You can use timestamps – which are visualized similar to the way memos and coding stripes are seen in the “Document Browser” – to synchronize your transcripts with the original audio or video files. These audio and video files can even be played in MAXQDA in the integrated media player. A timestamp table also lets you insert comments for each section of your transcript represented by that timestamp, so you can later search for these comments and go directly to that section of the text or audio and video file.

There are three different ways to work with text and audio and video files:

Option A

In this variation, you transcribe the file within MAXQDA.

Option B

First you do the text transcription with whatever transcription software you want to use, import the transcription as a document in MAXQDA, and then link the document to the original audio/video file. At this point, there aren’t any connections between specific segments of the transcript and parts of the external file. These connections have to be created with timestamps within MAXQDA.

Option C

The first step in this variation is to transcribe the file with a professional software, for example f4 (for Windows) or f5 (for Mac) (http://www.audiotranskription.de/english), in which you can create timestamps as you transcribe. You can then export the transcript in RTF format and import it into MAXQDA, and the timestamps are imported along with the text. You will then already have the connection between your text and the audio or video file.