Dash User Guide

Updated on: February 2016

This is a basic guide to help you use and troubleshoot issues while working with the Rev Dash tool

Tip: To quickly search this

guide use

+ f, or Ctrl + f.
1

Table of Contents

General Use
How to type
How to play/pause
How to sync
How to check your work
How to flip up caption groups
How to submit
How to unclaim
How to see the project page
Features
Text expanders
Keyboard shortcuts
My dictionary
Spell check
Playback speeds
Split, create and merge captions
Deleting and editing captions
On-screen guides and text

Working offline
Play from local file
Manually back up draft
Saving offline

How to recover work

Snapshot
Undo

Basic Troubleshooting
It wont let me submit, what do I do?
How do I save my work?
I cant create a caption group, what
do I do?
I work outside of Dash, how do I
upload my work?
I messed up syncing, what do I do?
My video is not smoothly playing,
how do I fix this?
I cannot see my next caption to sync,
is there a way to correct this?
I have a lot of lagging during syncing,
help!
How do I share my video with others
to get help?
2

General Use
How to type:
The first step in Dash is transcribing the video (typing out the dialogue and atmospherics) while breaking the text
into caption groups by using the enter key.
Deciding where to break the caption groups throughout the video is the key to a quick overall process. Your
caption group will wrap to a second line and turn red when it is too long.

How to easily play and pause

the video:
Use the TAB key on your
keyboard to play/pause
the video. Use
SHIFT+TAB to skip back
in the video.

General Use
How to sync:
After you are done typing you can move to the sync step using the button in the upper right corner of Dash. This
will move you to the syncing stage where you can use the up arrow key to sync a caption. You should sync your
captions so that the audio matches the beginning of every caption group.

If you sync a
Caption at the
incorrect time,
you can undo
the action by
using ctrl + z
or use the side
arrows to
nudge the
caption groups
along the
timeline.

General Use
How to sync:
After youve typed out the video, you sync the caption groups to the video so they appear on-screen at the same time as
when the dialogue or atmospheric occurs in the audio.
To do this, you again press the TAB key to play/pause the video and use SHIFT+TAB to skip back in the video and the UP
arrow key to sync.
Start Time of a Caption Group:
While the video plays, press the UP arrow key on your keyboard to align the start of a caption group when the first
word or sound of a caption group is heard.
The start time should be within half a second of when the dialogue or sound is heard.
We have rules in place to set end times, no caption can be shorter than ~ 1 second, so you may need to edit
your caption groups to accommodate the start times for fast talkers.

Note: When you press the UP arrow to sync, Dash automatically bumps your timestamp forward by second to
compensate for normal lag in human reaction time.

End Time of a Caption Group:

End times are calculated and set based on an optimal reading rate for the viewer. Do NOT worry if the end times do
not match the end of the dialogue or atmospherics within the audio.
End times may be shortened based on when you start the next caption group.
You will NOT be able to extend endtimes.
Based on customer preference, we will also close gaps between caption groups that cause flashing, after the file has
5
been submitted.

General Use
How to sync:

General Use
How to check your work:
Weve experimented with multiple processes and have found the most efficient way to caption is using the two
primary steps:
Typing and breaking caption groups (Type)
Syncing and QA (Sync)
For your first few videos, you will want to watch the video a third time with show captions turned on to check the
video for syncing and typing errors. As you become confident in your captioning ability, you can skip the 3rd
watch-through to save time.

Note: You can edit caption text at any time. Pause the video using Tab, and click into the text list beneath the
video. Correct typos, add atmospherics, edit overly-long captions (highlighted in red), etc.

General Use
How to flip your caption groups to the top of the screen:
Since Dash pre-sets the end times for you, you will need to check for caption groups overlapping on screen text in
the syncing step.
To determine if on screen text requires the caption group to be flipped up;
1. Use the teal brackets to identify if the pre-existing on screen text falls within the bottom third of the screen.
2. Use the show captions button, on the syncing step, to display captions.
3. If the caption overlaps with the on screen text, use the hotkeys, shift + 6, to flip up the caption to the top
of the screen.
1.

2.

3.

General Use
How to submit:
When all caption groups have been synced the submit button will highlight so that you can submit your work.

General Use
How to unclaim:
To unclaim a project, visit the Project tab, found in the top menu and select Unclaim. You can unclaim any
job within the first hour without penalty.
How to see the project page:
To open the project page from Dash, visit the Project tab, found in the top menu and select Project details
and the project page should open in a new browser tab.

