 |
Qualitative analysis software for video and audio data Developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Education Research |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Support :: |
Frequently Asked Questions General Questions I'm a software reseller and want to purchase Transana for a client. How do I do that? What are the minimum system requirements for Transana? How do I learn to use Transana? Transana 2.20 or later crashes on Windows right after I specify a database name. How do I fix this? I want to upgrade Transana. Will my data be damaged in the process? Video-Related Questions How do I get my video into the computer and ready for use with Transana? What video and audio formats does Transana support? Is there a workaround that allows Transana to work with unsupported video? Can I store all my video on DVDs instead of on my hard drive? Transcript and Database Questions Can Transana produce a transcript for me? I'm having some trouble inserting time codes. How should I do it? Where does Transana store my data? or Non-Windows Platform Questions Are there plans to port Transana to Linux? Miscellaneous Questions Is it possible to use Transana in a computer lab, where they wipe the hard drives every night? How do Transana and N*Vivo compare? Which is appropriate for my analysis? Is there a way to share data between Transana and N*Vivo or Nudist? Is there a way to export Transana data to a statistical package for further analysis? What's the appropriate reference for Transana that I should include in my scholarly work? My question isn't addressed here. How do I get technical support for Transana? Transana 2.40 costs $65 per copy for the single-user version, $500 for multiple copies of the multi-user version, and $500 for a single room computer lab of up to 35 computers for the Lab version People affiliated with the University of Wisconsin system, a Wisconsin campus of another university, the state government of Wisconsin, a municipal government in Wisconsin, or a primary or secondary school in Wisconsin are eligible to received Transana at a discounted price of $47 for the single-user version or $365 for the lab and multi-user versions. Upgrades to Transana are free for a year. After a year, there may be an upgrade charge, particularly for major revisions. Revenue from sales does not cover the cost of developing Transana. Transana's ongoing development is being funded in part following a distributed funding model. If you are working on a funded research project that could benefit from modifications to Transana, please consider helping to fund Transana's ongoing development by hiring us to add features to Transana as part of your research project. I'm a software reseller and want to purchase Transana for a client. How do I do that? Transana is software that is created as part of an ongoing academic research project. We don't try to make a profit from selling Transana, and distribute the software the way other software is distributed. As a result, it's not suitable for sale by software resellers. Transana should be purchased directly by the end user, and should not be purchased through a reseller. There are several reasons for this.
Ultimately, it's not worth it for resellers to pursue reselling Transana. It's too much work for not enough money. What are the minimum system requirements for Transana?
How do I learn to use Transana? To help people learn how to use Transana, there is a tutorial accessible from the Help menu. That, combined with the demo video, should introduce you to all the tasks involved in the qualitative analysis of video or audio using Transana. Several Flash-based Transana ScreenCasts have been developed to demonstrate the use of Transana. They are available on the Documentation page. If that's not sufficient, the lead developer is sometimes available to do on-site training for a fee. If you are interested in learning more about that, please contact him via the link in the sidebar. Transana 2.20 or later crashes on Windows right after I specify a database name. How do I fix this? As it states on the download pages:
Downloading and installing the QuickTime player solves the problem. Unfortunately, there is no way to trap this system error within Transana and report the cause and solution to the user. I want to upgrade Transana. Will my data be damaged in the process? It is ALWAYS a good idea to back up your data before upgrading any program. Transana is no different in this respect. To upgrade Transana, you need to first remove the old version of the program, then install the new version. To remove Transana: On Windows, there is an "Uninstall Transana" option in the Transana 2 program group in the Start menu. On OS X, you drag the Transana_2 folder from the Applications directory (NOT FROM YOUR DATA DIRECTORY) to the Trash. This will not affect your Transana database. When you install the new version of Transana, the program should be able to find your data based on your old configuration settings and everything should just work. If Transana needs to make any changes to the database structure, it will do so automatically. This means that once you upgrade to a new version of Transana, you should not use an older version of the program on your data. How do I get my video into the computer and ready for use with Transana? Chris Fassnacht has written an article called Preparing Video for Transana. That's a good place to start, and is full of links to good resources. Another excellent resource is the web site videohelp.com, particularly the "How to Convert" sections. Briefly, you plug your digital camcorder into your computer using the firewire port, then tell your video software to "import" or "capture" from the camera. Depending on the software, you will probably then have to tell it to "export" or "save as" to one of the Transana-friendly video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AVI, MOV, MP4, or WMV) described below. This process is described in detail in an article called How to Capture Video by David Woods. Although this article describes the process using Vegas Video 6.0, the general steps described in the article will work with other software packages as well. If you have analog video (VHS or Hi-8, for example), the process is a little more complicated. You need a video capture device, which serves the