Graymar Business Solutions

Posted by admin

June 24th, 2010

In modern courtrooms, new technology is available to capture high-quality recordings of court proceedings, and can maintain those recordings electronically in a searchable database. In the past, analog tape recorders were commonly used in courtrooms/hearing rooms for certain proceedings, but this technology often did not produce a good-quality recording that would ultimately lead to incomplete transcripts. New digital-court-recording technology can have multiple channels that provide sound isolation when there are multiple speakers, so the other speakers may be turned off or on when listening to the audio.

There are many other advanced features in digital-court-recording technology such as video recording, web-based access, tagging by bar code scan, and the ability to import images and attach them to the audio record. Advantages of this technology are that the recordings are date and time stamped, any notes taken with the recordings are searchable, and the audio can be burned to a CD for portability. Electronic recordings can be backed up and restored, addressing data recovery concerns more easily than can be done with paper records recovery. Digital court recording can offer significant cost savings, offer greater control of the court record, and make staff usage efficient. All of these combined illuminate the benefit of using technology in this part of the court process.

Cost savings are gained by the cost difference between a contracted court reporter and an electronic court reporter with the electronic court reporter being significantly less in cost. The electronic court reporter can cover more than one courtroom at a time due to technology advancements. The record can be delivered electronically, which in many cases reduces the requests for transcripts.

Contract court reporters are responsible for maintaining the record that they capture, and are individually responsible for any loss. With digital-court-recording software, the record is in a central database that can be backed up electronically, and has a better recoverability factor. Digital software often has redundant recordings as well as electronic backups. This offers better control and maintenance of the court record