Data Prep: When you transcribe your data for import into NVIVO, make sure that the timestamps have the following format features:

they need to be at the beginning of each paragraph you need time stamped
they need to be in the format HH:MM:SS
they can be separated from your data by either a empty space, or a tab stop (optionally you can also import a table that has the time stamps in one column, and the data in the next column).

To save you the trouble of re-formatting tons of timestamps, make sure that your transcription software (e.g. f4 or express scribe) allows you to customize the format of your time stamps.

Step 1: Import your audio or video file into NVIVO. Make sure you’re in the ‘sources‘ side tab, and the ‘internals‘ subfolder. Right-click into the big internals window, select ‘import’->’import videos‘, or ‘import’->’import audios‘ .

Step 2: Double-click on the imported video in order to open it up. Enable the edit mode (see the circle in the image below). After you’ve enabled the edit mode, you can select ‘transcript rows‘ in the right corner of the menu on top – this will import your transcript (make sure you’re in the ‘media tools tab’).

Step 3: A new window will pop up where you can preview how your data will look like as soon as it’s imported. Under ‘options‘, select ‘Timestamp‘ – this will make sure that each time stamped section will be a seperate row in the final transcript in NVIVO.

Step 4: Enjoy exploring your neatly timestamped data!

This post was made possible thanks to the support of MERIT Library, School of Education, UW-Madison. It was first posted here.