As you can see from the accompanying picture, time stamps have been around for over sixty years and yet some court reporters do not provide this service. Our court reporters’ and videographers’ equipment has built-in time stamping technology. This is necessary because we encourage all attorneys to synchronize their depositions.
Time stamping and synchronization allow the jury to understand a deponent’s verbal pauses. If you simply read a deposition transcript without video or stamping then it seems that a witness is answering each question as they are asked. In reality, a witness may refer to notes, looked perplexed and take several minutes between answers. The only way that this extra information is conveyed to a jury is with time stamping and/or video synchronization. This is also important in depositions where the amount of time permitted to ask questions is limited by rule.
Attorneys need to be able to show their judge how much time was wasted by verbal pauses and other interruptions to justify additional amounts of questioning.