For qualitative researchers the tape-recorder became the prime professional instrument intrinsically connected to capturing human voices on tape in the context of interviews. Over the past 50 years the habitual nature of our research practice has obscured serious attention to the precise nature of the devices used by social scientists (Platt 2002, Lee 2004). This quote has been too true for too long: I’m kind of hoping that the sudden shifts the pandemic has caused in practice and process might lead to some developments and rethinking of analysis. I also think this really gives the lie to the idea that manual transcription is “the best way” to get in touch with audio. I’ve had a lot of help and encouragement – see acknowledgements below – but also NEED from students and groups who are wondering how to do transcription better. So this has been a real focus for me recently.

The blog bit – background, next steps, context ResourcesĮxample project file NVivo R1 (Windows) hereĮxample media file and VTT file from the first video also available here. But not only corrections! You can also annotate the transcript, label speakers and even start coding at this stage. This process allows you to now use the powerful tools within NVivo to playback the audio / video (including slowing playback speed,adjusting volume and setting rewind intervals when you press play/pause + keyboard shortcuts for the play/pause functions) whilst you read the transcript and make corrections.

You can also (currently) upload videos to Stream or use a wide range of other applications and system to create an automatic transcript of a media file. The introductory video was created with Teams, another was created in Zoom. Step One – Create a media file with subtitle file in VTT formatĭepending where you start there are a few ways this will work – all have the same end point: a media file and a VTT transcript.

Listen to the media file and read the synchronised transcript in order to begin analysis through.

Importing the cleaned subtitles as a synchronised transcript into NVivo.

Clean the subtitle file ready for import.

Download the media file and the subtitle file.

Create a media file with subtitle file in VTT format.

Installation of the free VLC media player.

Installed version of NVivo – the following is illustrated for R1.

A recording from another system that outputs a subtitle file (that you will then convert to VTT).

An audio or video recording through an institutionally licensed Zoom account (with subtitling enabled).

A media file you can convert and upload to Microsoft Stream*.

A recording within Microsoft Teams saved to Stream.

The following are important prerequisites.

Nvivo code