same function a firewire port does for a digital camera--to get the video and audio signal into the computer in a form it can use. There are many different options, which can produce widely varying results. If you only want audio, then you just plug your playback device into the "line in" port on your sound card and use an audio recording program to capture the audio to MP3, WAV or WMA format. An audio recording program may have come with your sound card, and there are many to choose from. It may take a little trial-and-error to get all the settings right. We can't be more specific than that because there are too many different video capture and video editing programs that do these steps in too many different ways calling them too many different things. What video and audio formats does Transana support? Starting with Transana 2.20, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, most AVI video, and QuickTime MOV and MP4 formats, as well as MP3 and WAV audio, are supported on both Windows and OS X, and Windows Media Video, WMV, and Windows Media Audio, WMA, formats are supported on Windows only. Transana 2.41 adds support for M4V format. Transana 2.42 adds support for AAC audio format. Transana might also work with additional formats. There are two issues. First, does the media file play in the media player Transana will use? On OS X, Transana will use the QuickTime player for all formats. On Windows, Transana will use the QuickTime player for *.mov, *.mp4, and *.m4v video files and will use Windows Media Player for other media formats. If the media file will not play in the media player, it won't work in Transana. (The problem might be resolved by installing the correct codec, but that's not a Transana issue!) Second, Transana needs to be able to extract the audio from your media file so that it can create the waveform file displayed in the Visualization Window. It can do this with many audio encodings, but cannot extract audio from files that use AC3 audio encoding. One option here is to re-encode your media files in a more Transana-friendly format. Alternatively, you can work with Transana without a waveform diagram, and it may be possible for you to do manual audio extraction. For information about other formats, and about how to work with unsupported formats, read a more in-depth discussion in this article about video and audio formats. Transana doesn't seem to support the video format I'm trying to use, even though it's on the list of supported video formats. Video formats are tricky, and getting trickier. There are many ways to encode audio and video, even within a given format. Sometimes, a video is encoded using a particular feature that doesn't work with Transana. For example, "variable bit-rate" (VBR) audio encoding is becoming very popular because it's got better compression than "constant bit-rate " (CBR) audio encoding in many circumstances. However, Transana 2.12 and earlier cannot decode variable bit-rate encoded audio to create its waveform diagram, so if you use this feature in encoding a video, that video won't work with Transana even if it's in a "supported" format. We do not yet know if this issue still arises with Transana 2.20 and later. Also, some versions of MPEG-2 separate ("de-mux") the audio and video into two separate files. This is common on DVDs, but is not supported by Transana. Transana requires "muxed" MPEG-2 files, where the audio and video are combined into a single file. It's always a good idea to make sure that a particular encoding procedure will produce video that will work with Transana before investing a lot of time encoding a lot of video. Also, see the workaround that allows the use of "unsupported" video formats, which is described in this article about video and audio formats. Is there a workaround that allows Transana to work with unsupported video? You can read about the workaround in this article about video and audio formats. Can I store all my video on DVDs instead of on my hard drive? It would depend on the format your video is in on the DVDs. (See above.) But even if you were using a compatible format, it's a bad idea. Each DVD holds, at most, about two hours of video. If your project has 200 hours of video, you've got a stack of 100 or more DVDs that you would have to shuffle through to find the bit of video you're looking for. So imagine you've searched for a combination of keywords, which has produced results suggesting that you should look at 100 clips of a minute each that are scattered across your videos. You want to review all of those clips to see if they really are all "the same thing," to see if your search has produced a highly meaningful new insight. The task of locating the correct DVD and inserting it into the drive 100 times will make you decide that you don't really want to do any more searches because it's not practical to review all those videos. The task would essentially take all day. In contrast, imagine that you convert your 200 hours of video to MPEG-1 format. You lose a little resolution, but it's watchable as long as you're not looking at subtle body language or eye gaze or something like that. 200 hours of video x 650 MB per hour = 130GB of video. How much does a 200GB drive cost? Approximately $80 - $120. And if your computers are networked, you'll only need one, even in a cross-platform environment. If you really need higher resolution video, you can encode your video to MPEG-2, end up with approximately 400GB of data, and still get it onto the network for under $400. And how much do 100 DVD blanks cost these days, anyway? Under this scenario, it takes maybe two or three hours to review those 100 minute-long video clips, and you spend your time between clips thinking rather than shuffling DVDs. So in the day it would take just to review them all once from DVDs, you'll be able to determine that in fact your search result has provided three types of clips, you'll be able to sort them, and you'll be able to review those sorts so that you can start to articulate the distinctions that you have discovered. It's a far more productive use of your day than shuffling DVDs, and we're talking a total investment of less than $200. It only takes a couple of insights into your data to make that investment worthwhile. Can Transana produce a transcript for me? Transana does not automatically