[Pythonmac-SIG] appscript and quicktime

[captnswing]

hello all,
I am in the process of converting my applescript to python thanks to  
the fantastic appscript module.
Never again will I have to wrap my head around applescripts  
ideosyncracies!!

now I only need to map the two languages, which unfortunately isnt  
obviously at all times
the following applescript snippet seems unimplementable in appscript,  
to me at least:


=================================================
if (can export movie 1 as DV stream) is true then
     try
         with timeout of 360 seconds
             export movie 1 to POSIX file the_newname as DV stream  
using settings the_settings with replacing
         end timeout
     on error errorMsg number errNo
         ...
     end try
end if
=================================================


can export? with timeout? not sure how to do this in appscript...
also the following:


=================================================
--get number of tracks and kind of movie
tell application "QuickTime Player"
     activate
     open the_file
     tell movie file_name
         set track_count to the count of tracks
         set track_kind to the kind of track 1
     end tell
end tell

--if movie is muxed mpeg
if (track_count is equal to 1) and (track_kind contains "Muxed") then
.....
=================================================


it is unclear to me how to get to the track_kind property of a movie
are not all properties and functions mapped over to appscript?

also I wonder how you can tell which appscript command takes what  
parameters.
I remember the Quark Express discussion a while ago where there was a  
astype parameter to the get command: pw.get(astype=k.Char)

and finally, what does the k. in the documentation  (and the above get 
() call) stand for?

thanks for any insight you might have!
-frank