Expected US Release: December 3, 2021
Expected International Release: December 10, 2021
With this release, we’ve added audio and video redaction, support for Bloomberg chat files and more — read on for more information about the features coming out this month! If you would like to learn more about the features in this release, join us for a live training session.
Improvements:
- Audio and video redaction
- Support for Bloomberg Chat and Instant Bloomberg files
- Improvements to the handling of “Reviewed” documents in Assignments
- End-user Terms Acceptance
Audio and video redaction
You can now create redactions on audio and video files in Everlaw! Upon production, the redacted files will be located in the Natives folder of your productions.
Creating a redaction from the redactions panel
To create redactions on an audio or video file, open the file in the review window. Next, turn redaction mode on by clicking on the Redact icon, pressing the keyboard shortcut “r” or clicking on the header of the redaction panel. A redactions panel will pop up below the audio or video file. This panel is identical for audio and video files.
The redactions panel can be broken into three sections. The top row contains active buttons, such as “Mark start”, “Mark end”, play/pause, and preview settings. The middle row contains the redaction editing bar, with entries for Start time, End time, Redaction stamp, and Redaction note. The redaction that you are currently editing or creating will be displayed in this middle row. Finally, the bottom section of the table contains a list of all redactions already created for this video or audio file. In the example above, no redaction is currently being edited, but two redactions currently exist.
There are several ways to create audio and video redactions. One such way is to play the video up to the moment you want to start a redaction. At that moment, press “Mark start” in the top row of the redactions panel, or press the keyboard shortcut “,” (comma). Next, at the moment that you want the redaction to end, press “Mark end” in the redactions panel, or press the keyboard shortcut “.” (period).
Note that the video will continue to play after you press “Mark start” and “Mark end” unless manually paused. The buttons next to “Mark start” and “Mark end” are for ease-of-use. The play/pause button plays or pauses the video; and the 1 and 5 buttons advance or rewind the video by 1 and 5 seconds, respectively.
The selected start and end times will appear in the redaction editing bar in the middle row of the redactions table, as shown below. In this editing bar, you can use the up and down arrows next to the selected times to change the entered times by 0.1 second increments. You can also adjust the times by typing into the start and end time boxes. Finally, you can add a redaction stamp and/or a redaction note.
To finish the redaction, click on the blue Redact button or press Enter/Return. The redaction will then appear in the table in the bottom section of the panel, added to the list of all existing redactions on this file. Clicking the play button on any row of this table will play the selected redacted section of the video or audio file.
To recap, a simple way to create a redaction is to click “Mark start” or press “,”, then click “Mark end” or press “.”, then click “Redact” or hit Enter/Return. The video does not need to stop playing for a redaction to be created, so you can create multiple redactions while the video or audio file plays.
Creating a redaction from the video or audio transcript
You can also view and create redactions from the video or audio transcript. Please note that if the video or audio file was uploaded prior to the 26 February 2021 release, then the file will first need to be reprocessed. Learn more about how to reprocess documents. To create redactions from the transcript, ensure that the Transcript icon and the Redact icon have been selected.
The transcript will be displayed next to the video or audio file. Redactions created in the redactions panel will automatically appear on the transcript.
To create a redaction in the transcript, click and drag to highlight the transcript text you want to redact. Redactions created in the transcript will automatically appear in the redactions panel as well.
You can redact multiple words or phrases within a document using Hit Highlights, but you cannot use batch redaction in the results table to redact text from audio or video file transcripts. However, as before, you can use batch redaction to redact metadata and delete all redactions from audio and video files.
Editing and deleting a redaction
To edit a redaction, open the redactions panel, then click on the pencil icon next to the redaction you want to edit. Alternatively, you can click on the redaction in the transcript view while in redaction mode.
The redaction information will be removed from the table and appear in the editing bar of the redactions panel. From here, enter changes to the redaction the same way you would when creating a new redaction. To save the changes, click the blue Redact button again.
To delete a redaction, click the trash can icon next to the pencil icon, or delete all native redactions from the Annotations panel. You can also batch delete redactions from the results table.
Previewing a redaction
To preview redactions on the file, toggle on preview mode. This toggle is located at the top of the redactions panel. However, you can still view audio and video files in preview mode even if the redactions panel is closed.
In video files, redacted content will be partially obfuscated in the preview (but fully redacted in the production). Also, the redaction may be slightly less precise in the preview than in the production.
The gear icon underneath the preview mode toggle allows you to preview the effect of settings which can be chosen for production in the production wizard. See the “Production settings” section below for additional details about these settings.
Production settings
Videos will be produced as .m4v files and audio files will be produced as .m4a files. Redacted audio and video files will be stored in the Natives folder of the production. The produced text transcript will be generated from the transcript shown in the review window, but the redacted text will be replaced with the redaction stamp. If a redaction does not have a stamp, the redacted text will be replaced with [REDACTED]. Redacted portions of video files will be replaced by a black screen displaying the redaction stamp(s) or “[Redacted]” if there are none.
By default, the audio for redactions less than 4 seconds will be replaced with a continuous 1000 Hz bleep. Redactions longer than 4 seconds will be cropped out and replaced with a short bleep. However, you can change these settings in the production wizard. To make changes, you should go to the Redactions step of the production wizard, then click the blue Customize button.
Next, click the Audio/Video redactions tab of the dialog box. From here, you can change the longer redaction cutoff, as well as the settings for longer redactions.
If the first option is selected, Everlaw will crop longer redacted audio or video sections out of the file entirely, and replace the cropped portion with a 0.5 second bleep.
If the second option is selected, Everlaw will not crop longer redacted audio or video sections out of the file. Instead, the cropped section will begin with a short bleep, then continue with silence for the duration of the redacted section, then end with a short bleep.
If the third option is selected, Everlaw will not crop longer redacted audio or video sections out of the file. However, the entire cropped section will be replaced with a continuous bleep. Selecting this option means that long and short redactions will be treated exactly the same.
Learn more about audio and video redactions in Everlaw.
Support for Bloomberg Chat and Instant Bloomberg Files
Everlaw now supports Bloomberg XML files! You can upload both IBXML (Instant Bloomberg) and MSGXML (Bloomberg Messages) files through the native uploader. To upload a Bloomberg XML file along with associated attachments, first package all files in a container file or directory before upload.
As we continue to improve our processing of Bloomberg XML files, please flag processing errors and send test data to support@everlaw.com to help us enhance this feature.
Learn more about our supported file and data types in our article on native data types.
Improvements to the Handling of “Reviewed” Documents in Assignments
Following this release, “reviewed” documents will never be added to individual assignment batches associated with an assignment group. Previously, documents matching the reviewed criteria of an assignment group could still nonetheless be assigned out when (1) creating an assignment group or (2) assigning documents concurrent with adding them to an existing static assignment.
Learn more about review assignments and assignment groups.
End-user Terms Acceptance (Not on Federal)
On your next login after this release, Everlaw’s Terms of Use and Privacy Notice (“Terms”) will appear. When presented with these Terms, please review them by scrolling through to the bottom, select the checkbox to agree, and click continue. Moving forward, you will occasionally encounter our Terms on login when we make substantial updates to them. This feature will not be displayed on federal environments.
These Terms are the same terms that are already available on our website, so nothing has changed in the content. To promote maximum transparency, we want to ensure you are aware of and have the opportunity to review and agree to the Terms of Use and read our Privacy Notice, so that you fully understand your rights and obligations. For questions about our terms, please contact support@everlaw.com or reach out to your Everlaw account representative.
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