On ergonomics and carpal tunnel syndrome: a dictated post.

This blog was started as a way for me to talk about my experiences with video editing. I've posted up a bunch of different tutorials over the years, workflow tests, and introductions to different pieces of software.

However, the one thing that I haven't done is talk about the physical toll of working (and playing) on a computer all day.

I've developed issues with my posture over the years that have aggravated some lower back problems. This isn't the end of the world, as doing a few simple exercises can strengthen muscles that can counterbalance this effect. I'm working on doing just that right now.

Unfortunately, one area where not taking care of yourself can be a real problem is your wrists. For those unfamiliar with the condition, carpal tunnel syndrome is a RSI, or repetitive stress injury. It's primarily due to grasping for long periods of time and/or performing repetitive motions with your fingers like typing. The symptoms start with swelling and soreness in your wrist and hands, then progress to tingling and finally numbness

I first started having symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome right around the time I entered college, and it was primarily due to playing video games and working on the computer for long hours. Probably my biggest regret in life is that I didn't take it seriously enough.

Most people who develop carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms recover entirely through a brief treatment of anti-inflammatory drugs and rest. However, if you continue the damaging behavior while you are recovering, the injuries can compound, and you can end up with a condition like mine where it never really goes away.

Thankfully, my symptoms have never gotten bad enough to require surgery, but they've held me back from doing a number of different jobs that could have made me a lot more money than I'm currently making. About a month ago, my symptoms started getting significantly worse. It turns out that holding up in iPad for hours at a time can be just as bad as performing a death grip on a mouse.

So, I find myself back in the same position again.

In the past, I've tried all of the noninvasive treatments for carpal tunnel syndrome. I've done the course of anti-inflammatory drugs, used a wrist brace, even tried acupuncture. The wrist brace didn't really help, the anti-inflammatory drugs helped alleviate the immediate symptoms, but not the overall condition. Acupuncture and massage helped about as much as the drugs.

However, the one bright spot is that the technology that in some ways has contributed to the condition in the first place is now helping me to reduce the repetitive motions that aggravate the condition.

I'm talking about speech-to-text software.

Back in the early-mid 2000's, I used a program called Dragon NaturallySpeaking from time to time. It was expensive, error prone, and slow to use. Dragon is still around, and is probably much improved in its current version, but thankfully I don't need to buy it anymore. Windows 10 includes speech-to-text-software by default. It works almost exactly the same as Dragon, and it's essentially free.

It's also what I'm using right now to write this blog post (as well as the previous post).

Unlike voice assistant transcription capabilities that are available in Android and iOS, Windows Speech Recognition doesn't require an Internet connection, is relatively quick, and doesn't timeout after a certain period of seconds and/or words. It's definitely not perfect, but by having a local dictionary to pull from, you can add and/or retrain words to match whatever subject matter or writing style you happen to use.You also have less of a worry that your voice will be uploaded to some distant cloud storage server and kept there for eternity.

It definitely takes some getting used to, but I find that I can write blog posts like this and all sorts of other documents fairly easily. It doesn't help with entering FFMPEG commands or writing AVISynth scripts, but it allows me to work on projects that otherwise would have been detrimental to my health.

Speaking of health, I'm currently looking into other treatments that could significantly improve my condition. If that works, I'll either update this post or make a new one. However, for anyone who's currently suffering with carpal tunnel syndrome. I want to let people know that there are ways to get back some of the functionality that you had in the past via speech-to-text software.

Why I don't (generally) like to use wrapper programs

Most of the comments on my videos and blog are questions about particular workflow issues. However, one of the most repeated questions outside of that has to do with why I don't use/recommend using programs like MeGUI or Hybrid.

The simple answer is that I don't trust that they'll stay around. The history of open source software is littered with wrapper programs that were really convenient for a brief moment in time, until life or lack of interest led to the (usually solitary) developer abandoning the project. Sometimes, someone else will come along and rescue it. More often than not, though, it's just left to rot.

This means that if you base your entire workflow around one of these programs, there's a better-than-average chance that at some point you'll either have to hunt for a replacement that doesn't exist, or learn how to use the programs that underlie the wrapper. After getting burned a few times by this, I have chosen the latter.

Now, this is not to say that I have an inherent prejudice against all wrapper programs. gMKVExtractGUI saves a ton of time and typing when trying to extract audio from an .mkv file, and is directly recommended by the MKVToolNix devs. My main concern is that if you start by learning wrapper programs and don't really understand the fundamental way that the underlying programs work, you'll be lost at sea if something goes wrong.

Nowhere is this more true (in my opinion) than in the case of FFMPEG.

There are a truly massive number of wrappers for FFMPEG. Most are designed to convert consumer video files into a format that works better for media players or phones. Some are free, while quite a few others are scammy $15-$50 converter programs that spam advertisements on places like Quora. A few are actually designed for professional usage, with their primary function being to add ProRes encoding to Windows (which is not as much an issue since Adobe added official ProRes encoding to Creative Cloud video apps).

Now, I want to make a distinction between wrapper programs and programs that merely incorporate FFMPEG. Programs like Handbrake, ShotCut and KDEnlive all use FFMPEG for exporting video, but don't exclusively rely on FFMPEG code to function. They are also projects with a long development history, dedicated teams of people who work on them, and large numbers of users.

Here's the thing, though. FFMPEG goes through significant development, sometimes leading to new features and important bug fixes. Its main ProRes encoder in particular has had major bug fixes within the last year, as I have posted elsewhere on this blog. Most wrapper programs -- and other programs that rely on FFMPEG -- don't update their included version of FFMPEG on a regular basis. In some cases, you might be using a version that's several years out of date. If you learn how to use FFMPEG just by itself, then you can update whenever you want, and potentially troubleshoot issues that the wrapper program hasn't fixed yet.

So, basically, that's my thought process. I completely understand that many people would prefer an all in one solution, especially for programs like AVISynth where the setup process is definitely not trivial. I just tend to gear my tutorials towards a sort of "manual transmission" philosophy because I believe that in the long run it's more helpful.