REPORTING ON TAPE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29515, 17 May 1961, Page 8

REPORTING ON TAPE

Government Tests

Faced with increasing difficulty in finding shprthand reporters to make verbatim records of the proceedings of commissions, authorities, and courts of inquiry, the Public Service Commission has been examining the use of magnetic tape recorders. Tape recorders are commonly used for this purpose overseas, but unsatisfactory results have been received from previous experiments in New Zealand because of unsuitable equipment, says the “Public Service Journal.” In the early stages when tape recorders were used for reporting purposes there were difficulties in obtaining clear recordings of indistinct speech, identifying voices, separating the remarks of two or more persons speaking at once, and eliminating the sounds of shuffling papers, coughs, and all the noises of any meeting. Added to these disadvantages has been the difficulty of transporting bulky equipment. There are many advantages in the use of taperecorders, the journal says. They are undoubtedly accurate, and after a little experience any typist can transcribe the tapes. If an urgent transcription is required, short tapes can be spread among a number of typists. Long periods of rapid speech can be recorded with ease, and during transcription the passages can be replayed sentence by sentence or phrase by phrase. Test recordings at public hearings of the Air Services Licensing Authority and the Motor Spirits Licensing were made with two modified tape recorders supplied by the New Zealand Broadcasting Service. The machines were set to run at the slowest speed of 1 7/Bin a second and a specially-built mixing qpit allowed the use of six or seven microphones. Identification To facilitate identification of the speakers the secretary was provided with a separate microphone to announce each speaker. The operator of the recording machines monitored the recording with headphones, adjusted the volume controls and changed over from one machine to the other. The seating arrangements for members were not altered and speakers were not asked to make special efforts to assist recording. Extracts from recorded tapes were transcribed by a typist who had had no previous experience of commission procedure. The transcription was checked against the recordings and the few errors were easily detected. The recordings and transcriptions were considered completely satisfactory and further tests will be made to examine the use of smaller, more common office dictation machines.