10

Features

Text Expanders:
Increase your typing speed and overall productivity
with the use of text expanders. You can add and edit
them at any time from the Text Expander menu on
the left of the Dash tool.

Keyboard Shortcuts:
View all your hot keys from the Keyboard Shortcut
menu on the left. Here, you can customize your
hotkeys to fit your preferences.

11

Features

Spell Check:
Worry not, Dash has an in-tool spell check. Just open
up the spell checker from the left hand menu and
cycle through all your misspelled words. You can
also add words to your dictionary for later use here.

My Dictionary:
Encounter a word missing from spell check? You can
add it by visiting the Edit menu and selecting
Dictionary. Here you can add and remove words
from your own custom dictionary that will save
between jobs.

12

Features

Playback speed:
Click this button
to the left of the video player to change the video playback speed. This means you can
slow down the video during the while typing and speed it up to sync even faster. There are also hot-keys so
you can speed up and slowdown without taking your hands off the keyboard.
Use ctrl + . to speed the video up
Use ctrl + , to slow the video down

13

Features

Pre-existing text guides:

There are teal brackets that appear over the video to indicate where the bottom third of the screen is located.
If pre-existing text appears within the bracketed area, use the up caret ^ to flip the caption group to the tip of
the screen.

Pre-existing text appearing

within the bottom third of
the screen. Use the the up
caret ^ to flip the caption.

Pre-existing text does not fall

within the bracketed area. Do
not flip the caption group.

14

Features

Split, create and merge captions:

You can edit caption groups at ANY
point in the Dash tool.

Splitting Captions:
Click anywhere within a caption group and hit the enter key to split a caption at that location.
Creating Caption Groups:
To create a caption groups use the enter key and a new caption will be created below or you can use your mouse to hover
over the area that you want to add a new caption. An icon with a + will appear, and you can click that to create a new
caption.
Merging Captions:
You can combine caption groups to adjust timing and or make longer caption groups. There are two ways to merge
caption groups. You can use your mouse to hover in between the two captions you want to merge. An icon with a
will appear, and you can click that to merge the surrounding captions. Alternately, you can move your cursor in front of
the second caption group and hit the backspace button to merge it the group to the one before it.
15

Features
Multi-line Captions:
Use the shift + enter keys to create a multi-line
caption group to better display crosstalk. Note: In a
multi-line caption group, no more than 30 characters
per line otherwise the caption group will turn red.
Deleting Captions:
There are a few ways to remove a caption group. You
can use hotkeys, the x icon that appears on hover
or backspace. You can find the hot keys under the
keyboard shortcut menu.
Nudging Captions:
Save time editing sync times by using the side arrow
keys to nudge the caption start time forward or
back while syncing. You can also use your mouse to
drag the caption group as well.
Deleting Syncing:
If you need to remove all the syncing progress that
you have made, visit the Edit menu and select
Un-sync All.

16

Working Offline

Play from local file:

Dash will by default, stream the project video to you over the internet. If you are experiencing lagging video
performance, or want to disconnect from the internet, then you can opt to play the video from a local file.
To do this you will need to download the video file to your computer, and then upload it to Dash.
1.

Go to the Video menu and

select Download Video

2.

Return to the Video menu

and select Upload Video

3.

Dash will now be playing the

video you selected from
your computer and you
may work offline without
interruption

Note: for privacy reasons, if you download a customer video to your computer, you must immediately
delete it after you submit the finished project.
17

Working Offline

Manually back up draft:

While the Dash tool does save directly to your browser while you work offline, you may want to save a draft to
your computer in case you close the Dash tool unexpectedly.
You can do this both on and offline!

Manually back up draft:

1. Go to Project Menu and
select Download Draft
2. This will save a .json file to
your computer
3. To load your draft to
Dash, return to the Project
menu and select Upload
Draft
Note: Uploading a new
draft will overwrite all your work
and cannot be undone.

18

Working Offline

Saving offline:
When you are offline, Dash saves your work every few seconds to the browser. As long as you do not close
your web page or navigate to another website while offline, your work is safe.
When you go back online, your work will sync with any progress you had previously made online.
To ensure your work is being saved, check the message next to the red save button.

19

How to Recover Your Work

Snapshots:
In case of moments where your cat tries to help or your computer decides it knows better, you can use the
Recover feature to restore earlier versions of your work to minimize your loses.
To use this option, visit the Project menu and select Recover.

