[needs-packaging] Transcriber AG

[Andrey Barrientos M.]

The good old Transcriber, tool for making transcriptions, was superseded by the brand new Transcriber AG.

It is still in beta, but it seems that the old one has already around 3 year old without maintenance (Information taken from this post: http://us.generation-nt.com/answer/transcriberag-successor-transcriber-debian-ubuntu-package-help-204861831.html).

It would be nice to have it packaged in Ubuntu Repositories for next releases or in a handy PPA.

Thank you very much in advanced for all your attention to this issue!

URL: http://transag.sourceforge.net/
License: GPLv3

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[joehill (joseph-hill)]

I second this request. I've tried compiling it myself but get all kinds of errors and I'd be grateful if someone who knew better than I do would package it. Thanks.

[Schmirrwurst (schmirrwurst)]

The same for me.
I could find some information about compiling here :
http://www.das-werkstatt.com/forum/werkstatt/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1895

And some i386 deb, that I can't use under amd64 here :
http://repos.actiu.net/sound-video/

[Schmirrwurst (schmirrwurst)]

Debian seems also to be thinking about it, but without any result :
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=655060

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

I managed to nstall the i386 deb in chroot, but it crashes all the time.

(1. set up chroot for lucid following this: http://askubuntu.com/questions/29665/how-do-i-apt-get-a-32-bit-package-on-a-64-bit-installation
2. (everything else is inside chroot) apt-get install libavutil-extra-50 ffmpeg libicu42 libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a desktop-file-utils libsndfile1 libportaudio2
2. you will need to manually download lucid deb file libxerces-c28_2.8.0+deb1-2build1_i386.deb from here: (or elsewhere) http://pkgs.org/ubuntu-10.04/ubuntu-universe-i386/libxerces-c28_2.8.0+deb1-2build1_i386.deb.html and manually install it with dpkg -i
3. manually download libavutil-extra-50_0.6.2-1ubuntu2~ppa1~lucid1_i386.deb from https://launchpad.net/~lucid-bleed/+archive/ppa/+sourcepub/1636189/+listing-archive-extra and install it
4. From the host, overwrite library with something like this depending on where your chroot is sudo cp /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 /chroot/lucid32/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6
5. In chroot, run export DISPLAY=:0.0
6. in host, run xhost +
7. now you can run TranscrbeAG from chroot

However, when I try to open a transcription file, I get:

TranscriberAG: relocation error: TranscriberAG: symbol av_init_packet, version LIBAVCODEC_52 not defined in file libavcodec.so.52 with link time reference

or

TranscriberAG: symbol lookup error: TranscriberAG: undefined symbol: _ZN3Gdk11ColorTraits9to_c_typeERKNS_5ColorE
)

[Giulio Paci (giuliopaci-e)]

I do not think that this bug belongs to transcriber.
Transcriber and TranscriberAG are two different tools and import/edit/export different file formats: TranscriberAG neither is new version of Transcriber neither is a drop-in replacement.
I think a new, different package should be created for TranscriberAG.

[Andrey Barrientos M. (cpoliticas2005)]

I understand what you say Giulio, but in the original Transcriber sourceforge page in http://trans.sourceforge.net/en/presentation.php states in July 2011 that "Transcriber has been superseded by TranscriberAG".

An alternative would be to package the new TranscriberAG as a different tool, but unless the original project is taken over by another leader group, it won't be updated.

In that case is up to Ubuntu packagers whether to include the new one along the original one, or just simply replace the original package with a new one with TranscriberAG.

Greetings,

-Andrey

[Giulio Paci (giuliopaci-e)]

As far as I know, the TranscriberAG will also not be updated unless some funding will become available and this did not happen during the last two years.
It is my opinion that both packages are not maintained upstream. The main difference between the two tools are that:
1) TranscriberAG native format is more flexible than Transcriber native format;
2) TranscriberAG is clearly in alpha stage;
3) Transcriber is more widespread than TranscriberAG;
4) Transcriber native format is used in many projects: replacing it will require to update a large number of tools.

Just in case anybody is interested, here you can find a preliminary attempt to package TranscriberAG:
https://github.com/giuliopaci/transcriber-ag-debian

Bests,
Giulio.

[Giulio Paci (giuliopaci-e)]

Recently the old transcriber tool have been updated (in the version control system) on sourceforge.net.
I would not expect many new features in future releases, nor much support, but I think it will be maintained and bugs will be fixed.

I am closing this bug now, as it really does not belong to transcriber. Feel free to re-open it as an RFP bug.