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                                                                        [PP54] 
South Australia's Court Reporting Division of the Court Services
Department has 85 computer aided transcription (CAT) units installed, and is
the largest site in the world for the particular software used (South Australia
Court Services Department Court Reporting Division, 1991, p6). The turn-around
time for the provision of transcript during a trial is now between half an hour
and 40 minutes. Programs have been developed so that Pitman shorthand writers
(the few remaining) can prepare their transcripts on word processing software
compatible with the CAT system, enabling both CAT and Pitman writers to be
used in the same trial. No other reporting service in Australia makes such
extensive use of CAT. Queensland is the next most active user, although there
is also substantial use in Victoria and New South Wales.


Audio recording


Audio recording of proceedings has significant advantages in relation to
proceedings where transcript is rarely called for (for example, family law
proceedings), as it is then only necessary to transcribe from tape on demand.
While this may be of significance in decisions concerning standard equipment
in courts, transcript will always be required in complex criminal trials, so
this is not of such significance.

Analogue audio recording is used almost exclusively in Australian courtrooms
at present. Digital audio recording for court reporting purposes involves
the conversion of the analogue recording in the court room into a digital
recording, so that it can be stored and communicated via computer media. It is
a new technology with no established use in courtrooms as yet. A trial system
is being installed by Auscript in Queensland, and there have also been some
trials in Western Australia. Some advantages of digital audio are that sounds
can be tagged (indexed) with text and retrieved by that means, and that sound
can also be randomly accessed by the time at which it was recorded (ie faster
than sequential access). Some digital sound recording systems index sound
automatically by the microphone of the speaker, and allow some retrieval of
transcript on that basis. Digital audio can also be more easily transferred by
telecommunications facilities.


Video recording


Videotape recording of trials, based on voice-activation of cameras so that no
camera operator is required, has been used in trials in some States in the
USA, with reported success. With the system used in some installations, the
Automatic Court Documentation System, developed by Jefferson Audio-Visual
Systems (see (Klages (1989), JAVS (1988)), the judge logs the starting and
finishing times of witnesses to provide limited retrieval capacity. Very
extensive accounts of video recording in the USA are collected in Video as the
Court Record (ICM (1991b), Tab 5), including a primer on the technology, a
list of US installations, and evaluations of many experiments. Auscript has
assisted in the installation of a voice-activated video transcript system in
the Court of Appeal in Brisbane.


Integration of transcript with voice or video


Suppliers of court reporting equipment in the USA such as Stenograph
Corporation are marketing transcript retrieval software which is integrated
with voice and/or video, to allow search and retrieval of both sound and video
of testimony.


'Real-time' provision of transcript


'Real time' provision of transcript refers to the near-instantaneous
provision of transcript in computerised form to those in the courtroom.
The necessary speed of transcription is achieved

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