Real-time transcription is the live translation of a court reporter's stenographic strokes into English. This is used as a litigation tool by attorneys, judges and convention-goers to follow along as people are talking in a proceeding.
Set-up
In a legal deposition, for example, the attorney is asking questions and the witness is answering them. The court reporter is sitting near the parties with a stenotype machine. This is connected by cable to the stenographer's laptop. The typed words display on the computer screen. Meanwhile, this laptop is cable connected to the attorney's laptop. As people are speaking, the steno is translated into English and pops up on both computer screens. This works well for observers or people that have difficulty hearing. They are able to read the words moments after they are spoken.
Process
As people are speaking, everything is recorded one syllable at a time into the language of steno. The steno is translated into words, phrases and sentences. In general, everything is not spelled correctly and some words do not translate properly from phonetic sounds into English words. This is meant to be a tool, not an automatic transcription.
Requirements
In order for the real-time to work, certain court reporting software must be used and the stenographer must be specially trained and highly skilled. This is not an easy task, although it often appears to be, thanks to the magical software translation. Some people speak as quickly as 400-plus words per minute. This makes it physically impossible for a person, even the quickest typist, to type words verbatim letter by letter as people are speaking. This is the main reason why stenotype is used instead.
Software
This software must be specially purchased by stenographer. The attorney must have special software loaded onto their laptop as well in order to receive the feed. Some companies require people to purchase "tokens" to receive a real-time feed. These are paid for in advance of the event.
Logistics
The court reporter may ask the speakers to slow down in order to capture all of their words and sounds. Hitting keystrokes extremely fast may cause a missed key or double key hit that ruins the translation process.
One way advanced preparation may help is if the court reporting agency is provided a list of possible vocabulary words that will be included in the seminar, deposition or court proceeding. They can be entered into the steno dictionary translation program ahead of time so that they will be seen on the screen in English instead of steno. Since most observers view steno as a foreign language of letters and slash marks that make little sense, this helps greatly in reading what is included in the real-time feed on the laptop display.
Author Resource:-
Author is a freelance writer. For more information on real time court reporting please visit http://www.huseby.com/.
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