Idea for Site Feature

I love this idea. I actually move fairly slowly through the material, because I use the video transcripts as a basis for study. After experiencing a lack of retention at Codecademy by just 'playing the game' of online badge earning, etc...I decided when I started at Treehouse, I would adopt a more rigorous study method...like I had in college. I started taking notes using Google Drive Apps in another window. But, I noticed that since there isn't a lot of unnecessary information being conveyed...I was constantly pausing and more or less just taking down verbatim what the instructor was saying.

So, I saw that there were transcripts...and I thought "why reinvent the wheel?" I started downloading the project files, videos, and transcripts for each step in the course, in addition to the code project files in SublimeText2. Now, I interact with the transcript, and by the time I've styled the keywords and phrases in my Google Documents, I really just need to watch the video to reinforce what I've already filed in my head.

However, the state of the transcripts, quite frankly, is horrible. Leaving out the obvious format difference between what works as a line by line follow-along guide for closed captioning in videos, whoever or whatever Treehouse is using to generate the transcripts is woefully inadequate for the purpose of basing traditional study notes on. I have to heavily process them. They come in a standard SRT format, with timecode data and linebreaks. These are easy enough to get rid of, using an SRT-capable editor (I use Aegisub). You export the result to a text file, and it will strip out the timecode data and leave the strings. But the linebreaks are still there.

I took a week off my Treehouse studies and tried to learn how to use Python to help out. Having never used Python, however, and not being a programmer by nature, AND having this 'too-specific' of a use-case, it was hard for me to figure it out...but I eventually figured out a short little script to bring all the linebreaks out, according to whether or not there was a trailing period in the string or not.

All these steps, though, are currently manual...and I hope that by the time I'm learning more of the programming-type coursework, I'll figure out how to create a solution that automates the process. Of course, by the time I learn it...I might not need it. But, I figure I'll make it anyway.

All that being said...that's just to get it into a semi-paragraph form that I can then treat as malleable study material.

Then, there's the grammar and spelling. This is by far the most surprising part of the whole thing. When I create these files and wind up with a big blob of the strings, smooshed together...and then have to meticulously go through them and make logical paragraphs and style keywords and phrases and whatnot, those strings contain a wide array of basic English language errors that it makes me really wonder if they outsource transcription/translation services to a distracted unpaid intern, or like a farm it out to Mechanical Turk, but no one checks for accuracy...or if they're using like an app (audio OCR?), and again...no one checks it for accuracy.

There are no standards applied for keywords and terms and phrases; 'IE6' can show up like 'aiesis.' I actually feel bad about anyone who needs the transcript for accessibility purposes...because they are not often being exposed to what the instructor is really saying on camera.

Anyway...I do find your idea intriguing. I also plan to do my own browser plugin that...something for pro-grammar Nazis. A video bookmarking function would be nice...because maybe I wouldn't feel the need to do so much work for like...a five minute video. At my rate, I'll never be on top of the leaderboards!

Oh...also, it occurs to me to point out that one issue might be the modular nature of the content being provided. Even now, I've chosen not to update the track I'm currently in...because they have swapped out videos for other videos, and I don't want to kill my overall progress. But, I imagine that you'd lose access to your bookmarks once they had disengaged the content from the expected server locations...however that works. ...just a thought.