Just in case you missed the title of this post I’ll repeat, transcriptions are awesome.
They can be read faster than the source material can be watched.
They can be keyword searched.
They can be emailed to anyone and read by anyone (no special codecs, specific applications or hours of compressing footage required).
They can be printed off and passed around.
Notes can be scribbled in the margins, key phrases can be circled and important pages can be dog-eared.
Paper edits can’t happen without transcripts.
Transcripts. Are. Awesome.
Sure they take a little extra time and a little extra money at the beginning of the editing process but within a week they will pay for themselves in man hours saved.