LSVA.com

[TrialConsulting]

Hi there everyone,

Just thought I would try and get this forum rolling a little by asking how you all deal with certain common situations common to TrialDirector; please try and answer with what computers you use, programs, scanners, etc.

1. What is your standard work-flow for scanning in hundreds (or thousands) of pictures?

Do you prefer to outsource or do it yourself? Do you scan directly into TD or into a graphics program like Macromedia Fireworks or Adobe Photoshop? Or perhaps into Adobe Acrobat? Do you use a flatbed or a form-feed? What dpi do you scan at? Do you have any scanning tricks? Do you prefer a batch import to .tif like IPro offers? When you work with photos, what format do you keep them in, .png, .jpeg or something else? What sort of levelling/adjustment to the quality of the photo do you do, and do you run a batch adjustment to the entire group?

2. What is your experience with importing video from tape or dvd? Do you convert to MPEG1 and if so, what program/hardware do you use and what are the settings you import to? If you convert to the TD officially recommended settings of:

MPEG1
RESOLUTION: 320x240
VIDEO BITRATE: 650Kbps
AUDIO BITRATE: 128Kbps

are you satisfied with the resulting quality? Do you have considerable "artifacting"? How is your sound? Are your videos the same quality as the original or considerably deteriorated? Do they look ok on the screen at a small size but considerably worse when full-screen? Do you use both small and large formats during presentation? How long does it take you (using your method of choice) to convert a 1 hour video?


3. What are your opinions of the OLE abilities of TD and do you ever use them? Do you find them helpful or not? What objects do you use as OLE objects if you do use OLE? Word? Powerpoint? Acrobat? Flash (.swf)?


4. If you don't use OLE with Word documents, how do you handle Word documents that are part of your evidence? Do you convert them to .tif files, and if so, how do you go about doing that? If you don't use Acrobat as an OLE object, how do you go about converting your Acrobat documents?


5. Do you ever go directly into the .mdb file and edit it manually (i.e. in Access)? What are your experiences doing this?


6. If you find yourself in charge of applying Bates numbers, what method do you use? What numbering format do you prefer?


7. If you have to do batch renaming of files, what method and what program do you use?


Just some thoughts for discussion,

Tom Goodin

[rogervislitserv]

As a trial presentation consultant, my answers may be a bit different than those in the law firm lit support field, but here goes.

1. Work flow for scanning photos (large quantities)
A. Probably purchase a photo onlly scanner and manually feed photos.
B. Outsource to scanning bureau if volume and turn around are prohibitive.
C. Use flat bed scanner and place 4 photos on bed at a time and scan bed and then cut into individual photos with Photoshop or comparable software.

2. Importing from tape - straight to MPEG1 at VCD rate in order to maintain quality. Burn directly to DVD data disc to include whole deposition on one disc. Two hour/CD rate borderline in quality depending on original source. If deposition was shot on consumer camcorder, VHS quality will suffer and higher data rate will attempt to maintain quality. Encoding cards/devices can range from $100 - $1500, with results closely matching price paid for the device.
Transcoding from DVD, or ripping as the terminlogy goes, I use IMTOO Ripper and have decent results. The faster the processor and the greater the RAM the quicker the conversion. If result is unacceptable then manually playing and re-encoding the DVD is an alternative.

3. OLE - about the only one I use with regularity is Flash. Everything else gets printed or converted through Adobe for consistency. If the application is important, i.e. PowerPoint for the animation, then I use the application for presentation and Alt/Tab between programs.

4. Word goes into Adobe as described above.

5. Occassionaly edit mdb file, but only as last resort.

6. Don't usually deal with Bates numbers, as I am usually only dealing with Trial Exhibit Numbers, but when the attorneys want to reference Bates numbers in trial I am forced to populate Object ID field with Bates number and use Trial Exhibit field with Trial Exhibit Number. Trial Director can use both in calling up exhibits. Naming convention helps ease this. With multi-page tiffs, Trial Director will add a -001 suffix. So easy naming convention is 001.tif for exhibit 1.

7. I have used ReName for batch renaming of files.

[TrialConsulting]

I'd say you pretty much hit the nail on the head, in that you do things similar to the way I approach them.

