Hello! This is a short video on using AST-Link for Windows. If you haven't already completed the one-time set up procedure, please do so first by visiting the "Installing AST-Link for Windows" tutorial. 

To get started with AST-Link, let's first log into your CaptionSync account. Two things you want to do here before you start using AST-Link. First, AST-Link does not allow you to control all of your caption settings for formatting, output type, and the like -- jobs submitted by AST-Link use the default settings on your account. So, you will want to visit the submission screen, click the Advanced Settings button, set up your account defaults the way you want them, then check the "Save as Default" box and exit. 

Second, you may want to go to the "Settings" section of your account and control what messages CaptionSync sends you via email. You can control whether you get emails for individual jobs, batches of jobs, or both. For most folks, the default settings will do just fine, but if you want to make changes, here it the place to do it. 

So start up AST-Link. Under the Start menu, under programs you will find an AutomaticSync folder. There are two key items here, the AST-Link Application, and the AST-Link Help document. The Help document provides detailed information on all of the features of AST-Link so keep it handy as a reference guide. 

So let's start up the AST-Link application. It will immediately connect to the AST server and read your account preferences. When it's done it will display "Server Ready" as shown here in the green. If you do not get the "Server Ready" status, you need to revisit the install tutorial to ensure you have set things up correctly.

Let's overview the three main areas of the AST-Link screen. At the top is the status and setup section, where you can control the various settings of AST-Link. Here in the middle is the input window. This is where you add files for upload to CaptionSync, either via drag-and-drop or via the File / Add menu. These files are media files such as QuickTime, Real, Windows Media, Flash, MP3s, etc. Down at the bottom is the result window. This is where your caption files will appear. 

AST-Link can be used to upload jobs for captioning only (where you already have a transcript), jobs that need transcription and captioning, or jobs that need transcription only. 

So let's try an example. In our folder we have a number of files which we'd like to have captioned. Several of them have matching text transcript files and one of them does not. So let's submit this first one here that needs transcription to the system. We drag and drop it into the input window. 

Ah -- but it's telling us there are illegal characters in the name. There can't be spaces or characters such as ampersands, dollar signs, that sort of thing. So let's rename this file properly and now we can drag it to the input window. 

Now, it tells us that it hasn't found a transcript so what that means is that there was not an appropriately named transcript in the same directory. That is true for this particular file, we don't have a transcript and we need it transcribed. So we'll check the transcript requested box. The job's transcript status changes to "Requested", and we can also add a note to the transcriber. So, let's do so now; let's tell the transcriber that the name of the speaker is Frank Smyth. 

Now, let's briefly take a look at the status and setup section. If your account is set up to use purchase orders, then you will need to complete the PO field. In the "Batch ID" field you can associate a batch name to refer to the whole set of files being submitted. Let's say I have a series of 14 lectures all for the same course; I could give them a batch ID such as "Computer Science 103". When you assign a Batch ID, all the results for that particular batch will come back together in a zip file and you won't see 14 individual results coming back separately. This is very convenient for groups of related media files. Batch IDs also make it easier to search for the result files later, on the CaptionSync website. By default if you don't use a batch ID you will see results come back at the bottom here for each and every submission. 

Most accounts are enabled just for captioning, so you will not be able to change the "App Type". If your account is enabled for multiple application types, you can change it here. So, for example, we could change the App Type to Transcription to specify that we only want this job transcribed, not captioned. 

One last note before we submit this job: the "Transcript Requested" checkbox specifies whether you are providing your own transcript or requesting AST to create the transcript. This field applies to all jobs in the input window. So if you have some jobs that have transcripts and some that do not, as we have here, then you need to upload them in two batches, as we will do here. 

Okay. So let's click "Submit" and our first batch will be uploaded to the CaptionSync server. You'll note the status color changes to yellow to tell us its busy uploading. While it is busy we can't add anymore files into the input area. We will see the status of each job change as each one uploads. Depending on the size of the files, the speed of your connection, and the number of files to upload, this process may take a while. No problem, you can just minimize the window and let it run in the background. 

Okay, our server is now ready and it shows our status is uploaded. So, let's upload another batch of files, but this time using our own transcripts. We'll start by clearing the input window to start fresh. 

Okay, here is our folder of files, and we have transcripts for these, so let's drag these over and then uncheck transcript requested. It tells us it's found all of the transcripts and that the status is ready for upload. Again, we can enter a batch name if we wish. Now, we will submit this. As it uploads, we'll see the status change on each job in the input window. 

While that is uploading, let's go take a look at the Status section of our CaptionSync account. As jobs are uploaded by AST-Link, they will appear in your Status section. There may be a five minute or so delay from the time the upload completes until they appear here. If you are uncertain if a job uploaded properly, then this is the definitive test -- if we received your job properly, it will appear here within minutes of being properly uploaded and processed. 

When your jobs have completed, you will receive an email with the results (unless you disabled the results emails in your account settings). For jobs submitted via AST-Link, you can also retrieve the results using AST-Link if you wish. To do so, use the Server / FetchResults menu item to refresh the Output window. This will show you all of the AST-Link result files available for download. 

We see that the results from our second batch are ready now. Our first batch went out for transcription, so they won't be ready for a while. To download results, you can highlight the files that you want and then select File / SaveSelectedResults -- you will be prompted to navigate to a folder where AST-Link can save the selected files. A SaveAllResults option is also available. 

Results will stay in your AST-Link folder on the CaptionSync server for one year. If you wish to remove them earlier, you can do so by using the Server / DeleteFromServer menu item. 

One last item of note: you can always use the Status area of your CaptionSync account to access old job results or to issue redos. Even if you delete the result files from your AST-Link folder, they will remain available from your CaptionSync account. 

This has been just an overview of using AST-Link. Detailed instructions are always available in the AST-Link Help document available from your Start menu.