CART (Computer-Assisted Realtime Transcription or Translation)
This service is provided by a trained court reporter or realtime reporter
who has taken many years of training learning the stenotype machine, which is called
a stenoram. The court reporter must be able to listen to the spoken word and
type on the steno machine at over 200 words per minute. The court reporter
types the verbatim spoken word with the text appearing on a computer monitor,
television, or projection screen. CART is usually used by the hearing impaired, deaf and
late deafened people. This method enables people with a hearing disability to read everything
that is said. It can also be used for people who do not speak English well. People who lost their hearing after acquiring spoken language or were raised orally may not know or be fluent in sign language, and therefore, need CART services.
CART is sometimes used in the court system for a hard-of-hearing juror, plaintiff or defendant. It can also be used in conventions, meetings, schools, and other proceedings, which need to be read by people with a hearing loss. If used in a school setting, this allows the student to be able to view the spoken word while it streams across the computer screen and also allows the student to view notes after class as a rough-copy disk is provided to the student of the class.
CART can also be used for a hearing impaired individual at the workplace for interviews, meetings, conventions, et cetera.
REMOTE CART is another method used for the hearing impaired. With REMOTE CART the court reporter can be in her office while the hearing impaired person can be in school at a classroom, in a meeting, almost anywhere where there is internet hookup, a telephone, and a computer microphone in order to send the voice to the operator. (Royal Reporting is in the process of providing REMOTE CART)
REALTIME CAPTIONING
Off-line captioning is captioning that is produced after a video segment has been recorded. The captioner (court reporter) watches the video recording creating captions, paying attention to the timing and screen placement of each caption. The captions are then recorded on a videotape with the program picture and sound before the program is broadcast or distributed. Most captioned programs are produced off-line.
Realtime captioning or realtime reporting are when words are simultaneously created and transmitted during a video program or conference or meeting or courtroom proceeding. Realtime has numerous definitions. Realtime can mean realtime daily copy where a trained court reporter and/or captioner or realtime writer enters the spoken word onto her stenoram machine, which translates into English with specialized software for court reporters. The words are typed out phonetically on a special keyboard, on the stenoram machine. These words are simultaneously scrolling across the court reporter’s and other party’s laptop computers in English. The court reporter and other parties must have specialized software in order for this to work. All transcripts received this way are uncertified transcripts because it has not been gone over with the audio recording and has not been proofread. It is a rough-draft transcript and a certified transcript should follow any rough-draft transcripts.
Closed captions are captions that appear only when special equipment called a telecaption decoder is used. Closed captioning is typically used for television broadcast and movie videotapes.
Open captions are visible without using a decoder. When a video is open captioned, the captions are permanently part of the picture. Open captions are advised for any situation where a decoder may be difficult to obtain or operate, such as a hotel, convention centre or other places. Open captioning is usually for training and promotional videos.
Closed caption decoder is equipment that decodes the captioning signal and causes captions to appear on the screen.
Roll-up and Pop-on captions are when roll-up captions cross onto and off the screen in a continuous motion. Pop-on captions do not scroll, the words display and erase together. Pop-on captions are used for most off-line captioning. Roll-up captions are used for most realtime captioning.
WHAT YOU WILL SEE ON YOUR COMPUTER OR TELEVISION SCREEN
Realtime or captioning or CART starts with the court reporter. The court reporter obtains information prior to any proceedings in order that he or she can put phonetic strokes into the dictionary for certain words and phrases to come across the screen in English. The conduct of the participants greatly impacts the realtime translation. If the parties are talking over one another, if parties are speaking too softly or too quickly, especially when reading from documents, or if spellings of words and names were not provided prior to proceeding, you will see phonetic spellings or untranslates or mistranslates or missing words, however, usually you will be able to tell from the context what the word should be.
An untranslate is a word that isn’t in the dictionary and comes up phonetically. This can happen for technical terms, names, geographic locations. The parties must speak clear, respect the reporter, and slow down, in order that a proper record or proper word for word translation can be provided.
In order for parties to have words streaming across their computer screens or projection screen, the court reporter and parties must have certain software to be able to accept the reporter’s feed directly to their laptop. There also must be internet and/or wireless internet if the parties are not side-by-side the court reporter. Interruptions can happen due to internet interruption and/or feed loss or computer problems, which would require the proceedings to recessed in order to reset.