A little surprised we didn't get some more input, but then again, maybe not. People I think are either scared of giving away their secrets or are afraid of looking like they don't know anything in front of their peers and potential employers. Or perhaps we're all just too busy, who knows? I had a twelve hour day myself so this almost feels like recreation (though I did just burn my bagel).

As a trial presentation consultant, my answers may be a bit different than those in the law firm lit support field, but here goes.

1. Work flow for scanning photos (large quantities)
A. Probably purchase a photo onlly scanner and manually feed photos.
B. Outsource to scanning bureau if volume and turn around are prohibitive.
C. Use flat bed scanner and place 4 photos on bed at a time and scan bed and then cut into individual photos with Photoshop or comparable software.

I've tried a number of options over the years, but I've found that a scsi printer with a flatbed with one picture works great, because you can set the default crop size and then position the picture in the same place everytime (i.e. top right corner) so the crop is always correct, which you can't get with a form-feed unless you have really good auto-cropping software. Of course you have to open the lid everytime, but it's so fast that you can make pretty quick work.

That being said, I have lots of luck scanning from a cheap HP 4215 Form Feed All-In-One into Adobe Acrobat. You generally have to adjust each crop a little bit manually, but that's ok and gives you time to review the photo for other issues and rotate as necessary. Acrobat also lets you import photos one at a time, appending them to a new page, rather than having to save and name each one manually (ie Fireworks). Then all your photos are in one big pdf and you can just do an export-->images to generate a list of photos with whatever names you prefer.

2. Importing from tape - straight to MPEG1 at VCD rate in order to maintain quality. Burn directly to DVD data disc to include whole deposition on one disc. Two hour/CD rate borderline in quality depending on original source. If deposition was shot on consumer camcorder, VHS quality will suffer and higher data rate will attempt to maintain quality. Encoding cards/devices can range from $100 - $1500, with results closely matching price paid for the device.
Transcoding from DVD, or ripping as the terminlogy goes, I use IMTOO Ripper and have decent results. The faster the processor and the greater the RAM the quicker the conversion. If result is unacceptable then manually playing and re-encoding the DVD is an alternative.

I'm really not thrilled with TD's recommended MPEG1 format and sure wish we had some more advanced options. I also wish more video firms would do a separate feed to MPEG1 format, rather than giving me a DVD I have to re-burn.

I believe part of the problem is the resizing to 320x240, which is rarely a 1:1 downsampling from the original, exacerbating the artifacting.

I would be really happy if someone had a solution to creating a really good 320x240 downsample to MPEG1 from DVD.

3. OLE - about the only one I use with regularity is Flash. Everything else gets printed or converted through Adobe for consistency. If the application is important, i.e. PowerPoint for the animation, then I use the application for presentation and Alt/Tab between programs.

Ditto here. I find Flash OLE in TD just a little clunky, so if I have the option I prefer to save the .swf file as a .exe and run it on a separate laptop with an a/b switcher to the main video output. Otherwise (unless they've fixed it recently), make sure to add a Stop() to the first Flash frame (and an invisible go button, or go on keypess or similar), because the OLE file wil play automatically even if you tell it (via the OLE interface) not to. Alt/Tab is an option here, but alt/tab is not always a computationally graceful transition between programs, and sometimes (just once is enough) will cause a program to hang. This seems to be less of an issue now than in the past, but I'm still leery.

Otherwise, PDF and Word as Ole objects is no fun.

4. Word goes into Adobe as described above.

Ditto, though it continues to strik me as an in-elegant solution/work-around.

5. Occassionaly edit mdb file, but only as last resort.

I used to do it occasionally, back when TD had a weaker ability to copy cases and paths from one computer to the next. These days, though, I am running Access 2003 and it wants to convert the database to 2003 format, which is not the format TD is generating at the moment. Otherwise it won't let me save changes.

I haven't done a trial yet with converting the database to 2003, but I have a feeling it would not go well.

However, incorporating other databases is rarely a plug-and-play situation (though it is getting better). What's the status here, do I need to keep an older version of Access on my machine for .mdb editing?

