A video deposition is a record of much more than the spoken word. When videotape is brought into the deposition process additional communication of inflection and demeanor are captured along with the testimony. This, in part, is why attorneys are turning to videotape more often than ever before. In the twenty-year history of the use of video in our industry we have seen it grow from curiosity to commonplace. Court reporting agencies have either, embraced the technology and incorporated it into their business plan or fallen behind in the marketplace.
Many reporters still see videotape as a threat to their livelihood.
Without a transcript videotape is just a jumbled stream of magnetic particles on plastic. There are various ways to search and edit the synch pulses and images that are the videotape signal. Many of the more sophisticated edit facilities can re-sequence the testimony by electronic transfer to a new tape. Of course that would be unethical and improper, but the technology is there. While this may be sufficient in some cases, what our clients are most often trying to accomplish in the legal arena, is to find spoken sections that communicate an edited record.