Note: this action cannot be undone

20

How to Recover Your Work

Undo:
Within Dash you can use Ctrl + z to undo most actions. Simply use the hotkey combination to unsync your
last synced caption group or delete the last word you typed.
If you continue to hit Ctrl + z more actions will be undone.

Note: Alternately you can use Ctrl + y to redo an action.

21

Basic Troubleshooting

It wont let me submit, what do I do?

There are a few automatic checks in place that will will prevent you from submitting a file. This is to ensure
that common errors do not occur.

If the submit button does not highlight:

This means that you have unsynced captions. Either
remove or sync them to enable submission
I click submit but the following error message appears:
You have red captions groups in your file. This means
that a caption groups exceeds 60 characters, or if it is
multi-line one of the lines of over 30 characters long.
Please go back and correct these errors and submit
again.
I click submit but a different error message appears:
The error message to the left indicates that you have
empty captions groups. Please review your file and
remove any blank captions and submit again.
22

Basic Troubleshooting

How do I save my work?

Rev saves your work for you while you complete your file. When you are connected to the internet we automatically
back-up your file to our server. When you are offline, Rev saves your work to your open browser page.
You can also download back-up copies of your
captions to your computer while youre
working in Dash. Clicking Download Draft,
from the Project menu, will download the
current version of your captions to your
computer in a .json format. This draft can be
uploaded to Dash at any time.
Especially when working offline, we
recommend you periodically use the
Download Draft feature, to prevent losing
any work.

23

Basic Troubleshooting
I cant create a caption group, what do I do?

If you get the above error message, when trying to add a caption between two synced captions, there are
two actions you can take.
1.

Add additional text to one of the surrounding captions

2.

Combine some of the surrounding captions so that there is room in the timeline to add a new captions
group.

24

Basic Troubleshooting

I work outside of Dash, how do I upload my work?

1.

You can type outside of Dash in another tool and copy and paste you work into the typing step. Dash
will automatically create a new caption group for each line. Then you can move to the sync step to
check your work and sync the file.

2.

You can upload an SRT file to Dash. To do this, visit the Project menu and select upload SRT, select
your file and you are good to go.

Please note that when you

upload a synced SRT
file, caption length needs
to be over 1 second and
under 4 seconds.
25

Basic Troubleshooting
I messed up syncing, what do I do?
Delete Syncing with Undo:
Within Dash you can use Ctrl + z to undo most actions. Simply use the hotkey combination to unsync
your last synced captions group or delete the last word you typed.
If you continue to hit Ctrl + z more captions can be un-synced.
Rollback:
Use the Recover feature from the Project menu to restore earlier versions of your work to minimize
your loses.
Additional Syncing Removal:
If you need to remove all the syncing progress that you have made, visit the Edit menu and select
Un-sync All.

26

Basic Troubleshooting

My video is not smoothly playing, how do I fix this?

Dash will by default, stream the project video to you over the internet. If you are experiencing lagging video
performance, or want to disconnect from the internet, then you can opt to play the video from a local file.
To do this you will need to download the video file to your computer, and then upload it to Dash.
1.

Go to the Video menu and

select Download Video

2.

Return to the Video menu

and select Upload Video

3.

Dash will not be playing the

video you selected from
your computer and you
may work offline without
interruption

Note: for privacy reasons, if you download a customer video to your computer, you must delete it after
you submit the finished project.
27

Basic Troubleshooting

I cannot see my next caption to sync, is there a way to correct this?

Yes, sometimes the video size is larger than normal and it will expand large enough to push the
caption list in the syncing step off the screen. To remedy this, grab the grippies in the lower, left
hand corner of the media player and drag the corner to minimize the video size.

28

Basic Troubleshooting

I am experiencing a lot of lagging in the syncing stage, is there a way to correct this?
Yes, there are a few things that can be done to correct this.
1.
2.
3.
4.

Disable all chrome extensions, yes that includes speed controllers and text expanders.
Refresh the page, sometimes there is a build up of data that needs to be cleared, refreshing the
browser page will fix this.
Switch to Firefox if using Chrome.
Close all unnecessary programs running on your computer.

29

Basic Troubleshooting

How do I share my video on the forum?

Sometimes, you want a second opinion or how to format something, label a speaker correctly, or just
identifying a word correctly. The best way to do this is to have a fellow revver Lend an Ear.
Share your video on the forum by using a link created in Dash. This link will keep customers videos
private, yet allow you to get some help.
To get this link, visit the Video menu within Dash and select Share Video. This will copy the link to
your click board so you can just paste it in the forum.

To view the video, click on the link and use your play/pause and skip back hot keys.
30