MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 Video Files May Not Play on Windows 10

Here's a tip that comes by way of IPro's tech support team for Trial Director. IPro is recommending that video files used with Trial Director be in the MPEG-4 format. I'm sure there are an awfully large number of litigation support professionals out there we have deposition video files in the MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 formats needed for upcoming trials whose firms will upgrading to Windows 10 soon. Windows 10 doesn't support these codecs. A separate codec pack can be purchased but it will only help with playing DVDs. Its function is not extended to the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) which developers use for building desktop Windows applications.

As per IPro, "This is critical because WPF is the component that houses Trial Director Presentation so none of the MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 videos can be guaranteed to start and end properly. MP4's were not affected by Microsoft's decision so they are a valid alternative."

I don't believe very many deposition reporters are aware of this problem, and from what I can tell they are likely still providing firms with videos in the MPEG-1 format.

In any event, a lot of firms and their trial techs are going to be faced with a difficult choice: Either retain a 'legacy' laptop running Window 7, or have a vendor convert all video files to the MPEG-4 format.

Combining Deposition Video Clips in Trial Director

Trial Director allows video clips to be prepared of designated deposition testimony, where either each page and line range is a separate individual clip, or each range is a separate segment in a single video clip. If you've gone ahead and input each page and line range in an individual clip, but subsequently need to merge the clips together you can do so without laboriously creating a new clip for each range.

1. Separate clips previously created will be listed on the Transcript Manager tab.

2. Click on the Case Library tab and then expand the Transcripts folder. The video clips will be shown.

3. Right click on Workbooks in Workbook Explorer, and select Create New Workbook . . .MultiPlayer

4. Drag the clips down to the new workbook.

5. Right click on the new workbook, and select Send Workbook Contents To . . .Multiplayer Video file

6. A wizard will then export all of the videos to a single .mpg file with a separate .smi file for subtitles.

Unfortunately, Trial Director doesn't give you a way to do the opposite - take a video clip with lots of segments and export each as a separate .mpg file. I confirmed this with Ipro tech support today.

Merging Subtitles with Video Files in Trial Director

Clips of deposition testimony created in Trial Director can be exported. In the Transcript Manager, you can select View By . . . Clips, select the clips you need and then Under Clips . . . click Export Clips. A wizard will open allowing you to export the clips to a Windows folder, an email, or a PowerPoint. Several different MPEG format can be chosen, or the video file can be exported in the format for QuickTime, or as a simple .wav audio file. In the final step of the export wizard, the user has the option to export synchronized text captions in the .smi format.

On my PC Windows Media Player did not play back the video files with the synched subtitles automatically, although VLC Media Player did.

If you need to merge the video files and the subtitles into a single file (perhaps for the purpose of inserting it into a PowerPoint presentation), you can use a utility included with Trial Director but not listed in the Program menu folder for Trial Director. At C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VideoTranscoder, you should find an .exe file that will open the inData MPEG Transcoder Utility.

This allows you to select an individual video file and a single .smi file, and then merge them together as a new file with the closed caption text burned in. The resulting video file has an advantage over a file synched with the .smi file in that the text is enclosed in a black box and not superimposed over the video where it may be obscured by a light colored background or the date and time code of the videographer's regular video.