generate a transcript, because voice recognition technology is not yet sophisticated enough to be able to produce a useful transcript from naturally occuring talk. Voice recognition software requires a single speaker, good audio quality, spoken punctuation, and extensive training of the software by the speaker. Most research video has, at most, one of these elements. Therefore, voice recognition simply isn't practical. In Transana, you use the Transcript window's Ctrl-S function to start and stop the video, and you type what you hear. It's a slow process, but it's the best way to produce an accurate, usable transcript. One researcher listens to his video, then dictates what he hears into his voice recognition software. He says that he gets pretty good results this way. I'm having some trouble inserting time codes. How should I do it? Getting the time coding process to work properly can be a little tricky at first. Here's a quick overview of a good procedure, and some tips:
Here are some tips from the developer:
Where does Transana store my data? or There are two kinds of data to consider when thinking about these questions. First, there is your raw data, the video and audio files you are analyzing. Transana doesn't store these files; it just remembers where they are on your system. You will find those files in the location where you saved them. Second, there is all your analytic data, including your transcripts, keywords, clip records, etc. Transana stores all of this analytic data in a database. Transcripts are stored in the database and are not stored as separate files. Where that database is located by default depends on which version of Transana you first used and what operating system you use. Of course, you have the option of moving the data location if you choose. Default Database Location by version and OS
The easiest way to find your data is to look at Transana's Database Directory setting. On Windows, select the "Options" menu, then choose "Program Settings." On the Mac, go to the Transana menu and choose "Preferences." Look at the setting for the database directory to see where your current database files are located. In the specified folder, you'll find a number of files that store the actual data, and folders for each of the databases you've created. You can't just copy some of the files; copying the database is an all-or-nothing proposition. To move a database to another computer, you need to use the Export Database tool. This creates a Transana XML file, which is a text file that contains all of the data in your database. You can then copy this Transana XML file to another computer, and import it into Transana using the Import Database tool. To back up your Transana data, you need to do two things. You need to back up your Transana database, and you need to back up your videos. To back up your Transana database, first determine where the database is stored. Then, back up the entire database folder, including all subfolders. (Transana 2 stores most of your data in a file called "ibdata1" regardless of what database it's actually part of, so you can't just back up one database out of many by backing up only some of the files.) If you are using Windows 2000 or Windows XP, be sure that your backup software is set to back up hidden folders, as the "Applications Data" folder on those versions of Windows is hidden by the operating system. An alternate method of backing up your database would be to do a Database Export, then store the resulting Transana XML file elsewhere, or make it part of your backup. As for backing up your video, that can be an issue because of the size of the files. There are many options, but that's really beyond the scope of this web site. (Consider using an external hard drive as a way to back up your videos.) It is important to recognize that copies of your video files are not stored in the Transana database. One final note. Always keep a copy of your backups off-site, in another location. A disaster, such as fire or flood, can happen to anyone. Are there plans to port Transana to Linux? At this point, we don't have official plans to port Transana to Linux. Rumor is that Transana mostly works on Linux when run from source code. Audio extraction and the File Management Tool don't work because there isn't a Linux version of the necessary dynamic libraries. Otherwise, it appears to work acceptably. Please note, however, that this is NOT officially supported. Unfortunately, I don't have development funds to pursue Transana on Linux. If you are a Linux developer and can help me overcome some minor technical hurdles, please contact me. If you can help me create some Linux distributables, you can have Transana at no charge in exchange. I want to access my data from several computers. Is that possible? Do I need to buy more than one copy of Transana to do that? The best approach to take depends on your reasons behind wanting to use multiple computers. The individual researcher, the research team, and the institution all have different needs, and there are different versions of Transana for addressing these different needs. There are two primary obstacles you will run into trying to use the single-user version of Transana from multiple computers. First, you need to make your media files available to all the computers involved. Second, you will need to make the Transana database available to all computers. Media files are huge and Transana has complex data structures in a database; it's not like copying a Word file to your flash drive. Practically speaking, the single-user version doesn't facilitate this. If you are a solo researcher who just wants to be able to work on your data from the office and from home, you can accomplish that by putting your media files and your Transana database on a portable hard drive and configuring both computers to access the portable drive. Technically, the purchase of one copy of the single-user version of Transana allows installation on a single computer. If you will never have both copies of Transana running at the same time, there's no need to make a second purchase. However, if you want to have someone transcribe for you one one computer while you work on the other at the same time, you need to purchase two copies of Transana. And if you want to access your data from more than two computers, it's only