6. Don't usually deal with Bates numbers, as I am usually only dealing with Trial Exhibit Numbers, but when the attorneys want to reference Bates numbers in trial I am forced to populate Object ID field with Bates number and use Trial Exhibit field with Trial Exhibit Number. Trial Director can use both in calling up exhibits. Naming convention helps ease this. With multi-page tiffs, Trial Director will add a -001 suffix. So easy naming convention is 001.tif for exhibit 1.

For a number of my cases I was dealing with thousands of hand-created documents/demonstratives and my clients wanted me to keep the bates numbers consistent with the file names (they didn't care what it was called in TD as that was my worry). This was in many ways for reference sake between myself and them.

So I was constantly creating exhibits, deleting exhibits, etc., and had to do batch renames of the files and update the (temporary) bates numbers to match (this was all prior to producing the documents so these were just reference numbers, essentially, but they had to be consistent at all time).

TD now has ImageBrander, which lets you brand TIFs, JPEGs or BMPs, and gives you the option to choose left, right or center bottom for the branding, so that's now an option, though not if you are using .png's. You also have to do a whole folder at a time, and have to choose left/right/center for your bates number and apply it to the entire folder.

I'm presently working on a script that will automate bates numbers from an xml input into a Fireworks "data driven" batch file, so I'll keep you posted if that is something someone might be interested in. (And will work with .png files)

7. I have used ReName for batch renaming of files.

I've used Namewiz before, but usually I'm renaming files from Fireworks, and they have a pretty good batch rename utility.

However, as far as free, good, renaming tools, you might like to check out Rename Master at http://www.joejoesoft.com/rm.php.


Anyway, thanks for your input! Maybe we'll hear from some others somewhere down the line and turn this into a valuable forum.

[TrialConsulting]

I'd say you pretty much hit the nail on the head, in that you do things similar to the way I approach them.

Sorry, I was trying to say we seemed to be in agreement, not that you were correct because you were doing it my way!

Tom

[robneale]

I would be really happy if someone had a solution to creating a really good 320x240 downsample to MPEG1 from DVD.

Get a VCD recorder. It encodes directly to MPEG-1 and it's idiot proof. VCD is nothing more than an MPEG-1 encapsulated in data file (.DAT) the VCD recorder takes ANY imput source and converts it to an MPEG-1. It's flawless. Try it... you'll never go backl to software again.

5. Occassionaly edit mdb file, but only as last resort.

I used to do it occasionally, back when TD had a weaker ability to copy cases and paths from one computer to the next. These days, though, I am running Access 2003 and it wants to convert the database to 2003 format, which is not the format TD is generating at the moment. Otherwise it won't let me save changes.

I haven't done a trial yet with converting the database to 2003, but I have a feeling it would not go well.

However, incorporating other databases is rarely a plug-and-play situation (though it is getting better). What's the status here, do I need to keep an older version of Access on my machine for .mdb editing?

"You can't open the file in 2003 and save changes. TD is an Access 95 Database and saving your TD to 2003 will corrupt the file rendering it useless to Document Director."

6. Don't usually deal with Bates numbers, as I am usually only dealing with Trial Exhibit Numbers, but when the attorneys want to reference Bates numbers in trial I am forced to populate Object ID field with Bates number and use Trial Exhibit field with Trial Exhibit Number. Trial Director can use both in calling up exhibits. Naming convention helps ease this. With multi-page tiffs, Trial Director will add a -001 suffix. So easy naming convention is 001.tif for exhibit 1.

For a number of my cases I was dealing with thousands of hand-created documents/demonstratives and my clients wanted me to keep the bates numbers consistent with the file names (they didn't care what it was called in TD as that was my worry). This was in many ways for reference sake between myself and them.

So I was constantly creating exhibits, deleting exhibits, etc., and had to do batch renames of the files and update the (temporary) bates numbers to match (this was all prior to producing the documents so these were just reference numbers, essentially, but they had to be consistent at all time).

TD now has ImageBrander, which lets you brand TIFs, JPEGs or BMPs, and gives you the option to choose left, right or center bottom for the branding, so that's now an option, though not if you are using .png's. You also have to do a whole folder at a time, and have to choose left/right/center for your bates number and apply it to the entire folder.

"Image Brander doesn't work. It has a numbering sequence issue and inData has put it on the back burner for now (as of 10/06). Call em and bug em about it. It's handy and I for one would like to see it fixed"

Rob Neale