Computerized court reporting system

TLDR: A court reporting system for providing a simultaneous written and video record under the control of a single court reporter is described in this paper, where a court reporter's keyboard stenographic accepts inputs from the reporter and provides a signal reflecting keystroke combinations input by the reporter.

Abstract: A court reporting system for providing a simultaneous written and video record under the control of a single court reporter. A court reporter's keyboard stenographic accepts inputs from the reporter and provides a signal reflecting keystroke combinations input by the reporter. A system clock provides the current time and date. There is a memory for receiving and storing signal sequences reflecting keystroke combinations and a table for defining keystroke combinations as control strokes. A video camera provides a video signal reflecting a viewed scene and a microphone provides an audio signal reflecting verbal testimony. A recorder is connected to the video camera and the microphone for producing a recording of testimony in progress. Finally, ther is a control system connected to the above elements including logic for separating keystroke combinations into phonetic keystrokes and control keystrokes, for recording the phonetic keystrokes in the memory, for periodically obtaining the current time and date from the clock and appending it to the recording of the video and audio and the signal reflecting keystroke combinations stored in the memory. The system provides an alarm when the stroke rate is over a safe limit for accurate recording or when more than one person speaks. Synthesized messages place the system on and off the rocord. provision is made for flagging, searching and correcting questionable words and for reminding the reporter to do so. The system can place the video and stroke records in synchronization for review and confirmation. The preferred system adjusts camera position and zoom for better video quality.