Okay, I'll get things rolling here by welcoming everyone to our group. I'm an Eclipse scopist and one of my court reporters is busy getting us organized so that we can provide hourly copy in a trial that's coming up in a few months. I'm looking forward to exchanging information and experiences with anyone else who is currently involved in scoping realtime or who is planning to in the future. Any and all participation is welcome.

Thanks for setting up the group, Linda. I look forward to chatting with other members regarding this exciting new technology!

Hi all, My reporter just found out (after trying to use it) that GoToMyPC doesn't work with DigitalCat for the audio. So It will work but the scopist is unable to get the audio. He has spoken to Stenovations and they are working on it.

If anyone has any info on Realtime with DigitalCat, I'd love to hear it. We really want to get this going with audio capabilities.

Hi Linda, great idea to set up a group like this. I work with a realtime scopist, have done for the past five years. Sometimes she works on site with me and others she works remotely, we both love the freedom.

Hi, Linda.

This is great -- one of your many good ideas!

We've heard for a long time about this being theoretically possible, but now it seems like it's an idea whose time has come. It seems that maybe machines really are taking over, since now a computer can do what the reporter used to do at her first break, and then again at her lunch break, and so on: Run to her office, quickly translate and e-mail to the scopist, and get back to the hearing, with nary a bat of the eye! This sounds a lot easier.

We've come a long way, Baby, since the days when I used to wade through dog hair in a dog grooming shop because that's where the reporter's husband used to pick up and deliver transcripts as he headed to work. The dog groomer was a friend of the reporter.

Everything's up to date in K.C., for sure! I look forward to learning more!

Hi Linda,
I haven't had the opportunity to do realtime scoping yet, but this information will make it a lot less intimidating when the chance comes up. Thanks!

This is something I would really be interested in. I would love to be on site with the reporter scoping their realtime translation. I look forward to hearing more about it through this group!

Sabrina

Good morning!
Linda, I see that your post was back in April. Well, how'd your hourly copy go? Please share. I am very interested in providing realtime scoping! : )

It is great to see a group interested in this! I've worked onsite with scopists many times throughout my career, and it's my favorite way to do it. Online instant scoping is also great ... and I'm looking for a part-time scopist to do online instantaneous scoping with me. I travel for all my work these days, and do mostly next-morning transcript delivery. I remember several times watching the scopist run to the bathroom during a same-day delivery deposition and being jealous that he could just leave the room ... but other than that, I'm easy to get along with. My last scopist/proofer team just had too many kids to work through several days in a row. Anyone interested in part-time online scoping work? I'm a Total Eclipse freak ... lori@bucknerreporting.com.

Just got off the phone with Case Catalyst tech support. I use their editing software as a scopist. Tech support tells me that, yes, Case does have the capability to let scopist do realtime scoping. It creates a "work unit" approx. every half-hour on the job and the reporter sends it to the middleman website to transmit to the scopist with audio. They tell me no special setup required in CaseCAT. Just thought I'd let you know, in case anyone else is on CaseCAT. Haven't seen any comments here, good or bad, yet about doing realtime scoping on CaseCAT. Comments, anyone???

The "middleman" site would be of the reporter's choosing.

I have started working for a firm that wants immediate turnaround, not the next day, so ASAP.  RT scoping would be so handy in this situation.  I would love to learn more about it too.

Thanks, Mary Ann

 

I do a lot of daily work and always send the first half to my scopist at lunch, second half at 3:00 p.m. and the last half when I am done.  I also use T3, which works great and have used it for years.   I just thought it would be great to have her editing while I write for immediate delivery. 

Mary Ann,

 

Did you read the article above that Breck Record posted?  I got the impression from reading that, that that's exactly what scopists are doing.  I know Eclipse has a program where a scopist edits right after the the reporter but I think it's about 15 minutes behind, which is still better than three hours.  Maybe I am misunderstanding the article.  Let me know shat you think after you read it.

To my understanding, that is possible only if the reporter and the scopist are working in an internet setting such as GoToMeeting or the Cloud, or a similar setting.  Like everything in the court reporting industry, these new things take time to get popular and accepted.  I have been watching this particular working setup since 1997, when I attended the ACT '97 NCRA convention and Jim Woitalla and his scopist, Shirley, gave a demo of it as part of a seminar.  They gave out handout instructions at that time to work that way, but look how long it has been to finally get there.  By the way, this is one of the benefits of being older.  You remember all these little tidbits of history. 

 

Since I am now on my soapbox after morning coffee, I would like to break down this area of reporting and scoping a little bit.  Yes, Total Eclipse and Case have the ability to create work units, or automatically break a transcript according to reporter preferences as to settings, and upload the files to a designated storage area for retrieval by a scopist.  The Internet storage places like iBackup, have had this capability built in with their accounts if one sets it up with their account.  I used that capability in working with a reporter, who set up an automatic upload on her end into my account for sending me work.  I downloaded files and went to work on them, both dailies and regular work.

 

I am sure with newer companies out there, one could find a company which works well.  Again, as with all these things, you have to eliminate or greatly reduce upload time for the reporter.  You also need to have CAT software which also includes the audio with the broken file.  If the reporter does not use audiosync for recording, that has to be resolved, which would bring everybody right back to creating a new realtime file with breaks, at least twice a day, or more often if you can.  I would recommend breaking anyway into at least two parts if the proceeding is all day due to the fact that something can happen, and an entire day of audio could be lost, even though the transcript is still there.  Been there and had that happen to a customer, very unpleasant.

 

Again, as has been said, this is not for newbies, or even scopists with only a year or two in the game.  This is very serious business for the reporter, who has to deliver, and a scopist who cannot, for one reason or another, produce the quality of work needed for a daily in the time frame needed.  The scopist also needs a certain amount of computer savvy to solve glitches on both ends sometimes to get the job done.  I would think the reporter needs to be free to completely focus on the proceeding, not worrying about how it is going on somewhere else. 

 

I also think T3 is the best company around for working dailies.  It seems to be the only service with a good upload time, and making sure the file gets through.  I know the lunchtime and early afternoons on the Internet are very slow, and can be problematic to send or download files.

I know using SPEEX for audio files, the files are much, much smaller and an all-day job for audio can be sent in like three minutes on T3, just love that.

There may be a problem using SPEEX when scoping the transcript because I found that you could not back up the audio to listen to the prior few words.  I called tech support then, and I was told that was true.  Maybe that has been improved by now.  I stopped trying to use my CATs to play audio files when I discovered that reporters are increasingly sending .mp3 files rather than .wav.   I have found that in older Eclipse versions, sometimes the audio is not really clear, and may even drop a word or two.  So I use a player program unless I am really sure the reporter has a good audio file to play with Eclipse.