Why is typing in my transcript so slow?
Here are a few tips and tricks for improving performance:
1. Down-convert your movie
If your movie is very high resolution and/or is highly compressed, your computer has to work really hard to render it to the screen. This is especially apparent on older computers that do not have a dedicated graphics processor that can quickly render the movies. When your CPU is working that hard, InqScribe is left with little room for doing updates, so typing and keyboard shortcuts will feel slow.
The solution is to simply convert your movie. There are many free conversion tools that can do this for you. Instead of using a high resolution, such as 1080p, try something small, like 360x240.
To learn more about free conversion tools, check out the following article from our InqScribe blog:
http://blogs.inquirium.net/inqscribe/2014/10/media-conversion-tools/
You can do a quick test to see if this is the culprit by playing a small movie to see if InqScribe is more responsive.
This is usually the best remedy for speeding up InqScribe.
2. Quit other applications
Other applications that you're using can also eat up precious CPU cycles, even if they are in the background. Quitting any unused apps can free up CPU cycles for InqScribe.
You might even look into things like temporarily turning off DropBox, OneDrive, Time Machine, Spotlight, virus scanners, and other apps that back up or scan your disk. Most people won't have to do this, but if you're on an older machine that has many services installed, you might see a remarkable improvement.
3. Turn off Timecode Coloring
When your computer is working hard, timecode coloring adds an additional burden to your CPU. Turning it off can make your typing feel more responsive. Here's how:
a. Start InqScribe
b. On Windows, select to "Edit -> Options..." from the menu bar.
On Mac, select "InqScribe -> Preferences..." from the menu bar.
c. Uncheck "Color Timecodes"
Your timecodes are still clickable, they just won't be colored blue.
This trick is especially useful in Windows.
4. Use short transcripts
If your transcript is very long, InqScribe can get bogged down rendering the transcript. Just cut your transcript into sections and piece them together again. For example, use "transcript1" for the first hour, and "transcript2" for the second hour.