|
|
Not registered?
You need to register to use the
interactive platforms or to access Members Only content.
|
|
Video-Text Synchronization
Multimedia presentations have become essential tools in the litigation arena. Attorneys now frequently tap into the power of sight, sound, and motion to create a lasting impression on judge, jury and opposing counsel. For court reporters, this has expanded the list of services to be offered to valued clients and leads to new sources of revenue.
Why do you want to use synchronized text and digital video?
Videotaped depositions have become very popular over the years, however they are very difficult to quickly edit for use in court. Attorneys are accustomed to reviewing transcripts with highlighters identifying critical designations without any way to bring the transcript and video together.1
Digital video synchronized to the transcript allows legal professionals the ability to very quickly access, edit and present video deposition clips with little to no computer expertise.1
Before discussing the synchronization process, three key terms should be defined:
Encoding - To convert (as information) from one system of communication into another.
Video conversion (encoding)- The process of taking videotapes and converting them to industry standard MPEG files for use on your computer. This process is done with commercial grade video conversion equipment installed in powerful computers. Converted video is normally stored on CD, DVD or hard drives.1 For video/text synchronization the user needs to send the videotape to an MPEG converting card. The video/audio signal is transcoded to an MPEG-1 video file. The video/audio file must be encoded to write to CD. Encoding results in compression, allowing a two-hour videotape to fit on one CD. Any higher compression will result in poor quality.
Text Synchronization - The process of aligning the digital video converted from tape to the court reporters ASCII transcript. When a digital video file is synchronized to the transcript, one can instantly "cue" or jump to a specific portion of a video deposition by simply referencing a page and line number of text within a transcript.1
So once the video is encoded, how does the end user synchronize the video and text? The first step in synchronizing text to video and/or audio is to encode the video. There are three types of synchronization:
- Manual synchronization
- Time-stamp synchronization
- Voice Text (also known as text mining) using voice recognition
Manual synchronization
Applying a synchronization point at the beginning of each line of text to match the text to a frame on the video.
The text is either ASCII or Amicus format.
This is done manually by an operator listening to the audio and manually hitting the space bar as the last word in a line is spoken, thereby leaving the synchronization point at the beginning of the next line. The timing to do a manual synchronization is basically in realtime. Every hour of testimony will require an hour of an operator performing the manual synchronization.The end user can do this in-house by purchasing the appropriate software from a vendor or have the vendor do the service for you. It may be a matter of cost and facilities.
Keeping in mind that most software is proprietary to the application they are synchronized with, some vendors that perform this software and/or service are:
- Verdict Systems
The file extension for a Sanction synchronized file is *.mdb
- Indata Corporation with Trial Director Suite
The file extension for a Trial Director synchronized file is *.cms
- Visionary with Visionary software
The file extension for a Visionary synchronized file is *.vdf
- LiveNote
The file extension for a LiveNote synchronized file is *.ptf and *.vid. The text (ptf) is combined with the video (vid).
- Synchron
The software's .xml output integrates with RealLegal Publisher and Binder.
- Trial Pro from Idea, Inc. using the LiveNote platform
- Trial Max (FTI) is a service bureau that will do the synchronization for you but does not sell the software.
- LegaLink, a software reseller and encoding/syncing service provider, offers encoded video and sync file formats for most major software.
Time-stamp synchronization
This method is much more time efficient than manual. Time-stamps provided by the court reporter from their realtime translation are used by the synchronization software to interpolate elapsed time from the MPEG-1 video file. The stamps are read by the application and synchronized to the video frames.
The reporter must have time-stamps in military time using hours, minutes and seconds (e.g.,00.00.00) in the left-hand margin. It is not necessary to be in exact synchronization with the time on the video to make use of time-stamp synchronization.
Vendors providing software:
The process is to simply load in the MPEG file with the text and line up the time-stamp with the video. The time-stamp in the transcript will be replaced with the related elapsed time from the beginning of the MPEG file. At breaks you need to synchronize again by right-clicking in the text and clicking on the command “Sync to Current.”
Synchronization with time-stamps allows the user to synchronize five hours of video in a half-hour. Again, most software is proprietary to the application they are synchronized with. This is a process done in-house. There are service bureaus that will do it for you, however.
Voice recognition (known as text mining)
Vendors
This method of synchronization is extremely accurate and requires very little preparation time.
(1 Excerpts from Verdict Systems)
|