[image]For court reporter Judy Woodmancy, going from seven years of transcribing jury trials in the Dunedin District Court to transcribing from her office, two floors above the court, was "bizarre".
"I can still hear everything that is going on in the court - I just can't see it," she said yesterday.
Mrs Woodmancy was one of two court reporters to "go live" with a new digital audio system at the courthouse in Dunedin yesterday.
National Transcription Service integration manager Carol Beech, of Wellington, was in Dunedin yesterday to deal with any problems during the first couple of days of using the new system.
Dunedin was the third-last court in the country to get the "For the Record" system, she said.
It allows jury trials to be transcribed without stopping.
It is expected to cut the time jury trials take by about a third by allowing evidence to be heard at normal speaking speed.
The system works by digitally recording everything said either in the High Court room or courtroom two and then allowing the reporters, who are in an office in the same building, to listen and transcribe it.
The transcript is sent to a computer within the courtroom every 30 minutes.
The technology was used in the trial of David Bain in Christchurch.
If for some reason the Dunedin court reporters were unavailable, information could be sent electronically to service centres in either Auckland or Wellington where it would be transcribed and sent to the courtroom printer, as if it was being done in Dunedin.
Ms Beech said it meant the scheduling of hearings was not limited by the availability of local transcription staff, and the quality of court transcribing would be consistent.