In Court Considerations

In this session we will deal with the different types presentation technical environments and how to prepare your Trialdirector presentation for these different situations. NEVER go into court without practicing your presentation with the same or similar projector, flat panels and room size. Do not just practice on the laptop screen and think the presentation will be seen and heard well by the jury.

Trialdirector in these court room environments:

1. The NON-Technical court room

Sometimes the court rooms in which we use Trialdirector are technically what I call 'anti-technology' environments. Look at the courtroom above - where to place the projector and screen and your laptop?

In the above type of court room you might use a pull up screen and put it on the front 'pew' or put a table in front of the front 'pew' and put the screen upon it and project from the table or put a projector on a table in front of the Judge and project to the left onto a screen that setsup on a tripod platform.

LENS SHIFT and KEYSTONE ISSUES:

What is Lens Shift?

Lens shift provides space to move the lens itself left and right or up and down within the projector housing. This adjustment can be made either manually with a dial or joystick, or mechanically using the menu buttons. This extra space to reposition the lens means greater leeway in the placement of a projector in a room.

For example, imagine looking at a picture on your wall. Now imagine your picture moving up or down so that the top of the image is now located where the center of the image used to be. A projector with lens shift can make an adjustment like this without requiring you to physically move the projector. Rather, the lens inside the projector housing is moving to create the effect. Some projectors, like the Hitachi HOME-1, feature a wider flexibility allowing you to move the image almost twice as far. The HOME-1's lens shift has the most dramatic lens shift in and entry level home theater projector.

Keystone Correction Versus Lens Shift

Digital Keystone Correction is a great feature for power presenters. However, using lens shift to correct an image will produce better looking images. Why? Because when you use digital keystone correction, the image undergoes a compression and conversion that recreates edge pixels, sometimes causing noticeable artifacts along the corrected portion of the image. Keystone correction works well with still images, and well enough with video in a temporary setting.

See:

https://www.projectorpeople.com/resources/lens_shift.asp

d) We needed blue tooth speakers that we could setup near the jury and the judge and the other side so we used battery operated speakers in various locations and make certain the batteries are long life batteries and are fresh and new.

e) The screen had to be quite large and positioned so that all could see it clearly - sometimes we used a 'pull up screen and at other times a tripod screen but depending the physical arrangement of the court - that you must know before you decide which type of screen to use. The size of the screen - as large as possible 8 to 10 feet.

2. The Technical court room with flat panel displays

a) what is the resolution of these panels - you need to set the resolution and aspect ratio of your laptop to match the panels to which you must connect

b) when you prepare your exhibits keep in mind the aspect ratio of these panels so your evidence will fill the flat panel displays - when you practice with the presentation don't just do so with your laptop screen but with the projector or flatpanel screens and have someone sit approximately where the jury will sit in terms of distance and have them stop you when they can't make out an exhibit.

c) keep in mind the size of these screens so you make sure your fonts are large enough to be read when you are putting text on your exhibits and don't forget to use the zoom features in Trialdirector.

d) What connection to these panels or in-court projectors is necessary - vga/hdmi? Be sure to bring any adapters you may need and if you must convert from VGA out of your computer to hdmi be sure the audio is connected to the proper adapter - if you are using bluetooth wireless speakers then the laptop must be configured to use these rather than its internal speakers - if you use powered speakers with an amplifier you can use a wireless type speaker with the socket on the side of the laptop but test this and the volume in a room about the size of the courtroom.

e) what of the audio - is it loud enough or do you need to adjust the volume settings in your laptop?

CLICKERS and LASER Pointers

If you are not going to be standing at the podium with your laptop so you can click the mouse to go forward (assuming you are going to run the show), you might want to consider this type of clicker/wireless mouse - CLICK HERE TO SEE ONE.

Some court rooms have great technology ready for your use but the issues become - can you connect to this technology with your laptop and what issues can arise and how to deal with those issues. Other court rooms are technogically outdated - they may have some old technology that they expect your laptop to work with but it may not - what to do in such situations? Also other court rooms are devoid of any technology - older court rooms where you must BYOT - Bring Your Own Technology - screens, speakers, projector, power cords - and how best to setup in such court rooms as to what projector s and screens are best and what speakers to employ and how to set all this up so that the judge and jury and other side can view your Trialdiretor presentation and hear any audio you have incorporated into the exhibits and depositions?