fair that you should purchase more than one copy of Transana. (Frankly, if Transana is that vital to your research, you should support Transana with more than a single purchase.) You should never try to access a single-user Transana database from more than one computer at the same time. This can lead to database corruption with the accompanying loss of all of your Transana data. Transana has a multi-user version, designed for collaborative research. With this version, you can access the same database from multiple computers at the same time, and all researchers can see others' changes to the data in real time. (The multi-user version has safeguards that prevent the problems described in the previous paragraph.) However, the multi-user version of Transana requires you to set up a server, which requires a level of technical skill and institutional support. See http://www.transana.org/support/MU-overview.htm for more information. One multi-user purchase allows access to your project data from many computers. Transana also has a computer lab version, designed for setup in computer labs where researchers cannot save data on the computers where Transana is installed. With this version, you put your media files and Transana database on an external hard drive or on a private network volume, which you connect to whatever computer you want to work from. The computer lab version prompts the user for the data locations it needs upon startup. See http://www.transana.org/support/computerlab.htm for more information. One computer-lab purchase allows for use on up to 35 computers in a single lab. If you think this version solves a problem for you outside of a computer lab situation, please contact me to discuss your situation. If you tell me more about your situation using the contact form and what's behind your need for
multiple computers, I can make a more specific recommendation. My research project involves people who are working in different locations. Can Transana help us collaborate on our analysis? Yes, the multi-user version of Transana was designed with this purpose in mind. Read about the multi-user version here. Is it possible to use Transana in a computer lab, where they wipe the hard drives every night? Yes. There's a computer lab version now, designed specifically for that environment. Here's a link to the startup instructions. How do Transana and N*Vivo compare? Which is appropriate for my analysis? N*Vivo 7 focuses primarily on the analysis of text. To work with audio or video, you have to edit your media into small analytic units outside of N*Vivo and bring in the edited bits as whole units. In my opinion, that puts a significant analytic task -- deciding what's important in the video -- outside of the analytic software. Media bits tend to lose context that way. It's also very time-consuming and awkward, and not terribly flexible in dealing with video. But for text-based analysis, N*Vivo can't be beat. Transana focuses on the analysis of audio and video, and really doesn't allow for the analysis of text that lacks an underlying media source. In Transana, you import raw video in large segments, identify the analytically interesting bits, create virtual "clips" of these segments, and apply your coding to the clips. It's easy to get back to the original source from a clip, allowing you to see the context and to investigate questions about what happened before or after something that was interesting. Transana also provides tools that facilitate the transcription of video and audio, while N*Vivo has nothing like that that I am aware of. So if your data is mostly text-based, N*Vivo is the way to go. However, if your data is mostly audio and video, then Transana is the way to go. The two programs facilitate very similar types of analysis on very different types of data. Many researchers who have both video/audio and text-only data end up using both programs. Is there a way to share data between Transana and N*Vivo or Nudist? At the moment, this capacity is quite limited. From within Transana, you can export a Transcript to RTF format, which can be imported into N*Vivo and Nudist. However, you will lose all connection to your video; the Transcript will be treated as a text document. In addition, there is no mechanism for porting any coding over. Transana is open source, and we publish our data specifications, while the QSR products are closed source and do not publish their data specifications. Therefore the ball is in their court. Also, we don't plan to add support for text-based data without an underlying media timeline, so it makes more sense to think about a way to incorporate a Transana data set into a larger N*Vivo project than it does to think about trying to move N*Vivo data into Transana. Is there a way to export Transana data to a statistical package for further analysis? Yes, as of Transana 2.20. You simply right-click an Episode or a Collection and choose "Clip Data Export." Then follow the dialogs through the process of specifying an output file name and applying a filter to the output. This process produces a tab delimited text file that includes Clip information as well as information about the coding that has been applied to those clips. What's the appropriate reference for Transana that I should include in my scholarly work? Woods, D, and Fassnacht, C. (2007). Transana v2.2x. http://www.transana.org. Madison, WI: The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. (Please adapt this reference to the correct version number.) An alternative that perhaps fits the The Style Manual of the APA a bit better might be: Transana 2.2x [Computer software]. (2007). Madison, WI: The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Available: http://www.transana.org For what it's worth, the developers prefer the former, as they really did design the interface and functionality of the program and have done the bulk of the actual coding over the years. My question isn't addressed here. How do I get technical support for Transana? You can review others' questions and post a question of your own on the Transana User Forum. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
WCER is housed within
the School of Education at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Copyright © 2005 - 2009 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System |