour long interviews requiring multiple 5 minute cut downs. I stumbled upon Simonsays (Mac app) which has integration with Resolve but alas, not compatible with .braw footage which is a bit of a shame as I don't need a proxy workflow on my braw projects. What I have done to test the functionality so far is cut the entire RAW interview together then export a 720p cut that I can then upload to Simonsays app. I realise this may not be feasible for many but as I do provide an entire upload link to the RAW interview for client selection process it's an option for me moving forward.

+1 on the feature request

This would make things easier for anyone who has to edit hours of documentary footage.

My current approach is to transcribe audio via otter.ai and reimport the text as markers then divide the clips into subclips based on the ideas mentioned by the characters, and only then focus on the edit. But it's a flawed process and it takes very long...

Something like ScriptSync / Simon Says Assemble integrated and searchable inside DaVinci would be amazing!

+1 for this feature

Simon Says Transcription exists for macOS Resolve Studio. Anyone interested in testing the Windows Resolve Studio Workflow Integration Plugin please PM me.

I would love to see a whole new page dedicated to Script or Transcription Based Editing,

ScriptSync and AVID's scripting tools are very powerful, and so are elements of Premiere's new transcription pipeline. However, one way to supersede them all would be to create a Descript style editor where you could edit text first to create draft timelines or searchable databases of transcribed content like interviews and scenes.

Have this new Story Page operate as a one-stop shop for script-based editing, automatically connecting scenes and takes to sections of an existing script using the new transcription back-end tools would be a serious game changer. Especially when dealing with narrative driven content.

This would be a great feature for everything I do, as would simply adding searchability to subtitles! Dialogue based editing is still unnecessarily frustrating in Resolve.

Somebody is actually coding this with the Resolve API right now!

https://github.com/octimot/StoryToolkitAI#key-features

I wrote about the idea in more detail here:
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=165802&p=889113&hilit=story#p889113

Wanted to mention though, that I have a pretty robust workflow with Descript right now that allows me to round trip to Resolve consistently.

You can upload proxies (720p MP4s) to Descript for transcription, like raw interviews and even dailies. If you use multicam clips in Resolve to build out the proxy interviews as stringouts, and upload those, when you export the XML from Descript after you are finished doing some cutdowns or even a story edit, you can import the XML but point it directly to the multicam clip.

That way the moment you import, you connect the edit you did with proxies to the full res footage (with markers in a timeline) and you can decompose to the multicam clip with all the audio tracks intact. It's very satisfying when you can start the more creative editorial stage in Resolve and leave the writing, take selection and writing stage of the edit breakdown to a text based editing paradigm. It's a lot like editing down a paper edit for a doc, but you can use the real audio takes from the interviews and your first pass on the story edit can be collaborated upon with the producer/director and writer if you want all via the cloud storage and desktop Descript app. It's a lot easier to teach collaborators and they only need to sync web friendly proxies too. Honestly, a bit of a game changer for the story stage of the edit.

If Resolve had a story style page, they could bypass the need to use another third party tool and gain all the advantages of having the full transcription available at all times in the NLE.

Have this new Story Page operate as a one-stop shop for script-based editing, automatically connecting scenes and takes to sections of an existing script using the new transcription back-end tools would be a serious game changer. Especially when dealing with narrative driven content.

+1. Would be incredible.

I actually found it out now.
It works by right clicking a clip in the timeline "conform lock with media pool clip"
Unfortunately one has to do it manually for every single clip in the timeline .(
There seems to be no workaround for that.

I wrote about the idea in more detail here:
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=165802&p=889113&hilit=story#p889113

Wanted to mention though, that I have a pretty robust workflow with Descript right now that allows me to round trip to Resolve consistently.

You can upload proxies (720p MP4s) to Descript for transcription, like raw interviews and even dailies. If you use multicam clips in Resolve to build out the proxy interviews as stringouts, and upload those, when you export the XML from Descript after you are finished doing some cutdowns or even a story edit, you can import the XML but point it directly to the multicam clip.

That way the moment you import, you connect the edit you did with proxies to the full res footage (with markers in a timeline) and you can decompose to the multicam clip with all the audio tracks intact. It's very satisfying when you can start the more creative editorial stage in Resolve and leave the writing, take selection and writing stage of the edit breakdown to a text based editing paradigm. It's a lot like editing down a paper edit for a doc, but you can use the real audio takes from the interviews and your first pass on the story edit can be collaborated upon with the producer/director and writer if you want all via the cloud storage and desktop Descript app. It's a lot easier to teach collaborators and they only need to sync web friendly proxies too. Honestly, a bit of a game changer for the story stage of the edit.

If Resolve had a story style page, they could bypass the need to use another third party tool and gain all the advantages of having the full transcription available at all times in the NLE.

Hi Aaron.
Can you explain how to link an xml to a multicam timeline in Davinci?
I can't seem to find out, in the import dialogue there is no option for that.
Thank you!!

You don't have to conform lock to each individual clip if you conform to a Multicam clip instead on import.

It's not really documented but you can point Resolve to the multicam clip instead of original media if you do the following:

1. Make a Multicam clip of your full interview
2. Export that multicam as an mp4 for Descript using the same name as the multicam clip
3. Export XML from Descript without media
4. Import XML into Resolve and only allow Resolve to scan the folder of multicam clips for linkable media.
5. If working correctly, and starting timecodes match, Resolve will link all the edits to the multicam clip instead of the mp4 you made originally.
6. Decompose the nested multicam in your time to access the true multicam data and gain access to all your content. Especially if you have two camera angles of course.

This has worked for me on projects with dozens of interviews or single interviews. Very powerful.

Thanks @aaronvandomelen. Exactly what I was looking for. Will try this today.

Thanks @aaronvandomelen. Exactly what I was looking for. Will try this today.

Thanks @aaronvandomelen. Exactly what I was looking for. Will try this today.

Cool good luck! Feel free to hit me up with questions. Discord is avd#5689 it has occasionally been a little weird with the starting timecode of the Multicam clip.

I forgot to mention I usually put the Multicam clip into a timeline then render it out to the mp4 for DeScript.

Then when I bring it back in, I think I actually point it to the folder with the Multicam timeline, Resolve then links to the timeline and nests the Multicam, so when you decompose the timeline you Multicam all links through.

Long story short you can link a 3 cam interview or a single camera interview with multiple takes and the xml keeps everything linked. Big time saver.


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+1 for me. Speech recognition and automatic subtitle creation based on transcript (just like Premiere) would already help a lot.